A few weeks ago my pastor, who also happens to be my husband, expounded on the traits of a friend and one of them in particular really hit home; “a friend sticks out the good and bad.”
I recognized the trait because I’d recently struggled with it. As I reflected on my experience, I wondered to myself how I might develop it into a column. The very next day a letter arrived. As I shared the contents of the letter with my husband, without my ever telling him I’d been considering how I might write on the subject he said, “Can you use this event to talk about Tough Love?” So here we are.
According to the Gospel of Google, Tough Love is defined as the promotion of a person’s welfare, especially that of an addict, child, or criminal, by enforcing certain constraints on them or requiring them to take responsibility for their actions.
Wow, did you catch the part about, “enforcing certain constraints?” A constraint is a limitation or restriction. It makes tough love sound incredibly harsh. I mean, putting handcuffs on someone caught committing a crime is a form of enforcing the constraint that has nothing to do with love.
Urban dictionary relegates tough love as another version of “being cruel to be kind.” It further expounds, “To show someone some tough love today will save them the heartache in the future but may cause a small amount of upset for the receiver immediately after the tough love has been dispensed. They would suffer more if you let them get on with their life with no interference from third parties.”
Urban dictionary provides this example of tough love
Leo-“I’m gonna ask that girl out on a date”
Chris-“You’d be wasting your time; you are ugly, overweight, and suffer severely from B.O. and those just your good points. Take it from me, she will reject you, maybe not straight away, perhaps she will drain your bank account first, but you have no future with that girl, I’m sorry mate the writing is on the wall”
Ok. So, I guess if Leo has any hopes of ever going on a date he needs plastic surgery, liposuction, and deodorant. While those observations may be the truth, I don’t think Chris was really speaking from a place of love. In my opinion, he was just being plain ole’ mean!
Some may think tough love looks a bit like discipline. Noah Webster’s 1828 defines discipline in two ways, first as a noun then as a verb.
DISCIPLINE, noun [Latin , to learn.]
1. Education; instruction; cultivation and improvement, comprehending instruction in arts, sciences, correct sentiments, morals and manners, and due subordination to authority.
2. Subjection to laws, rules, order, precepts or regulations; as, the troops are under excellent discipline; the passions should be kept under strict discipline
DISCIPLINE, verb transitive
1. To instruct or educate; to inform the mind; to prepare by instructing incorrect principles and habits; as, to discipline youth for a profession, or for future usefulness.
2. To instruct and govern; to teach rules and practice, and accustom to order and subordination; as, to discipline troops or an army.
Herein lies the problem, in both of these definitions, tough love and discipline are done to someone else.
What if, tough love and discipline really should be directed inward? As in, something done by self to self? When it comes to discipline, action towards self is something the majority of us can understand.
Self-discipline takes many shapes: I’m in bed by 9PM most weeknights because I have to rise early if I want to exercise before I go to work.
Understanding my propensity to enjoy sweets, that in excess are not good for my body, I rarely purchase these items and bring them into my home.
When a student calls my office with a dumb question, and believe me, whoever said there’s no dumb question lied, I have to use self-discipline to not respond with something tacky.
When another employee questions a decision I make, that’s completely within my job description, and I’ve done the research to ensure I’m right, it takes an incredible amount of self-discipline to ensure my response is professional rather than emotional.
If I were to exercise tough love, as the world sees it, in the last two examples I might tell the student how stupid their question is, how they need to grow up and figure out things for themselves and learn to read/follow instruction.
Or for the unfortunate employee questioning my decision, I might tell them I’m in charge of this particular area, have more education, a better understanding of the rules, and it would serve them well to simply adhere to what I’ve mandated.
And should I exercise so called tough love instead of self-disciple I might find myself called to the HR office turning in my badge and keys.
Cruel to be kind is an absolute lie. Real love is hard. It isn’t all rainbows, bunnies, and sunshine. It is tough in the sense that it goes completely against our human nature. Real love requires sacrifice. Real love is often uncomfortable and almost always messy.
Although we don’t like to talk about it much, we endured some tough times with one of our sons. We sent him off to college as one person and got him back as an utter stranger; someone who’d turned his back completely on the faith we’d raised him in. He hurt our family in ways I could never have imagined. Loving him unconditionally was hard.
When he’d react to his circumstances and vent about all that was wrong with the world and how it had wronged him, it took an incredible amount of self-control to remain quiet.
Traditional tough love dictated that I show him the error of his ways and throwback in his face how all he endured was due to choices of his own making. And, for a brief moment, I might have found some relief for my own frustration had I done so. I knew, deep down though, with such an incredible conviction, that however, I chose to behave during the chaos he brought would profoundly impact him and our relationship.
My husband did an incredible job raising our boys to respect women in general and their momma specifically. To this day, I can do no virtually wrong in the eyes of those two boys, well grown men now. Because of that, during the darkest days, James, unfortunately, bore the brunt of our son’s outbursts.
In our private conversations, when my husband was at his wit’s end, and because of it wanted to kick our son out of our home, I remained steadfast and firm in my resolve that no matter what he did, we absolutely would not turn our back in our son. I knew that no matter how uncomfortable we were, a life without our son was not worth the temporary relief his absence might have brought.
And I was right. Our version of tough love endured and because of it, to this day, we retain a strong relationship with our son, even when we don’t agree. And he will tell you, even when he hated the church and Christians, he could say nothing about us because he witnessed first-hand how we walked out our faith. We lived what we believed, even when it was hard. He never saw us waiver. That’s some seriously tough love.
Fast forward to early 2019 when we received a letter from a young woman we once mentored who is now incarcerated. She wrote to both of us, but only my husband wrote her back at first. I absolutely could not. I had nothing to say.
We’d know this woman since she was in high school. She was one of our youth leaders when we were running over 200 teens in our youth ministry in Copperas Cove. She worked at the child-care center where I was the office manager. We welcomed her into our home, gave her access to our children, left her alone with them even.
She was part of our intern program in San Marcos circa 2006, until she wasn’t. I can never forget the day she quit. She sat in our living room and told us about some man she was so in love with and couldn’t live without.
He was quite a few years older than her, with several children already. We warned her she was making an unwise decision and shared our concerns she’d end up married, pregnant, and never fulfill God’s call on her life if she left the program. We never imagined the jail part.
Sure enough, marriage, four babies, and a lot of hell later, she was writing to us from Lockhart Unit 3B. Part of me was like, “We warned you.” Another part of me was like, “Seriously??” Her brothers had been in and out of trouble for years, she’d always been, “the good one.” We saw the pain her parents endured because of her brothers but never expected her to inflict similar pain.
Love is hard. I loved this woman; how could I ignore her in her darkest times? How could I just let her rot in jail after all she’d meant to us?
I struggled for several months before the answer surfaced. I didn’t have to preach at her. I didn’t have to berate her for the mistakes she’s made. I could just be me, the Becky she knew and loved. I don’t know how to be anything but real and so I wrote her just like I would have any other friend and talked about whatever was going on in our lives.
And in true God fashion, He worked in ways I never, ever would have imagined. In one of our first exchanges, I mentioned how’d written a lifestyle column for several years. She shared how she’d love to read some of my work, so I started sending her copies of my columns, usually about ten every time I write.
At first, I didn’t save her letters so I can’t say exactly when it all started, but in a letter from her postmarked Aug. 8, 2019, she says, “I got your new poems and columns. Thank you. They are always a big hit with the ladies inside my dorm. Although I do believe a few of them are actually circulating around the entire unit. No worries though, there are only 1,020 inmates here.”
What? I sent those columns for her to read, never dreaming anyone else would be interested or benefit from their contents.
Within that August letter, she added an addendum, “I noticed how your poems and columns were touching so many I shared within my dorm of 50 women, so several of your poems are now in the process of being printed in our unit paper called, “The Insider.” But that’s not all, “The Insider” is our weekly unit paper which goes to all 1000 inmates; however, they will also be published in the “ECHO” which is the TDCJ newspaper (monthly). This monthly paper goes to all TDCJ state jails and prisons, both male and female so yeah basically every single Texas inmate will have the opportunity to read them.” “So far every lady who read the one about Chris (the accident) bawled entire rivers. You are a big hit.”
Wait. You mean that because I walked in love, sacrificed my personal comfort (exercised tough love), and wrote a friend, God is using what I consider a hobby, writing, to potentially reach every single person incarcerated in Texas. What? Really?
September 19, 2019 she wrote, “I’ve had the privilege to see how your writings are affecting people in here, it is amazing! I wish you could see it.”
October 8 she wrote, “I’m so thankful that you have put $ on my books twice already. We should be going to the store again in a few days. Thank you so so much. I know I have said it before, but what you and James do for me is mind blowing. I have always known that y’all really loved and cared about me, but the way you guys have been here for me during this time of my life, my darkest is absolutely amazing. I will never really be able to express my appreciation and thankfulness.”
Tough love. This is what it really looks like, not the cruel to be kind lie we’ve been told.
Oct. 12 she wrote, “You said in your last letter how you would like to sit in on a group of people discussing a poem and trying to figure out what you were talking about as the author without them knowing you are the author. Well, this past Friday, I wish you could have sat in on our process group. One of the girls in my program had seen your poem in this month’s Insider, and she read it to the entire dorm during group. It was really cool the way your poem opened up one entire conversation”.
I really have thought that I’d love to be in a room with people trying to dissect my poetry. Most of mine are really dark and written from a place of extreme hurt. For me, poetry is a way of expression that keeps the truth hidden.
Anyone remember high school or college English classes discussing what an author really meant. I’ve always thought, “What the heck?? Unless the author shared their intent, how can you really know?
Again, because I chose to walk out Tough Love and write a letter, God is using my writing for prison therapy group sessions? Who would’ve thunk it?
Jan. 29 she wrote, “I can’t remember if I told you already, but I shared your column, “Sometimes the Hardest Thing and the Right Thing are the Same” with my dorm during group. It turned into a whole topic in which we discussed for an entire hour; it was great.”
It was the most recent letter on Feb. 18, that was my complete undoing. I share it not to brag but to show you an example of what tough love really looks like. I am completely humbled by how God has chosen to use me in this way. It is nothing I could’ve ever hoped for, anticipated, or asked.
Here is an excerpt: “I feel so grateful that y’all are so ready and willing to love me the exact same if not more than ever before. I know I’ve mentioned several times… I need you to fully understand how y’alls unfailing love towards me is possibly the only reason why I never stopped believing in God…Please know that your way of loving is so much more powerful than you might realize. Your love made all the difference.”
First and foremost, our friend recognizes, through our lives what unconditional love/tough love, looks like. Second, by sending my columns, I am reaching an audience I never imagined for Him. These women, whom I’ve never met, actually look forward to my letters!?!?! #humbling
So, tough love in the context we’ve been taught is an absolute lie. Tough love is more about sacrifice on our part versus being cruel to be kind.
Love hurts, not the other person, genuine love hurts us, it goes against our Adamic, corrupted nature, but oh, how it wins in the end. Because you know, sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same!
Until Next Time,
Becky J Miller
“Warrior Princess”