Then Stop.......................

Groveling...begging...scooting around looking for crumbs...accepting less than you a human being made in the image of God deserves...crying over those who would laugh at your tears...ignore your pleas...perhaps even laugh at your distress is demeaning to you and to your Maker

God did not put any one of us on this earth to be demeaned by our own children....consider perhaps that he is protecting you from their evil decietful ways and be thankful...

We are all sad and grieve for what could have been...what should have been...what might be in the future....

We need to be thankful that we wake up and see God's wonderful creations...death will come to all of us in time...

Why act like the living dead while we are alive ?? Over adult children who choose not to have anything to do with us for some obscure reason ??

Are we not saying to God...the good things you have done...the wonderful world and life you have given me are not enough....I wont be happy until I get my kids to love and notice me...maybe its just too much to ask...after all God gave each of us free will....

How are we using our free will ??? In celebration of the good things we have or in tears for the things we dont have ??

Which one of the above do any of us truly think God wants from us .... joy or tears ????

AllK

Love, hugs and prayers to you Kathysau. Heartbreaking. Cling to the Lord. Your life is immeasurably valuable to Him.

Let your wounds heal. Stop reopening them. Now you have to wait longer for them to heal again.

A….lyn5, You are a wise person, and I agree with you, difficult as it has been to come around to that way of thinking. In the early stages of estrangement it is difficult to not grieve, and I believe it is actually healthy. Losing contact with our children is a great loss! It is no different (and might even be more painful) than when I child dies. If our child were to die, would we not be allowed to grieve? Would we not be expected to grieve?

However, once we have begged, pleaded with them, searched our souls for answers, cried out to God for comfort--you are correct that we must then make a decision to live again. We must return to joy. We must reach out to others who are hurting. God did not intend for us to live sad, unproductive lives.

"Sorrow may last for the night….but JOY comes in the morning."

Must learn to proof-read before posting. "…..than when a child dies."

Kathy, Early on (2 years ago) in my estrangement journey I reached out a lot, too, sadly to no avail or negative responses. Each one of us is different and grieving takes time. This is harder than losing a child by death because our EC chose this path. We can not understand it and it does not make sense.

Please be kind to yourself. We can only pray for our EC. If you are led by God then reach out but each time they do not respond it is hurtful again. It takes longer to move forward and it keeps us sad and depressed. I found the best thing to do was stay busy. Work became a blessing. Try some new adventures.

Will we still miss our EC? There will always be a hole until God changes things but we must let. Him work in His way. Remember the father of the prodigal son.

Everyone has posted great advice. CanadianMother and AllK - your posts really touched me. God does not want us to be sad and broken. He has given each of us so much if we are open to seeing it.

I agree with everyone and like Lindajoan tried everything in the begining to no avail. I've heard the EC seem to want to come back on their own if left to themselves. Continually reaching out only seems to irrate them. I would leave them alone for awhile and see what happens.

Wow everything here is such good advice! Exactly what I am going to attempt to do, leave it alone.

God will give you the strength. He will give us all the strength in our weakness. That does not mean every day will be easy but when we struggle (I did today going to a store where our ED used to work) we will call on His name.

ALL K....... so true, thanks for your wise words

Thank you all for this discussion which has blessed me. Let us continue to comfort and above all be faithful in prayer for each other and our ECs. Sorrow does last only through the night and all of our faithful God's promises to us are true.

Well said wholemom!

I do the same thing. My estrangement from my daughter only started on Feb 9. But it means that I no longer have any contact with my two beautiful grandchildren..sometimes the pain is almost unbearable...l just continue to praise Jesus for carrying me through.

Missingthem.....Welcome to the group. Estrangement certainly does cause a lot of pain to us as well as the grandchildren if they have gotten used to us as grandparents. It is very confusing to them especially. Parents should never use their own kids as tools for punishment. When parents are having difficulties with each other, it does make it very awkward to keep up a relationship with the kids and the grandparents for sure, but some do attempt to work it out for the sake of their kids emotional well being.

Is there anything special about Feb 9 that can be resolved before it becomes a longterm estrangement? Anything you can do on your part that you can do to get it resolved in a peaceful manner would be a big first step forward I think.

Romans 12:18 ...."If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone."