My Son: Men's Retreat Reflection

By Tom Hsieh

I’m writing about my experience at the NOC Men’s Retreat in hopes of encouraging other fellas. I also write to remember that God had been good. (See Joshua, chapter 4.)

I had really low expectations for the Men’s Retreat. Prior to the retreat, I found out that one of the questions for a breakout session was something along the lines of “Who have been the most influential men in your life? Good or bad?” I mentally checked out at that point because my answer to that question was “no one.” I felt like I had dealt with the issue, and that I was okay with it, and that I had moved past it.

As background, my parents divorced when I was 6, I didn’t see my father much after that, and I haven’t seen him since I was about 12. About a year ago, I heard a Sunday sermon about the issue of “father wounds” or “father loss.” It didn’t really hit me until that night, when my wife asked me what I thought about the message. As I talked to her, I cried, probably harder than I had in years, and what triggered it was when I described my interactions with my father. For example, I remember reaching to hold his hand when we were walking on a sidewalk, and him pushing my hand away. I also can’t remember him ever telling me he loved me, hugging me, or otherwise showing any affection to me. When I became a father, it did hurt a bit, thinking about how much I loved my children, and comparing it to my experience with my father. Over the years, I’ve told myself that there are a lot of children from divorced or broken families and so my experience is not so unusual, that having a good mother made up for having an absent father, and that the hurt had happened so long ago. In other words – I’m good with this, I’m okay, it’s not a big deal.

Ed talked about so many good things, and I appreciate his words of encouragement, insight, and wisdom. One of the things he talked about was that one goal he had for us was that we would get a deeper understanding that our Heavenly Father is crazy in love with us. He also talked about Ephesians 3, how we are jars of clay, how God has put His glory in us, but we tend to forget that and focus on how we are sinners. He talked about how all of us are broken, some of the brokenness is done to us, and some of it is our own doing. He also said that we need to remember who we really are – sons of God, and not our addictions, our sin, our past, our hurts.

The last day of the retreat, there was a time for us to reflect. Ed explained that often in the Old Testament, God would change people’s names after they had encounters with Him. Ed asked us to pray and reflect, to listen – to ask God, what is the name He has for us? Who am I to You? And even, who does God see us becoming in the future? Ed said that we might have a thought, see an image.

I didn’t really expect anything. But as the worship team played a song prior to us going off on our own for time to reflect, the thought came into my head, “My son,” and I started to cry. I think because I’m so dense, it was almost as if God was really emphasizing to me, that these words were from Him. I’ve told people over the years that the main reason I first started going to Newsong was the worship. Specifically, in response to the music and lyrics, I often cried and was moved – most often by the depth of my sin and the extent of God’s grace. So the fact that the thought “My son” came during worship was almost like God affirming that this was from Him.

During the reflection time, I found a rock to sit on, a quiet place. Two really powerful emotions came over me, two really powerful thoughts – that I had been hurt deeply by my father, but I forgave him. And second, that I was so afraid of hurting my own children, and so afraid that I already had done lasting damage to them by losing my temper – yelling at them, losing patience with them, etc. It hit me, that I really don’t care about career, about “success,” that what I desired more deeply was that my kids know that their father loves them. Though I was really grateful for that taste of God’s presence, those words “My son,” I also was a little disappointed, because I really was hoping for some thought or image for the future.

But God surprised me again. When we got back together as a large group, there also was another time of worship. And I noticed Solomon Tang in one end of the room, and his son Eliott in the other. I remembered how Solomon mentioned once (probably over a year ago) that when his kids were young, when he put them to bed, he read a prayer of blessings (I think from somewhere in Numbers – something along the lines of “the Lord bless you and keep you, may the Lord’s face shine upon you”). And it hit me – that was an image of a future I want. I want to also pour love, pour blessing from God into my children, and hope to see them with me at a retreat someday. I cried again, thinking that God was telling me, I’ve given you the words “my son,” and to remind You that I love abundantly, I’m going to give you even more, and give you an image of the future man I see you becoming.

I’m always a bit cynical when someone says they heard God tell them something. For me, it wasn’t an audible voice, it was a thought, and it was also even based on prior experiences (prior times of being deeply moved during worship, prior knowledge of some people’s stories – e.g. Solomon’s story of praying blessings for his children when he was with them). I’m deeply grateful for those experiences, the words “My son,” and the image of Solomon and Eliott, as a vision for my own future.

I’m positive that many other guys at NOC have father wounds, and that many of us fathers deeply want to bless our children, to build them up, to be good fathers, and are very much aware of our shortcomings. I’m convinced we can help each other with these issues. I do believe God was at work, in a mighty way, at the retreat, and I am hopeful it will continue. I’ve talked to so several guys after the retreat, and have been surprised by how many “informal” accountability groups have been meeting.

Finally, I’m also deeply grateful to be part of a community like NOC, where people are real, authentic, and servant-hearted. I do feel that God is here, and the retreat was a great reminder for me of that. For me, what keeps me at Newsong or NOC has never been about the lead pastor, but it’s been the people and God’s presence (for me, felt mostly through worship).