Trigger Warning ⚠️

I’m feeling a little sarcastic tonight, but also in awe and I can’t mix the two together to make it make sense. I started thinking about all the men I know and counting how many of them I believe are godly. I was quite surprised to find there are at least five. That’s four more than I’ve ever known at any given time.

Fast forward a few hours to being in a session where men who are so opposite, they can’t even find a place on the same spectrum of humanity become the topic of discussion and suddenly it becomes a most difficult conundrum. My box is not big enough to hold men so totally different from each other.

Images of old men and their dirty little secrets start to take up space in my head. Their starched white shirts tucked neatly into their perfectly pleated black pants and shiny dress shoes. The air of entitlement they breathe is far superior to our own and you owe them just because they exist. I feel sick at how many people put them on a pedestal, but I know exactly what secrets the oversized cherry desks with the big windows hold. I’m sure it’s perfectly normal. Afterall, everyone knows executives need multiple movie cameras in their office just in case there’s a random opportunity for blackmail.

I don’t like these men or the things they do to little girls and boys.
They hide behind their titles and positions, pretending to be honorable leaders with everyone’s best interests in mind. They constantly spew lies and their hands reek of corruption. They polish their smiles and hide behind expensive cologne, hoping no one notices the stench of rot beneath the surface.

They’ve paid a price for their proverbial power and judgement day is coming. They climb their ladders with bloodied hands and hearts of stone, serving whoever pulls the strings behind the curtain. They perform their roles so well, you’d almost think they believe the script they were given.

Who do they think they’re fooling?
Not me.
Not the children who’ve seen behind their smiles.
And not my Yahweh who sees everything done in the dark.

There’s a Gideon’s army in this generation who won’t surrender to fear or be intimidated by status. They don’t need permission to speak truth. They carry the fire of purity, and that flame cannot be bought, silenced, or compromised.

I have found men to be utterly disgusting for most of my life.
I can’t help it; it was my experience since from birth.

I know there are good men who don’t deserve to be put in a box with the scum of the earth, but my system has never been able to separate them out. Not completely anyway. Even the best of them can derail me into body memory overload, and suddenly I’m five years old all over again, frozen, exposed, and trying to disappear into thin air.

Enter Dr. B. H.

I don’t know what it is about him. I can only chalk it up to the anointing he carries.
He doesn’t activate any of my alarms which, honestly, should terrify me, but somehow, it doesn’t.

Maybe it’s the way he carries a father’s blessing into the room.
Maybe it’s because he took the time to understand what survivors actually need to heal.
Maybe it’s the hours he’s spent in prayer, the betrayals he’s endured, or the trials that shaped his heart to mirror the Father’s.

I really don’t know what it is.
I can’t put my finger on something I’ve never experienced before.

But it’s given me hope for the men in this world.
Perhaps all is not lost after all.

A godly man discipling other men, it’s a phenomenon this world needs a whole lot more of.

The box I put men in years ago has been utterly destroyed.
And now… I’m not really sure what to do with that.

Do I need square breathing exercises or an extended vacation to process the fact that it took fifty years for me to finally meet a man without a hidden agenda who wants to help survivors heal?

Either way, I’m grateful.
Because I need this hope today.

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”
— Psalm 147:3