I once held a gun to my temple and the only reason I’m here today is because the trigger on that particular pistol was too hard for me to pull in my weakness and I simply could not get it done. Thank God.
As I confessed this to Stan in the beginning of our relationship in order to openly let him know of the recent mental space I had been in, he leaned in toward my chair, took my hand and said, “I can’t be your Savior Jill, but I can be a soldier.” I don't believe he said this out of any romantic intention. I believe that out of his own experiences with thoughts of suicide, he said this from a warrior spirit that was just beginning to wake up and rise up in him again.
My grandfather, Joe Davidson “Pike” Cluck, was drafted and sent to the Pacific to fight in World War II. He was only 21. He somehow endured a horrifying battle where he and the members of his troop became trapped in foxholes for many days with only two options - lay perfectly still and slowly starve to death or make the move to attempt to crawl out toward rations that were being parachuted in. Every soldier who attempted this was killed. My grandfather and one other were the only two that made it out alive. This would be his final battle in World War II because after this battle and the other unspeakable experiences he’d been through leading up to it, the officials deemed him psychologically spent, and prepared to send him home.
When the Cluck brothers, who’d lost their father just a few years before, were notified by the government that he was being sent home, they were instructed to come pick him up in San Francisco where it was further explained to them by the government officials in detail and in no uncertain terms, that their brother would never again be mentally functional - that he was in effect, what would thereafter be stamped as “crazy.” This was the story offered and this was the story understandably believed by the brothers. There was no knowledge and no understanding of PTSD at that time. Aside from experimental "treatments" that were ineffective, and even further damaging, it was simply written off as irreversible and virtually left alone.
I spent a major portion of my life with my grandfather, even on a day in and day out basis for long stretches of time including my last three years of high school. Granted, it was many years after his return from World War II. I knew this man well. I’ve grown up listening to relatives say “Well, I just always heard he was crazy.” Was he deeply affected by the war? Of course. Did he have one of the most severe cases of PTSD I’ve ever witnessed? Yes. But the truth is, he was a very wise man and powerfully insightful. He was sharply discerning. He was actually quite artistic and saw things from a different perspective as artists tend to. He’d seen and personally experienced the very face of evil and it sculpted and shaped his view of things in ways others simply couldn't see. Through much prayer and wrestling with it, I have finally decided to risk telling the story within the story - a story hidden underneath my twelve-song story album's surface storyline. I'm going to share the buried story in this blog series for the upcoming release from the album of a song called, “Yellow Rose.”
So here's that story:
When their father, Homer Cluck, died, the inheritance was split to provide a portion for their mother, Pearl, leaving the remainder to be split evenly between the six brothers. This money is what I’m going to call “leg-up money” - money to give them a “leg up” in business and their efforts to prosper in their lives. When the decision was made among different family members to implement cattle feed yards, my grandfather stood adamantly opposed to the concept and warned them of his concerns regarding the long term effects of such a business decision. Because he would not align with this new feed yard concept, added to the belief that he was mentally "off" due to the war, his portion of the inheritance money was reallocated to the next generation of cattlemen for the purposes of launching the feed yards. He was also asked to take his cattle off of the homestead land if he was not willing to run his cattle through their feed yards. And so it was, leaving a severely traumatized World War II veteran with no leg-up money and without land to continue business on, only crippling his crippling PTSD struggles further. The feed yards exponentially prospered while my grandfather found his farming operation bankrupt by 1984.
In the last song released from the album called, "Coffee," we find me witnessing the brothers at my grandfather's "kitchen corner booth" in 1983-84 trying to sort through and resolve years of all the subsequent, deep rooted bitterness that grew and continued to fork off of the river of resentment for generations. Now for who to blame. Do we point a finger at my grandfather's brothers? Wait ...
LET’S BLAME HITLER!
As somewhat of a side note, something to point out before we decide exactly who to blame here is the fact that America was not directly fighting to heroically free the persecuted Jews as some now perceive. After all, many Nazi soldiers didn’t fully know the extent of the atrocities committed right under their noses against the Jews, much less American soldiers. The American soldiers were fighting to keep both Germany and Japan from ultimately taking over the territory of America - the “land of the free.” These soldiers laid their lives down for their friends and their brothers to protect them all, not fully knowing that their efforts were also connected to the protection of and in the defense of God’s chosen people - at least not initially.
So, an interesting parallel in this whole story to me is that World War II was sparked due to the fact that Germans hated the Jews for their ability to create wealth and specifically for their powerful involvement in banking practices. In a book on Jewish wealth mentality called, “Thou Shall Prosper” by Rabbi Daniel Lapin, two things are clearly pivotal within their mentality. (It is important to note that it is my understanding that Rabbi Lapin is strictly referring to Torah following, God fearing, righteous minded Jews here.) One is that "Jewish tradition views a person's quest for profit and wealth to be inherently moral."
This point is incredibly important to understand in the context of any and all war, and in the context of the story of my grandfather and his brothers. What does or does not motivate a person or group of people in banking practices (or inheritance distributions) and within the principles of moneylenders is the linchpin of it all. It is either executed with evil intentions or for the good of others. In the case of my family, I leave that judgement to God, and I have come to understand the burden placed on the brothers of weighing that very difficult decision. But, more importantly, knowing this family history has helped me come to understand the generational bloodline iniquities of passed down repeated sins of harbored bitterness and resentment that is so prevalent in our relationships.
The kind of Jewish character represented in this book is of those whose banking principles were based on the belief in the “leg-up money” concept. Quoting from the book: "Jews became bankers to help others ... [not to merely make money off of others] as in Western culture but by contrast, Jews always viewed putting one’s capital at risk to enable someone else to make a profit as an honorable way to earn a living and to help others. The Jewish hierarchy of charity regards lending someone money to go into business as more noble than simply giving him the money." If we could just grasp these Torah principles it would end all war.
Even more ironic and interesting to me is the fact that the Cluck (formerly Von Kluk) brothers were of German descent and come to find out, their mother was most likely of Jewish descent (unbeknownst to any them.) If you’re confused, it's understandable because somewhere in here lies so many connected bloodline iniquities - blood against blood in every direction, and these brothers got confused - all of them. They became confused in what Robert McNamara, former U.S. Secretary of Defense calls “the fog of war” where, in that “fog,” soldiers accidently shoot their own. This "fog of war" happens in every family from small and less meaningful incidents to utterly devastating levels of unintended consequences.
Hitler who started all of this is seemingly solely responsible, as one mad man, who unleashed an evil so great that it is literally immeasurable in all of its far-reaching affects - all the way to resulting in crippling resentment and bitterness passed down through the bloodline of my family. But, we must understand that Hitler was greatly influenced by another man’s writing also strictly aligned with evil itself. So, it was this man's fault? Friedrich Nietzsche, an atheist whose ideas entered the psyche of another man, Adolf Hitler, caused all this? Well wait. Who influenced Nietzsche? We could go on and on playing the blame game and pointing our fingers at this brother or that brother, this man or that man, but it's such a waste of time!
HERE IS MY POINT AND MY PREACH: WE MUST WAKE UP! WE MUST REPENT! WE MUST COME UP HIGHER AND SEE THE TRUTH! WE MUST FINALLY AND FULLY ENGAGE IN A DIFFERENT WAY BECAUSE WE ARE NOT WARRING WELL BROTHERS AND SISTERS!
We must stop looking to exclusively blame human beings for these things. We must take the focus off of each other. We must learn instead to war well against the evil forces in the heavenly realm - forces that are behind every evil behavior and sinful human act, including resentment and bitterness, from insignificant to immeasurable. We must war from this understanding and this powerful vantage point. Until then, we will never be victorious in any of these generational family relationship wars.
I am now married to the bravest soldier I have ever met. I've witnessed as he too has been awakened and taken up this battle perspective. He stands in the doorway of Heaven and wars from there like no one I’ve ever seen. He turns his eye from the flesh against flesh low-level thinking of warring from within the soul realm and wars instead in the spirit realm to (1.) own his relationally destructive habits and behaviors formerly aligned with the works and agenda of the enemy of our souls - behaviors hard to face and even harder to own, habits that have caused destruction in many people’s lives including mine. This ownership of destructive behavior is something I have never experienced with another person before. He stands red faced and stressed in the refining fire, allowing God to burn away the dross of these habits and subsequent behaviors. He (2.) comes with a deeply remorseful, wholehearted, and profoundly apologetic heart for all he has ever done to hurt or negatively affect others. He (3.) leans into God in making steadfast and painstaking commitments over and over to breaking those old habits and changing the behaviors and (4.) He proactively works with God, co-operating in obedience to rebuild trust where he has broken trust whenever he is given that opportunity by those he's wounded. And in this, he is co-operating with an ongoing 20+ year work of God in my life of learning to war well in the spirit. This brings order to any disorder I ever wrestle with. It brings soundness of mind to the noise of generational strongholds of bitterness and resentment that I've lived in. And it brings restful peace into my mental space, my home, and my life. This is how we war and Stan has become the soldier he promised to be in the beginning.
So let me tie all of this together now. Evil is evil and sin is sin and we are all in a very real war against sin, influenced by evil. It is never about race. It is never about money. It is about intentions. It is always, always, always about human beings aligned with or "patnering with" and acting in accordance with the blessed intentions of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob or aligned with, partnering with, and acting according to the cursed intentions and agenda of evil forces in the heavenly realm. There simply is no escaping this war so all we can do is become better warriors. There is no victory to be found in this war without understanding the truth of this verse and then learning to war well.
Ephesians 6:12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
While I do believe this understanding holds the power to shift even world wars, my focus here is on shifting the way we war for victory in our family relationships. One way to war well in family is to use the 4 "ingredients" (detailed in this link) of the "recipe of reconciliation" (and outlined in bold above) to come out of cooperation with evil forces that are out to kill, steal, and destroy family relationships. These are weapons of warfare that Stan and I have both learned - and are still learning and relentlessly using to defeat the works of the enemy in our relationships.
I will be sharing more details and other effective weapons and strategies in the upcoming blogs of this series. I will also be sharing Biblically based relationship solutions in a future video series called "Come To The Table." In this series, my main objective is to point people to the experts and resources I have learned (and let me be clear - am still learning) from. These are the solutions that have empowered and enabled me to keep my head above water in mental and emotional stability over the last 20+ years. The suicide attempt, which was an extreme and rare incident for me, only served as a wake up call to never become complacent in using the solutions I've learned from these resources. In addition to the video series, I am building and offering a well organized resource library on the website which will help you find your way through the maze and get you directly to the solutions for your specific relationship issues.
Love to all,
Jill
Listen to the song here:
https://tinyurl.com/m8ppm7wh
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