CHRISTIAN PARENTS of ESTRANGED ADULT CHILDREN Community Group
Estrangement makes it difficult to talk about with family, friends, neighbors and church members. Christians are NOT immune to broken families. Talk about your experiences with those who know how you feel and get positive support through your Christian faith...."In these last days difficult times will come, for men will be lovers of self...disobedient to parents,...
I used to go to a Families Anonymous group when my EC was living at home. There's a book called Today a Better Way and one of the readings talks about Doing Our Best as parents. It talks about a parent who did everything right, baked cookies, was a stay-at-home mom, ran her child to practices, went to all the school functions, etc. and still they child became involved with drugs and alchol. It talks about how the parent berated themself blamed themself for how the child turned out, until the parent realized that the child had the disease of chemical dependency which was not the parent's fault at all.
How many of you have estranged children that are using drugs and alcohol? Even if they are not, perhaps we can apply this meditation to our situation. We did the best we could and our children turned out they way they did through no fault of our own. They suffer from the disease of entitlement and they choose to pratice estrangement instead of choosing to work on their issues.
How many of you have estranged children that are using drugs and alcohol? Even if they are not, perhaps we can apply this meditation to our situation. We did the best we could and our children turned out they way they did through no fault of our own. They suffer from the disease of entitlement and they choose to pratice estrangement instead of choosing to work on their issues.
I do think that it is important for all parents to realize that God holds each individual person responsible for their own behavior. When children become of age, Biblically around 13 I would say, they become accountable to God for their choices.
I am however, always reluctant to fall into the "politically correct" usage of alcoholism to label other psychological behaviors ADHD as being "diseases." Alcoholism as a disease concept got it's roots because of AA. The hospitals were not getting paid by the drunks that were brought to them and so using the term "disease" allowed them to collect funds from the insurance companies.
I think to say that our children turned out the way that they did through no fault of their own or because they have the "disease of entitlement" only allows us to ignore the real problem - they either do not know Christ or know Christ and are in rebellion at this time.
When Jesus healed the leper, the blind man, and the woman who bled constantly they were genuine diseases or afflictions because their afflictions did not involve sin or repentance. There are no instances in the Bible where Jesus healed a drunkard without repentance of sin.
I do think however that we, as parents, do need to stop berating ourselves for how our children are behaving. As I have said before, we live in a society that has turned away from God for the most part. There are SO many contributing factors out there in the world for our kids to fall into temptation with it is almost impossible for them to avoid being exposed to them. By the same token, there are also SO many false religious beliefs for Satan to lure us into that it is nearly impossible to shield these kids from falling prey to something in some form or another these day.
The bottom line is that Satan has his hold on our kids. With that kind of stronghold, only prayer can release it through the Grace of God.
Be kinder to yourself Maria. If you truly believe you did the best you could as a parent, then love your child as a sinner that needs Christ and leave bandaids off his actions.
(Gee, I even read that before I hit submit! LOL)
But the main reason I don't berate myself for my son's actions is I think how Adam and Eve had THE PERFECT PARENT...and look what they did! So even children of The Perfect Parent made bad choices.