DYNAMICS OF CHANGE: ORDEAL

I have led you forty years in the wilderness; your clothes have not worn out upon you; and your sandals have not worn off your feet; you have not eaten bread, and you have not drunk wine or strong drink; that you may know that I am the Lord your God (Deuteronomy 29:5-6).

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you, as though something strange were happening to you.  But rejoice in so far as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed (I Peter 4:12-13).

An ordeal has to do with pain; if there is no pain there is no ordeal.  An ordeal can be a religious ritual, a rite of passage or a psychotherapeutic intervention.  Whatever the context of an ordeal, the purpose of it is to test character or to help a person relinquish a problem behavior rather than to hold on to it.*

My dad believed in spanking and he did a lot of it.  When I was a kid, if I made it through a week without a spanking I thought it to be a big deal.  This information is important to this little story.  When I was in third grade, I used to ride my bike to my friend's house.  He would steal some of his dad's cigarettes and my friend and I would have a great time smoking them.  One day at school one of the boys in my class brought some cigarettes.  After lunch we went behind the bus barn and smoked.  We were caught.  Part of our discipline was for us to tell our parents what we had done.  Having older siblings who already knew about it, there was no way I could escape telling them.  Knowing that I was facing the spanking of my life, in tears, I told dad and mom what I had done.  That evening my dad did some of the best parenting in his life when he asked, "Are you going to do it again?"  I sobbed, "No."  Then he said, "If you mean it, then this is over."  From that day to this I have never smoked anything, keeping my promise, though I have been severely tempted.  Literally, it was my dad's severe discipline that saved my life because my life would have already ended if I would have become addicted to smoking tobacco. **

Grace&Peace;
Tom

*See Jay Haley, Ordeal Therapy, Josey-Bass, 1984.
**Spanking is one of the tools of discipline, not a response of anger.