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,...
Today I attended a new "Moms Praying for their Adult Children" group through our church. It was powerful. We were given a card with 21 prayers for Prodigals, each prayer having scripture to back the prayer.
We each shared our stories, talked about how we are to thank God for entrusting these children to us to raise but now it is time to lay them back at His feet and storm Heaven with prayers for our children, especially the ones estranged or fighting demons like drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc. and worse yet, who don't have God in their lives.
An interesting book was mentioned called "The Power of Praying For Your Adult Children" by Stormie OMartain. Has anyone read it? I plan to order it from Amazon. "Prayer Warrior Mom" was another book suggested.
We re-enforced each other that it is not our fault; we raised our children to follow a Christian lifestyle, but God has given them free will to do as they want and we have to pray for their return to God. Even God couldn't control his children to not sin and turn away from him - Adam and Eve.
Deut. 30:6 "The LORD your God will change your heart and the hearts of all your descendants, so that you will love him with all your heart and soul and so you may live!" I truly believe this is what we need to believe with all our hearts for our EC.
We each shared our stories, talked about how we are to thank God for entrusting these children to us to raise but now it is time to lay them back at His feet and storm Heaven with prayers for our children, especially the ones estranged or fighting demons like drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc. and worse yet, who don't have God in their lives.
An interesting book was mentioned called "The Power of Praying For Your Adult Children" by Stormie OMartain. Has anyone read it? I plan to order it from Amazon. "Prayer Warrior Mom" was another book suggested.
We re-enforced each other that it is not our fault; we raised our children to follow a Christian lifestyle, but God has given them free will to do as they want and we have to pray for their return to God. Even God couldn't control his children to not sin and turn away from him - Adam and Eve.
Deut. 30:6 "The LORD your God will change your heart and the hearts of all your descendants, so that you will love him with all your heart and soul and so you may live!" I truly believe this is what we need to believe with all our hearts for our EC.
When our estrangement was new my husband and I used this book as our evening Bible study. One thing we did was insert our son and DIL's names anywhere the prayers said he/she. And we prayed the prayers over both of them not just our son.
It is filled with God's word, powerful prayers and some wonderful insight from Christian parents. It isn't a book solely about estrangement, it covers a wide variety of topics that parents may encounter with their adult children.
Forgottenmom...sounds like a good book...glad you read it...used it...and recommend it...will order it.
Thanks and Blessings
AllK
I seen a neat article the other day about FB & creating a family page has anyone tried this? martha
Thanks for giving us this inspiration. Would it be possible to post those 21 prayers and scripture for prodigals?? Maybe one prayer a day for the month of February?? You would need to get permission from the group leader, but I'm sure we could benefit greatly from those prayers here.
Since February is the month of LOVE, what better way than to pray together here for our loved ones??
I'm sure your group will grow Norske...that's a good turn out for a first-time meeting. A lot of Christian parents are in denial about their adult children, and just need to have courage enough and humble enough to acknowledge this problem in their family.
We think it's a reflection of our parenting when our kids turn away from God, but for the most part, we did our best to teach them about a loving God and the precepts that are in His Word..the Bible.
Years ago when my three children were young, I used to belong to a group of praying mothers. We prayed for our school-aged children, especially those in the public system. Teachers, school administrators and everyone in the schools got on our prayer list. We were called "Mother's Who Care" here in Canada and "Mom's In Touch" in the USA.
We were always so encouraged after our meetings, at least we had affirmed our faith with each other.
Thanks again for sharing this with us. God is impressing on me that I need to see if we can't get that type of prayer group started in our church family.
Hopefully, parents won't be too embarrassed or too proud to admit they need this group..it takes courage to come forward and express that they have wayward adult children. I will pray for another parent to come forward, as I think it takes more than one person to get the group going...like you mention Norske..two women were led to start your group.
sadmad11 - my old church had a Moms in Touch group but mostly they prayed for and prepared packages for our soldiers.
I'm happy to post the 21 days of prayer for prodigals if it is okay. Guelsmom - ?
That was the first thing addressed in our group yesterday and the leader had scripture to back it up. First and foremost, we mothers must let go of this thought. Because God gave our children free will, there is absolutely nothing we could or can do to keep them on the path we raised them in, except for prayer.