Houses of Straw by Dr. Juan Harrison
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It’s spring in Texas. Tornado watches and hail warnings clutter up the weather app on your phone or interrupt your favorite TV show with a storm update. Native Texans accept it as part of our way of life. Newcomers will get used to it if they don’t get picked up first by a cyclone and deposited up north somewhere.
Sometimes family stuff can be just as turbulent and even more destructive. You can repair the barn and put new shingles on the roof. Some of that family turbulence may be a little harder to overcome. The barn or the house doesn’t have much of a memory.
Sometimes it’s a silly thing that seems to grow like cancer from almost nothing to a deeply embedded issue affecting holiday family gatherings. Other times it’s the issues of unfaithfulness or sharp words cutting the heart letting the last remnant of affection leak out creating a desert void of feeling.
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Most of us have been wise enough or blessed enough to not intentionally throw away a perfectly good marriage on a fantasy or temptation. Most of us have been guilty of not really recognizing how much we’ve got invested in a relationship. I’ve frequently said that when people are confronted with opportunities to do wrong, they need to immediately pull up that picture of all they’re risking, and then maybe a person wouldn’t be quite so eager to throw away or permanently damage a living, breathing relationship.
Most of us will probably handle the temptation thing okay. The one that can almost kill or severely damage the family relationship is the mouth and that wicked tongue. Not sure how much I believe the phrase “but words can never hurt me.” I couldn’t tell you the number of stories I’ve heard from women about conflicts in their families and scars left by words hurled by unthinking angry family members over the years. Either men hide it better, or we’re not smart enough to let it out and discuss it.
Angry bitter words directed toward family members over the years may not have left visible scars, but they’re there, just below the surface, often as fresh as if it were yesterday. The greatest act of love we may do is to hold the tongue described as a fire in the book of James. For some marriages the hurtful words might be the last straw on the little piggy’s house. Hopefully your family house is built of sticks or brick and can handle a few more missiles before the occupants wise up.
By Dr. Juan Harrison
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