My husband and I had our first encounter with Intimate Encounters and TBI about 4 to 5 years ago. We were doing marriage ministry but we were praying for God to direct us in the “how” we would do ministry for marriages. As we listened at a More Than Married workshop in our church we knew right away, we had to hear more about this Intimate Encounters.
As soon as the workshop was over we walked right up to Dave and Carol Lewis and asked if we could sit with them and learn what they just spoke about. We knew it would change us personally but we also wanted to be able to hand these tools off to our couples. The possibilities excited us. The relational material was exactly what we were looking for.
So, we began to train to become Encourager Couples with TBI, and I am now so blessed to work as TBI’s Admin. Assistant. This material has exceeded our expectations and taken us further than we could have imagined. The material is wonderful in marriage but it is equally wonderful, when using the principles with your children, co-workers, friends and neighbors.
We hope you enjoy the following true story of a son’s reflections on his dad’s life. We have permission to use this story and it is a wonderful example of the “trickle-down effect” that the principles in Intimate Encounters can have on generations. Enjoy! (Linda D’Avanzo)
A Blessed Son A Letter to Dave Lewis
I wanted to round out the story that was told of my dad sending his dad a letter and how that played out.
My dad has told me that story and he says that as he went through IE (Intimate Encounters workbook in a small group environment), God really allowed him to see that his dad had not ever had any of his emotional needs met. His dad was adopted and was never loved or valued by his adoptive family. In fact they made it apparent that work was his only value when they made him drop out of school in the 8th grade to pay for the “biological” kids education.
When my dad went through IE he was also going through all the stuff that my family went through as I was in my addiction and going through No Longer Bound (a men’s recovery program). God was doing some major work on all of us. As God was doing the healing and meeting of my dad’s unmet needs, he realized that through his own healing he had the opportunity and blessing to pass the gift that God gave him back up the “Genogram tree”. This is when my dad chose to write the letter. It was done not to try and get something from his dad, because God had already satisfied (and was healing the wounds), but out of a broken heart for his dad.
What you don’t know is the beauty that came from this for the rest of us. My dad (Darrell) also allowed God to break his heart looking down the Genogram Tree at his own boys. He had Worked REALLY hard to provide any and everything that we needed but realized that he had never affirmed us just because we were his boys. Not because he did not want to, because he had in his own way of “Work” the same way his dad did, but he couldn’t give away what was not given to him. After learning the value that verbal affirmation could bring, feeling the loss of not giving that to his boys, and experiencing the work that God had done in him, dad made a change.
This is where the phone calls started. My dad started doing something that was completely abnormal for him. He started to give verbal affirmation even though he felt inadequate to do it and it made him very uncomfortable. My dad chose to let God help him draw a line in the sand and stop this “generational curse”.
He started calling us all of the time to leave voicemails. He would say things like: “I want you to know how amazed I am with you and how you have …; I am so proud of how you have handled…; I love you; You’re such an amazing man!” or simply “Do you know your dad is Proud of you”? These were the words that I had so longed to hear from my dad. I felt approval, acceptance, respect, value, and validation as a man. My dad approved of me!
These words caused such healing in my heart, in my belief of myself, in my belief of my value, and helped to shatter the broken belief I had of how God viewed me. Even further than that, all three boys are married now and God has extended these blessing to our wives. My father calls to encourage our wives and speak truth over them all the time. The cool thing is that he is able to do this because he knows that these women have already been affirmed by his sons who have followed his example. I have seen God use this to help bring healing to our wives’ own personal pains.
This week I have seen my brothers pouring this love over their own kids. And even the employees of my company receive the benefit of the blessing that God has given me through my Dad.
Isn’t God amazing!!! I thought that you might enjoy hearing the rest of the story.
Love you brother!
Jared F