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,...

561 Members

3,756 Posts

0 Online

MariaStevie 10/01/2011

My sister finally responded to my EC's request to co-sign a loan for school. She responded with love and wisdom, but said no. I was feeling guilty, restless and like I should do something, anything to help my EC with the tuition situation even though my EC did not ask me for help. My mother's heart went out to my EC and as usual I wanted to "fix" it and to show my EC that I am worthy of love. I held back and turned this over to God.

So now I have a new prayer:

God grow in my child's heart the spirit of thankfullness
Teach my child to have compassion for others and not to be self-centered
Give my child wisdom to spend money wisely and let my child learn the value of hard work
Bring my child to a place of repentence
Lead my child back to the family who loves him and lead my child away from evil influences
Show my child that love means more than money
Raise my child up to depend on you and turn to you
Teach me to respond lovingly and wisely when my child does contact me and give me the strength to say no when I need to.
Help me to turn my child over to you each day and trust that you will restore us.
Amen

BlazeStar18 10/01/2011

EXCELLENT!!!
Your doing the right thing here! No fixing! Many of us have fixed it and it got us nowhere!

If you start to weaken in the fix it area, remind yourself of the long term goal you have for your son. It will be much more rewarding than money!

Lots of Hugs to ya,
Pearl

Hope4Roses 10/01/2011

Love your prayer, Maria. I am inspired to write a prayer for my daughter and grandchildren!

Thanks for sharing!

Donna

GuelsMom 10/01/2011

Maria.... I think you made the right decision to not jump in without him asking for help with tuition. Hopefully, he will realize that others (like your sister) DO care enough about him to let him suffer the consequences for his actions. By her saying "no" she showed a huge amount respect for you also. Perhaps the Good Lord will use this to humble him enough to think about what he is doing to himself and to those who care about him.

I love your prayer and think I will alter it somewhat to fit my son and DIL.

Hugs and Peace to you tonight!

deleted_user 10/01/2011

This is a wonderful prayer and I congratulate your being able to write it. I have decided today to live in hope instead of dispair. The best way to do this is to turn it all over to God which I haven't been able to do yet. However, I will now write a prayer similar to yours and keep it with me. When I start feeling low which is about every minute I'm awake, I can look at the prayer and hopefully God will get me through this. Thanks.

MariaStevie 10/03/2011

So glad my prayer helped all of you and we are here to encourage and pray for each other. It sure isn't easy to not want to step in and Fix or Rescue, but I know the more loving thing to do is to let them learn responsibility.

OverAndOut2 10/05/2011

MariaStevie, thank you for sharing that prayer. It struck me as a really good idea - to focus prayer that way and have it handy to reference thoughout the day. I think I'm going to try that as well.

The tendency to "fix it" or to show ourselves "worthy of love" (as you put it) is one that I'm struggling with right now also. My ED needs just about everything for a baby-to-be due in December. I've picked up tons of stuff at garage sales over the summer, but have only made one trip to drop off a few things early in the season. So I guess I'm "dangling" these items out there, hoping on some level that she'll ask for them and appreciate me. Really stinky thinking on my part. Our last conversation was on Friday when I called her because I was sure we had hit the end of the road....yet again. (She had been contacting her birth family, blocked me on FB, and hadn't heard from her in a while.) Anyway, I was asking her what she still needed for the baby and also telling her which items I had already bought, when she mentioned that she needed fingernail clippers! I then spouted off in a sarcastic tone about how perhaps she and her husband could actually acquire some of the things they needed for this baby they were bringing into the world instead of expecting everybody else to buy every little thing for them. Martyrdom at its best. So, the morale is that if I'm going to be helping/fixing/giving, it needs to be with a cheerful and loving heart and I'm obviously just not there yet.

We need to look at our motives before helping and then wait on the Lord to direct us, which I am only doing in a roller coaster fashion.

Maria, it sounds like you are on the right track and your prayer shows a lot of love and wisdom. Your EC will benefit from that someday when the evil veil of estrangement is lifted.

deleted_user 10/05/2011

I really liked this prayer as well as it speaks perfectly to my situation. Thanks

deleted_user 10/05/2011

This is so new to me. We did everything for our ES and now how I wish I had been tougher and said no to many things. He took everything for granted, never grateful and now his girlfriend who hates us has control of his life. I never thought my son would turn on us. This prayer helps so much. Thank you.

GuelsMom 10/07/2011

ersloveu, I too never thought my son would turn on us, yet he did when he got married. Right now your son is not married. That is a good thing I think. Once they get married, if that wife wants no part of his parents, the son will most likely go along with it to keep peace in the family. Honor thy father and thy mother goes out the window.

How old is your son now?

Join the Conversation