The invisible circle

I saw a short video on YouTube that touched me more than I expected.

A father stood next to his two children.

The children heard different statements.

”Take a step forward if your father used to cook for you.”

The children took a step forward.

”Take a step forward if your father was there when you needed him.”

They took another step.

”Take a step forward if your father encouraged you.”

”Take a step forward if your father showed that he loved you.”

Question after question continued.

With each question, the children went further and further.

But the father remained standing.

At first they didn’t understand why.

He remained standing because he himself had never experienced it as a child. Yet he had chosen to give his own children everything he himself had missed.

I sat there for a long time after the video ended.

Because it didn’t just bring up thoughts about him.

It brought up thoughts about me.

My father never cooked for me.

My father was never there when I needed him.

He never encouraged me when life was hard.

He never said he loved me.

When I was a child, I probably thought it was normal. You don’t know anything else. It’s only as an adult that you begin to understand that not all children grow up the same way. That some get a security that others can only dream of.

That’s why I call it the invisible circle.

It’s a legacy that is not visible.

No one can see it when they meet you on the street.

No one sees the words you never heard.

No one sees the affirmation you longed for & still long for.

No one sees the hugs that never came.

No one sees the emptiness that has sometimes followed you through life.

But it is there.

It affects how we see ourselves.

How we build relationships.

How we love.

How we trust others.

And sometimes it also affects how we become as parents.

The easiest thing in the world is to pass on what you yourself have been given.

But there are people who choose a different path.

They decide that what happened to them should not happen to their children.

They learn to show love, even though no one taught them how.

They say ”I love you”, even though they themselves never heard those words.

They give their children security, even though they themselves grew up without it.

It takes enormous courage.

I actually think that we celebrate these people far too rarely.

We celebrate sports stars, artists and entrepreneurs.

But the real heroes are often where no one sees them.

They sit on the floor and play with their children after a long day at work.

They listen when their teenager needs to talk.

They hug their children a little extra before they fall asleep.

They break a chain that may have existed for generations.

It’s not something you get medals for.

But it changes the world.

As a Christian, I often think that God doesn’t let our past have the last word. Throughout the Bible, we meet people with broken lives, difficult experiences and failures. Yet God writes new chapters. He shows that the past doesn’t have to become the future.

It gives me hope.

Because even if I can’t change my childhood, I can influence how I live my life today.

I can choose love over bitterness.

Presence over absence.

Encouragement over silence.

Forgiveness over hate.

Maybe that’s where the invisible circle is broken.

Not through big words.

But through small choices, day after day.

If you recognize yourself in my story, I want you to know one thing:

You are not doomed to repeat what you have experienced.

You can be the person who changes the history of your family.

You can be the first to show a different path.

And the day you do, you will not only change your own life.

You will change the future of people who have not even been born yet.

It is a heroism that is rarely seen.

But it is a heroism that the world desperately needs more of.

Watch the film HERE