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,...
Where does the margin lie? We don't even know I suspect. But I think it can certainly be crossed. Here is an experience I had not with my own child, but with someone else's child who gave birth to a granddaughter of mine:
My son told me that his girlfriend (who I had never met) was pregnant. Then he told me she had totally rejected him. She would not accept a Pregnancy Diary he bought for her. She would not allow him to see the first scan. She told him her parents had always wanted her to be a career woman, not a mother. She was Roman Catholic and did not believe in abortions. She kept the child. My son never heard from her until the day my GD was born and she simply sent him an SMS to tell him she had a daughter. My son had reacted by working in conflict areas he was in intense pain as he had wanted to marry her. It was unbearable for him to know he had a little girl out there he had not seen.
I sent baby things and gifts and finally the mother succumbed and invited me to meet her in another town where I would see my GD for the first time. She was 8 months old and I felt as if I had gone back in history as she looked exactly like my son. The mother then told me she thought she could cope alone but realised she could not and wanted my son back. This resulted in him too meeting his little girl for the first time when she was 1 yr of age. Things did not work out and they split and we never saw my GD again.
Do you know that every day and every night and sometimes lunchtimes too, I would walk up and down the hill from my home to work and back and pray for them all to be united. I did this for years. I prayed with every step I took. I continued sending gifts for my GD on birthdays and Christmas but did not receive so much as an acknowledgement.
Finally, when I eventually let go and my son married and had another little girl - she came back into my life and asked me to meet her in a town nearby. I was laid up in bed at the time and had to decline. I was also nonplussed that she could just suddenly contact me after now 8 years had past without so much as a "sorry" and I wondered if she would just as easily drift out of my life again. I made a personal commitment to myself that I would NOT be opening up my heart again to such raw pain and detached myself, feeling that she and her little girl were my son's business anyway.
I no longer CARED! It was no longer IMPORTANT to me!
Which beggars the question "When our own EC return - will we still care? Will it even matter?"
Just some thoughts....
My son told me that his girlfriend (who I had never met) was pregnant. Then he told me she had totally rejected him. She would not accept a Pregnancy Diary he bought for her. She would not allow him to see the first scan. She told him her parents had always wanted her to be a career woman, not a mother. She was Roman Catholic and did not believe in abortions. She kept the child. My son never heard from her until the day my GD was born and she simply sent him an SMS to tell him she had a daughter. My son had reacted by working in conflict areas he was in intense pain as he had wanted to marry her. It was unbearable for him to know he had a little girl out there he had not seen.
I sent baby things and gifts and finally the mother succumbed and invited me to meet her in another town where I would see my GD for the first time. She was 8 months old and I felt as if I had gone back in history as she looked exactly like my son. The mother then told me she thought she could cope alone but realised she could not and wanted my son back. This resulted in him too meeting his little girl for the first time when she was 1 yr of age. Things did not work out and they split and we never saw my GD again.
Do you know that every day and every night and sometimes lunchtimes too, I would walk up and down the hill from my home to work and back and pray for them all to be united. I did this for years. I prayed with every step I took. I continued sending gifts for my GD on birthdays and Christmas but did not receive so much as an acknowledgement.
Finally, when I eventually let go and my son married and had another little girl - she came back into my life and asked me to meet her in a town nearby. I was laid up in bed at the time and had to decline. I was also nonplussed that she could just suddenly contact me after now 8 years had past without so much as a "sorry" and I wondered if she would just as easily drift out of my life again. I made a personal commitment to myself that I would NOT be opening up my heart again to such raw pain and detached myself, feeling that she and her little girl were my son's business anyway.
I no longer CARED! It was no longer IMPORTANT to me!
Which beggars the question "When our own EC return - will we still care? Will it even matter?"
Just some thoughts....
Finally, like you, the pain lessened but the most powerful words that helped me over the edge was abandonmom's posting on "detachment".
I feel you, too, have detached from the situation with your GD and her mother. And I think it's okay. We can still keep them in our prayers.
I detest that all of us have to experience this horrible estrangement and I pray for all us daily.