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©Pride Aside Publishing Group

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used in reviews, articles, or other media, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by information storage or retrieval system, without permission by the publisher.

Pride Aside Publishing Group (A division of Momentum Events, Inc.)

P.O. Box 2253

Madison, MS 39130

For privacy reasons, some of the names of individuals referred to in this book have been changed. Some of the individuals in this book are not actual individuals, but are composite individuals representing the actions or words of more than one person.

The quoted ideas expressed in this book (but not Scripture verses) are not, in all cases exact quotations, as some have been edited for clarity and brevity. In all cases, the author has attempted to maintain the speaker’s original intent. In some cases, quoted material for this book was obtained from secondary sources, primarily print media. While every effort was made to ensure the accuracy of these sources, the accuracy cannot be guaranteed. For additions, deletions, corrections, or clarifications in future editions of this text, please write Pride Aside Publishing Group.

Scripture quotations are taken from:

The Message (MSG). This edition issued by contractual agreement with NavPress, a division of The Navigators, U.S.A. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002-2003 by Eugene Patterson. All rights reserved.

Cover Design by Dorian LaChance www.MagicByDorian.com

Page Layout by Service Printers, Inc., Flowood, MS 39232

ISBN: 978-0-9909283-0-0

ISBN: 9780990928317

For more information, please visit www.PrideAside.org.

Printed in The United States of America

This book is dedicated to my family, of which there are many.

To my parents, Ben and Sue Hutton, for providing a loving home and solid foundational guidance throughout my life.

To my wife, Joni, for being the calm in my life when I am stressed and for being my motivation when I am withdrawn.

To my youngest son, Michael, for being confident in who he is while the world tries to lure him to be someone else.

To my church family, Broadmoor Baptist Church, for being compassionate, supportive, and welcoming.

To my faith family around the country who have continued to pray and consistently check-in.

And to my oldest son, Ben, who learned for himself as well as taught others, that we all must put Pride Aside.

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Afterword

Foreword

By: Steve Farrar

I’m glad I read this book.

I think it could be of great benefit to you, or as a spouse and parent or grandparent who is seeking to lead your family on the narrow way of following the Lord Jesus Christ.

In fact, I see four benefits to this book.

It’s a warning that the enemy is laying an ambush for your kids and grandkids.

Steve Hutton is gut-level honest on these pages about his love for his family and his desire to raise them in the truth of Christ. But Steve missed some warning signs that should have tipped him off that his son was in trouble. In all honesty, I missed some of the same warning signs with one of my sons. Steve will alert you to the warning signs and hopefully, you can begin to watch carefully for them in your own children.

It’s an encouragement if you’re exhausted from the battle.

If you have a son or daughter who is caught in the enemy’s web and fighting against you and the Lord, Steve’s transparent candor will help you. He pulls no Christian punches when it comes to the pain that his family has experienced. And, if you are in pain, you are going to recognize that other men who love Christ are fighting the same battle that you are. Elijah thought he was the only one who was fighting the battle and the Lord reminded him that he had seven thousand men who hadn’t bowed the knee to Baal. Elijah wasn’t alone and neither are you. Steve will help you to bear your burden as you read about his burden. It’s strange how that occurs and the only explanation is in Galatians 6:2 (NASB): “Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.”

It’s realistic that this battle may not be over quickly.

If you’re in family pain as Steve was and is, you obviously want the Lord to end the pain as quickly as possible. Yes, the Lord can fix anything in an instant because of His incomprehensible power, but sometimes He chooses to work in a human heart over a period of time. You and your family may be in the middle of that process. Obadiah Sedgwick once said, “that God may take time but He never wastes time.” The Lord is all about timing. His goodness in timing is more precise than an atomic clock, and His precision in timing is never less than perfect. Romans 5:6 (NASB) declares that “at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly” and you can trust Him to do the work that only He can do in your family at the right time. He knows what He is doing—so don’t put time expectations on the Lord. He has all wisdom and power and He knows better than you. Trust Him in that and know that He will give you new grace and mercy the first thing every morning as you wake up again to the battle.

It will spur you to pray for your children and grandchildren more consistently.

When I finished Steve’s book that was my immediate take away.

I think it will be yours too.

Keep taking your kids before the Father and entrust them into His providential care. It’s the safest place to be in the entire world. He loves your family more than you do. He’s got your back. And you can trust Him with all of it. David said it best in Psalm 57:2-3 (NASB):

I will cry to God Most High;

To God who accomplishes all things for me.

He will send from heaven and save me.

Steve Farrar

Introduction

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Thank you for taking time to read Pride Aside. I didn’t set out to write a book. I only intended to spend time journaling on the computer to see if it would serve as therapy for me. Since I never took the time to talk to anyone about my feelings about our son’s addiction, I expected it might be helpful to write down my thoughts. But after a few hours of writing, I noticed I had 5,000 words. Then after 15 days of writing, I noticed I had 65,000 words. Thus, a book was born completely by accident.

I want to warn you up front about one thing. You will notice at times I show signs of anger. This was real. I often found myself angry at circumstances and situations. At times I was angry with my son and sometimes I was angry with other people. I am not saying I had a right to be angry, but I was. So the words you read are authentic expressions of anger I was feeling.

I shared this with my good friend Steve Farrar, a best-selling author and speaker. In many ways Steve is my spiritual mentor. After listening he shared this Scripture with me:

Human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. (JAMES 1:20, NIV)

The verse from James does not mean we should never get angry. It does mean, however, that we need to identify why we are angry and determine if it is just. Jesus was angered by many injustices. Jesus was angered by the moneychangers at the temple and by the self-righteous Pharisees, but He used anger to teach them truth. Looking back, I realize there were times when my anger was justified or righteous. But there were also times when it was not. For those times when it was wrong, I have asked God’s forgiveness and sought His power to live the righteousness God desires--according to His standards.

May I ask a favor of you? If for some reason you do not make it through the entire book, would you please read the last chapter? The first 21 chapters are filled with feelings of confusion, despair, self-doubt, and sometimes hopelessness. Chapter 22, however, helps tie all of those feelings together and offers clarity instead of confusion, joy instead of despair, assurance instead of self-doubt, and hope instead of hopelessness. Through this experience I discovered that the way to get to a place of clarity, joy, assurance, and hope in life is to put Pride Aside.

Chapter 1

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What sorrow for those who get up early in the morning looking for a drink of alcohol and spend long evenings drinking wine to make themselves flaming drunk. (ISAIAH 5:11, NLT)

The phone rang at 12:52 a.m. Some consider this late at night; others think it’s early in the morning. Regardless, this was the type of phone call I had received numerous times before. Over the last five years these calls did not occur weekly, or even monthly, but they did occur several times. They usually occurred in waves or spurts. We might go a few months without a call like this, but when they started it was not unusual to receive several of these calls over the course of a few days or weeks.

“Mr. Steve, I am really sorry to have to call you, but it looks like we have a problem over here.” Brian was calling. Brian was Ben’s roommate. Brian and Ben had been co-workers off and on and very good friends for nearly a year. Brian is what we in Mississippi call a “good ole boy.” He works hard. He is polite. He says, “Yes ma’am” and “No sir.” He is clean cut and professional. (At least as professional as you would expect of a redneck from Pelahatchie, Mississippi.) Brian and Ben were both Sales Associates at a Ford dealership in Jackson. Sales Associate was what was printed on their business cards. But they were car men, car salesmen, and good ones. Brian has sold more cars than most of the other 35 sales associates at the dealership and is probably in line for management even though he is only 25 years old.

My son Ben is 23, and for the past five years has been a drug addict.

“Mr. Steve, I don’t really know what has happened. Perry (the other roommate) and I were asleep and the next thing we know there is a girl here. Ben is yelling and screaming; we can’t calm him down. She sprays him with pepper spray. The neighbors come out, someone called the cops, and there are cops everywhere.”

I told Brian I would be right there. And while it wasn’t a regular occurrence, once again I got dressed and left Joni, my wife of 27 years and Ben’s loving mother, to go see what had happened this time.

At 1:02 a.m. I was in Bessie, my 13 year old GMC Yukon XL with 313,000 miles on it. I would love to have a newer vehicle. But I had to choose between a new car or replacing outdated things in our home because of the expense of dealing with Ben’s addiction since it became apparent to us five years ago. I once heard Dave Ramsey, a syndicated radio host and leading financial counselor, say something like, “You know your car has been a good vehicle when you have had it long enough to name it.” Dave spent an entire radio segment taking calls from people across America telling the world the name of their prized possession. Joni drives a 14-year-old Lexus RX300 with 202,000 miles. Her name, I mean its name, is Lexi. Joni hates that I have given her car a name as well, because it implies she will have to wait even longer before I can afford to buy her something nicer and newer.

Anyway, I was in my Yukon headed to Madison, a suburb of Jackson. Ben, Brian, and Perry were leasing one of my three bedroom rental properties in Madison. As I turned onto the highway out of our gated subdivision, I tried calling Ben’s cell phone. Sometimes, when he was in a situation like this, I could keep him calm so things didn’t get worse. For some reason he would listen to me. He trusted me. He loved me, and he knew I loved him, even though I despised his addiction. Since I knew the police were already involved, I assumed Ben would not answer his phone, but I wanted to try anyway. But there was no answer. So I called Brian for an update.

Brian said, “There are 10 or 11 cop cars here. I have never seen anything like it Mr. Steve, I just have never seen anything like it. He was fine when we went to bed, and then we woke up to this commotion and he was completely crazy. Fighting. We tried to calm him down but he just kept fighting.”

I knew exactly what Brian was talking about.

Joni and I had seen this happen before. I had witnessed several crazy events like this much more often than Joni had. Fortunately most of them didn’t occur in our home. Instead, I would go wherever Ben was and deal with the situation alone to shield Joni from seeing her firstborn in that state. Joni had seen Ben’s rage on occasion, just not at the level I had.

Within five minutes I was turning onto Hunters Creek Circle. Ben’s house, or my house really, was the second house on the right. There was very little room to park as the street was littered with marked and unmarked vehicles from the Madison Police Department.

Madison is a beautiful bedroom community five miles north of the Jackson city limits, separated only by the town of Ridgeland. When traveling north on Interstate 55 you don’t fully realize when you have travelled from one town to the next. But the buildings begin to get nicer, the landscape around the highway signs begins to get prettier, and the affluence of the new surroundings becomes more and more apparent.

Madison is without question, at least in my opinion, the most beautiful and well-planned city in the state of Mississippi. Mary Hawkins Butler is in her 34th year as mayor, winning her first election in 1981 at age 26. She is one tough cookie as a leader, but her actions are purely out of the love for her city. She has held firm to her master plan over the course of her nine terms. This includes implementing strict housing covenants, which has allowed Madison to boast some of the priciest properties per square foot in the state. Then, as businesses clamored for the opportunity to service those households by bringing grocery stores, gas stations, clothing stores, restaurants, and other big box stores, she held even more firm as she made sure their appearance and structures met with the city’s high standards. For instance, no orange can be found on the Home Depot. The golden arches of McDonald’s are only three feet tall. The Burger King and the Texaco gas station are beautiful red brick buildings. A wall of transplanted trees behind the massive Wal-Mart Supercenter hides the semi-truck deliveries.

So I pulled up to the curb of 529 Hunters Creek Circle, one of the few rental houses I still owned in Madison. Mayor Mary does not like rental houses. Owner-occupied dwellings usually ensure better upkeep, better curb appeal, and better appraisals. However Mayor Mary and I had been friends a long time and she knew I followed all of the city’s rules to a ‘T’ in maintaining my properties. But at this moment one of my properties was surrounded by her top-notch police force. They were dealing with an unruly tenant, who also happened to be my 23-year-old son.

As I walked down the driveway I was met by a girl I’ll call “Gina.” Gina looked rough. Joni and I first met Gina a year or so earlier when a friend of ours invited her to our Sunday School class. We had known of Gina prior to meeting her. She attended a private school that was a rival to the school Ben attended. I would not describe Gina as attractive, at least not anymore. At one time she was gorgeous--long jet-black hair, dark skin, and perfect curves. But her addiction had changed her features. Her face was pockmarked and covered with scabs. She was bleeding from the corner of her mouth, which made me wonder what had happened moments earlier. I had to remind myself that it was her addiction that made her look this way and inside she is still someone’s beautiful daughter; but all I saw at that moment was her ugliness.

Gina started trying to explain, “I had to pepper spray him, Mr. Steve, I didn’t want to but I had to. He hit me. He just kept coming. Perry tried to stop him, but he just kept coming. Perry would hit him and hit him, trying to make him stop, but he wouldn’t settle down. He just kept coming at us.”

I was beginning to see pieces of the picture.

It was like trying to put a jigsaw puzzle together. You look for puzzle pieces that have similar coloring or similar shading and you group those pieces together in order to get a general idea of what the full picture might look like. Once you have a general idea of where the pieces may best fit together, you can start concentrating on the details. It is at that point you start to notice the shapes of the individual pieces and try to actually fit some of those pieces together.

But I was not ready at that point for the details. I was still asking questions trying to get a general idea of the big picture. Was Ben here? Was he inside the house or outside? Was he hurt? Was he alive? Was he under arrest? Would he lose his job? Would he lose the car he just bought with his own money for the first time ever? Would he need treatment again? Would he consider another treatment facility? Would he kill himself because he was tired of fighting and losing, again and again?

I brushed past Gina and continued down the driveway to the carport at the rear of the house. I walked around Gina’s new Lexus, which was in the driveway. How ironic, I thought as I walked around Gina’s car. My beautiful wife has to drive a 14-year-old version of this brand new automobile. My sweet wife has been a school teacher all of her adult life except for the time she took off when our sons were born to stay at home and nurture them until they started kindergarten. This same sweet wife gets up early, stays late at work, and even works weekends to be one of the best teachers in the county. But we cannot afford a new car for her because of what addiction has cost our family.

And yet here is Gina.

She has been in and out of rehabs and treatment centers. She has had numerous jobs at strip clubs or restaurants where extra small shorts and tiny white t-shirts are the uniform of the day. Here she is driving around in a pretty new Lexus.

The entire scene was more than ironic. To me, at least in that moment, seeing her car was sickening, angering, and humiliating. I didn’t know if my son was alive, dead, hurt, injured, or in custody. But all I could think about at the moment was how angry I was that Gina was leaning against her new RX400 and my wife had to drive a faded version.

Refocusing, I walked into the carport where I saw a gathering of people in the back yard. There was Ben, facing away from me, surrounded by five or six police officers. He was sitting on the ground, shirtless, his back covered in sweat, grass, and dirt. He was handcuffed with his hands behind his back. Some of the big parts of the puzzle were starting to be grouped together. I assumed he was headed to jail, again. How many arrests was this? I’ve lost count. And then there were the charges--usually there was more than one charge when he got arrested. Was this five arrests and eight charges? Or did this make six arrests and nine charges? I wondered how many charges would be added this time? Would he be facing his 10th? Or 12th? I also assumed he would not have a job the following day.

Wait. Let’s mentally put the legal pieces of the jigsaw puzzle off to the left side of the card table. Let’s keep those pieces separate from the job pieces, the living arrangement pieces, and car payment pieces. Let’s put those mentally over on the right side of the card table. They were both parts of the big picture, but at that moment the coloring looked different, the shading was different, and the pieces needed to be separated before I started looking for details.

I had not even heard his voice yet, but I had been through this before. So all of these thoughts flooded my head once again. He can’t live in this house any longer. We had a deal: If you relapse, you move out. But his job is probably gone, so he can’t move out, and he has no place to go. So again we will offer treatment. How many will this be? Five I think. What will he learn in number five that he didn’t learn in number two or number four? Stop thinking about that now! Those are details. Focus. Get back to separating the pieces in general before you start looking for details.

I was jolted back to the moment by a string of expletives: “(Bad Word) (Bad Word) (Really Bad Word) (Incredibly Bad Word).” Hearing Ben’s first four words directed at one of the young Madison police officers at least let me know he was alive, breathing, and able to speak.

I personally knew some of the officers present.

About 20 years ago I was a Reserve Deputy Sheriff in Madison County. I still had several good friends on many of the area police forces. In the last 20 years my career consisted of managing a variety of events. I was Tournament Coordinator and Tournament Director of Mississippi’s PGA TOUR event hosted at Annandale, a Jack Nicklaus signature golf course located in Madison. Recently I had been asked to develop an outdoor ice rink during the Christmas season, which surprisingly brought over 200,000 visitors to Madison in two years. Both events needed security, which kept me in close connection with many of my old friends in law enforcement.

Ben shouted again, “Take these cuffs off you (Bad Word) (Racial Slur), and I’ll beat your (Really Bad Word) (Racial Slur) (Bad Word). You think you’re bad? You (Really Bad Word) (Racial Slur), I will (Really Bad Word) (Bad Word) (Bad Word). Take these cuffs off of me.”

Sgt. Steve Patrick, a patrol commander, was on shift that night and was standing with me. Since the bulk of his entire force was at my house, he decided to show up too. Steve is probably the nicest, most professional officer I have ever worked with. Steve and I spent hours planning security for Christmas On Ice, the outdoor rink I was managing. Steve is also African American, which made Ben’s cussing tirades filled with racial slurs that much more embarrassing.

Mike Brown also walked into the carport that night. Mike was the first deputy I ever rode along with as a reserve deputy in Madison County. The first police call I ever responded to while riding with Mike was a “10-50 on Robinson Springs Road”. Mike had to educate me that a 10-50 was an automobile accident. I knew nothing about being a law enforcement officer, and Mike taught me a great deal over the next few years. Now 20 years later Mike was not only a top officer with the Madison police department, he was also an elected constable for the county.

I could tell by the look on Mike’s face when he walked in the carport that he had no idea why I was standing in the carport of 529 Hunters Creek Circle at nearly 2:00 a.m. that morning. “That’s my boy,” I said, nodding in the direction of Ben as Mike walked up. I could see the pain on his face as he said, “Aw man, Hutton. I knew you had a son who had some issues, but I had no idea.”

Chapter 2

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Since we respected our earthly fathers who disciplined us, shouldn’t we submit even more to the discipline of the Father of our spirits, and live forever? (HEBREWS 12:9, NLT)

“How do you spell Benjamin, anyway?” Joni and I were in the labor and delivery room at St. Francis Medical Center in Monroe, Louisiana, when she asked me that question. I guess the spelling of his name is something we should have researched more than an hour before we had to put a name on Ben’s birth certificate. The sun had just risen on January 23, 1991, and we were watching the Today show between contractions. Operation Desert Shield had become Operation Desert Storm, and the first Gulf War was just completing its first week. The morning news was filled with Iraqi troops blowing up Kuwaiti oil fields. The name of the Israeli Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs being interviewed by Bryant Gumbel scrolled across the screen: Benjamin Netanyahu.

Bam! That is how you spell Benjamin!

Many years before Ben was conceived, both Joni and I prayed for him. Joni and I met the first week of our first semester at the University of Southern Mississippi. We dated on and off while in school--on most of the time; off when we would have a big blow up argument. All of our friends laughed when we said we were engaged. We laughed somewhat, too. While such tumultuous dating habits lead to a disastrous marriage for many couples, Joni and I shared a secret weapon that would prove everyone wrong. We both shared a love for Jesus, and both shared a commitment to His Word and teachings, which included one man and one woman, married forever.

When Ben was born, I was a young PGA Professional, serving as Head Professional of Pine Hills Country Club just outside of West Monroe, Louisiana. We lived in Ruston, Louisiana, which we called Mayberry with a university. Through my golf connections we had 50-yard line tickets each year to watch the Bulldogs of Louisiana Tech and courtside seats for men’s and women’s basketball. The Lady Techsters were fixtures in the NCAA Final Four year after year and three time national champions. Life was good. We bought our first house and brought home our first child.

Joni had been a schoolteacher, but we decided to attempt to scrape by with her being a stay at home mom, at least for a few years. In 1992 we moved back to Madison, Mississippi, where Joni grew up and graduated high school. It is also the town we had moved to Louisiana from, just three years prior. Before moving to Louisiana, I served as the First Assistant PGA Professional at The Country Club of Jackson, and now we were moving back to the Jackson area where I would be Head Professional at Castlewoods Country Club, one of the nicest private courses in Mississippi at the time. Our household budget grew in size thanks to this new position, so we decided to grow our family as well. Along came Michael in 1994. We still talk about laying our eyes on Michael for the first time, and both gawking at the size of his big toe. Let me just say, the kid had an impressive big toe. I know they have charts to measure what percentile a baby is in based on the circumference of his head, weight, and length. If there was a chart to determine where he fell in comparison to other babies when it comes to the size of a big toe, I am certain Michael would have blown the curve.

We poured our lives into both of our boys. We also gave priority to our Southern Baptist church and our church family. We attended practically every Sunday morning and Sunday night. We loved Wednesday nights when about 400 of our fellow believers would have dinner together and then attend a prayer meeting, or a discipleship class, or choir practice. We even found ourselves there on some Tuesday nights when we would join up with a few friends and go to visit those who wanted to learn more about our church. As the boys grew older, they played church basketball, which took us back to the campus on Friday nights and Saturday mornings. I even did some part-time work organizing some of the recreation leagues for the church, and because I had a key, we were there even more.

Did I mention life was good?

We built a beautiful dream home at a neighboring country club, on Fairway Lane no less. The boys went to a Christian pre-school, and eventually were both enrolled in Madison County Public Schools. Madison schools are arguably the best in the state. The buildings are new and modern. The veteran teachers are empowered and energetic. The parents are involved and active. People in Jackson often enroll their children in private schools to assure their children a quality education. The Madison schools, however, are so good that many families sell their homes in Jackson and buy a more expensive home in Madison. They end up paying less overall because they don’t have private school tuition factored into their budgets.

The boys both did well in school. Ben never had to study and easily made As and Bs. Michael struggled in math, which lowered his confidence in other subjects but he was able to get along just fine. With both boys in school, Joni returned to teaching at Madison Avenue Elementary, which is where both boys attended. This was great because she had weekends, summers, and holidays off with the boys.

By the time Ben was six and Michael was three, I left the world of being a country club professional to become the Tournament Coordinator and eventually Tournament Director for Mississippi’s PGA TOUR event. My schedule was very flexible about 10 months out of the year. Only for the two months surrounding the tournament did I have to hunker down for extended hours. Over the next seven years my sons got to meet many famous golfers including John Daly, Hal Sutton, Bernard Langer, and Paul Azinger.

With my schedule being generally flexible, I was able to help coach some of the boys’ teams. I knew nothing about soccer, so I limited my participation to a spectator on the soccer fields. But I knew about baseball, and I enjoyed coaching their baseball teams the most.

One year I had the privilege of coaching baseball with a great friend of mine, a man I truly admire. Andy Taggart and I coached the team our two sons were on, the Marlins. Andy is one of those guys who is fun to be around. His professional resume is unbelievable. He was a partner at one of the state’s largest law firms, served as Chief of Staff for Governor Kirk Fordice, has co-authored two books on Mississippi politics, was elected and served as Madison County Supervisor, was CEO of the Mississippi Technology Alliance, and he served on boards of colleges and hospitals. I mean his resume is just ridiculous! Andy also has one of those “trophy wives,” except Andy married his trophy wife the first time around. About 20 years earlier, Andy had married Karen, an elegantly beautiful woman. Together they had three boys, Rob, Drew, and Brad. Brad was on the Marlins team along with Ben. The boys were 12 years old, and both were becoming very good at their sport. Brad especially had a breakout year and was being eyed by many other coaches who were looking down the road. The funny thing is, I don’t know how Andy ever found time to work at any of the jobs I mentioned because he spent so much time with his family and his boys. The Taggart men were true outdoorsmen, with a particular bent toward duck hunting in the late fall. I learned a lot from Andy, especially in how he loved Brad, coached Brad, encouraged Brad, spoke to Brad, and all of the boys on the team for that matter.

It was the next baseball season, when Ben was 13, that I first sensed him slightly pulling away from me. I assumed it was his desire for independence. I began to see a young man trying to figure out who he was, yet not really sure who he wanted to be. Age 13 is when the boys who really don’t like baseball typically stop playing. The teams are fewer, and coaches are usually the fathers of the exceptional players. I bowed out as a coach, but kept the books and statistics so I was still involved.

It was picture day at the baseball diamond on a brilliantly blue day in April of 2004. On picture day, players arrived at the ballpark an hour early and a photographer in a tent would take individual pictures of the boys. Then the photographer would sell parents an overpriced package consisting of an 8x10, two 5x7s, and 12 wallets. You could also buy a specialty product, like a banner for the 5x7 or a mug so you could sip your morning coffee while staring at your 13-year-old prodigy. After individual pictures, all of the players and coaches would line up for the team picture. The shorter players would take a knee (left knee down and right knee up) and the taller players would fill in the second row flanked by the coaches. On that day Coach Joe and his son Beck had their individual picture taken together. I thought, Wow, now that is cool. I had never seen a 13-year-old kid want to have his individual picture made with his dad. I wondered if maybe Ben would like to do that with me.

I walked over to Ben and put my arm around him and mentioned how cool Coach Joe and Beck’s picture was. Then I asked if he might want us to have a picture made together. All of us have those moments that are etched into our psyches like a branding iron burns a permanent mark into flesh. That became one of those moments for me. Ben swirled out from under my arm and gave me a stare of disgust like I had never seen before. Then he told me to go stand elsewhere.

I remember tears welling up in my eyes because I had never felt that type of disapproval from him. He had no idea that my feelings were shattered. I backed away from everyone and hid the fact that I was about to cry. I was not only shattered; I was scared. That simple act was my first clue that fathering was about to change.

Until now, my words of instruction were taken as absolute truth, simply because I was Dad. But that simple gesture let me know that he was forming his own opinions, coming to his own conclusions, and would soon be charting his own path in life. I would have to father from a different perspective from that day forward. My arguments would have to be crafted more from a point of reason than simply from the stance of “It is so, because I am your dad.” It wasn’t that I could no longer punish or discipline Ben at age 13. However, I knew I would need to be very intentional to provide reasoning behind the punishment if it were to be truly effective.

Looking back on that picture day April 2004 has caused me to wonder a lot. If I could have looked 10 years in the future to April 2014 and zeroed in on the backyard of 529 Hunters Creek Circle and known what was to come, I wonder if I would have done things differently? I wonder if I should have guided Ben to focus less on sports and focus more on determining who he was in Christ? I wonder if I would have taught him more about prayer and less about leaning on his own abilities? I wonder if I could have helped him develop a healthy, respectful fear of his earthly father, so that one day he would have that same healthy, respectful fear of his Heavenly Father?

I wonder, I wonder, I wonder.

I wonder what role I played in the sequence of events that led to his 6th arrest that night in Madison, being charged with his 11th and 12th crimes. As parents we all wonder. And most of us would like to peek into that crystal ball to see where our kids would be and possibly change our parenting accordingly. But we cannot. We can’t see into the future. We can only trust that God knew what He was doing when He placed that child in our care, and trust that He gives us the tools and strength to endure the decisions the child ultimately makes on his or her own.

Still, I wonder.

Chapter 3

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Where there is no guidance, the people fall, but in abundance of counselors there is victory. (PROVERBS 11:14, NASB)

As fun as baseball was, Ben found he excelled on the football field because of his speed. Near the end of his seventh grade year at Madison Middle School, the PE classes turned their attention to spring football. Ben had played some YMCA football and some recreational football, where all of the coaches doted on his speed. But seriously, what can you tell about a fifth or sixth grader? The biggest kid at that age may be medium sized in the twelfth grade. The fastest kid at that age may struggle to keep up in a few short years. The accolades of the earlier years were nice, but we paid them no attention.