I do think it is a sign of the times. I think we are all under attack spiritually. These estranged children of ours are manifestations of this and the Bible did predict this. We must pray harder than ever, even now when it seems almost impossible. I think that is why Satan is working so hard, to get us so discouraged and beaten down, that we give up.

God is good. The last time I went to Wal-Mart (I only go there every month or so) I was guided/goaded to the book section. A book there seemed almost to scream for my attention, so powerfully I picked it up and put in the shopping cart. The title is: UNSHAKeABLE (Dismantle Satan's Plan To Destroy Your Foundation) by John Eckhardt, publihed by Charisma House.

I have only been able to read it in dribs and drabs, realizing I will have to REread it and underline and make notes, for it is so "meaty". I know I will not plumb the depths of full understanding with one reading, maybe not even with two...I read a little...then mull a lot...the old gal who can usually rip through a book every day or two.

One area the author goes into is how Satan looooooves (for a pure hate creature) to use rejection for our undoing.) As we probably all know, after nurturing and accepting our children for so long there is raw agony for the decades of parental care, concern, support and unconditional love to foster the rejection as if we don't even exist and matter less than strangers on the street.

Is the Lord using it that we might grow? Spend more time in prayer, communing, mining The Word? I spent most of yesterday out in the timber helping my husband (we are both pushing 70). I've always had an amazing sense of humor, sometimes tinged with irony, and I smiled to myself when I thought of John the Revelator in his exile...and consideed fashioning a site-label sign to hang in my kitchen: PATMOS!

Sometimes I wish I weren't of such an analytical mindset, and aware of "cause and effect" and other considerations. So I've researched heavily regarding The Jezebel Syndrome and also people with Leonardo' Brain mindset (8% of the population) and realized that people with the Leonardo's Brain can be viciously, diabolically and brilliantly clever in their mean-ness and have aspects of sociopathic and psychopathic behaviors...but they'll never be hauled off to a psych ward by men in little white coats for them function too well as they leave havoc in their wake.

As I have read some of your family travails, things done to clearly good and godly parents...I've thought, "Ahah! A Jezebel kid" or "Malkicious Narcissistic Brat" and even "Leonardo's Brain used WRONG."

Our parents were not always perfect. But I'd bet WE did not abandon and reject them even if at times some might have rather deserved that. My youngest one times told oldest sister on a diatribe about "honoring parents". Guess our names were a footnote saying we were excluded, LOL.Some of you talk about children have left the faith and flaunt it, but I have a child of seriously strong faith, who happens to be married to a brilliant fellow, a Leonardo's Brain type who is a high earner so they live well but he can fabricate stuff so black becomes white.

But sometimes in Christian publishing over the years I saw some very unChristian behaviors that left me muttering, "God Is GAGGING."

:Listening to good gospel music helps. My esp. favorite, which if you've never heard it, is The Statler Brothers and THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CROSS which I so encourage you to listen to and watch those dear brothers in Christ's faces as they sing this amazing song that so lifts me up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYZ_KHyzAKs

Leonardo' Brain mindset (8% of the population) and realized that people with the Leonardo's Brain can be viciously, diabolically and brilliantly clever in their mean-ness and have aspects of sociopathic and psychopathic behaviors...but they'll never be hauled off to a psych ward by men in little white coats for them function too well as they leave havoc in their wake.

That Description fits my DIL to a tee. and she has destroyed my once loving family. I believe she is possessed of satan himself. and came into our family because we were strong. and only the force of a woman such as Delilah who took samson's strength. only that could take my sons love from me. It is very sad and demonic

I have not been able to find any info on the web about the leonardo's brain mindset....do you have any links about this kind of behavior...thanks

I believe estrangement which is sin is certainly a sign of the times. The enemy wants us destroyed. We need to cling harder onto the Lord.

Those who use their Leonardo's Brain "hardwiring" have odd genius and be used to bless or destroy humanity. It is named after Leonardo DaVinci, an amazing person. I only learned of L-B about two months ago and felt as if I'd been handed a key to major understanding. SOME also call it "Whole Brain Thinking" where a person uses both right brain and left brain thinking en tandem.

They can plot good (or evil!) to an amazing degree and they can twist and manipulate events to make you think you've lost your mind. Were they even on the same planet?? type SMH over how they "testify" to events.

You have a DIL...I have a SIL. I knew when we met and he CHARMED US ALL for one night, and told our daughter how lucky she was to have such a family (blah, blah) and poor him and his miserable upbringing. Later we met his parents, loved them a lot, got along well...so - viola! - those gatherings quickly ended. I think out of his fear that his parents and we might compare notes, hahahaha. After the initial whizzbang meeting he was sulky and petulant and Iprivately began referring to him as Pouty Baby.

Soon he was telling her that she was too close to her family, that wasn't right or normal, esp. her relationship to me, who was not just Mom but FRIEND. Away at college...he hammered away at her and friends of hers were alarmed. He was obsessed with her. I learned they had some vicious fights and regularly broke up. (At that point it was full estrangement after he left horrid messages on the machine) and I did not want her elementry school age sisters tainted. That estrangement was about 2 year and then I "got stupid" one Christmas and made amends deciding SHE had to live with him, not me. They married within the year. About a year and a half later she came home to tell us she was going to divorce him. Like a pedigreed fool I told her she was in the danger years of marriage 2-5-10 7 25 the years I believe statistically most likely to hit the rocks. They stayed together. BUT his brainwashing and manipulation have continued....

I knew he was extremely intelligence, probably literally genius level, has an extremely good job (as does she). Just like water dripping against a rock...yes, indeed, it wears away to make pocks and grooves and he has cleverly spun her growing up as the worst of the worst....to the point I think she now literally believes his version even though in the past her sisters have told her that is NOT how it was.

There's some real irony, too, in that when we were thrown overboard, and through our beloved son in whom we are so pleased, met some of his buddies and soon their children were calling us Grandma and Grandpa...OH MY! When the eldest found out about THAT - hissy fit. She'd have grounded us if she could've. SHE didn't want us...but didn't want others to enjoy us, either.

The Jezebel Syndrome is quite common, and compares Jezebel and her Ahab of old with partnerships of today. Then there is Malignant Narcicisstic Personaltilies (just as a MALIGNANT growth is worse than a run of mill benign tumor or cyst). They are active in a wonderful church does terrific outreach, etc. and are beloved by the old gaffer couples they know in our peer group (who I know must think how well both of them were reared!!!) and WE are pond scum.

When our youngest was in medical school in the city and lived there she/hubs went to that wonderful church and I was invited to a few marvelous events. I loved it - and people I met. The last time was a special Limo Ride and outing for mother's day both girls took me on. Before we set out eldest sidled up and hissed, "Don't be talking to everyone, Mom!" as if I were an embarrassment. I went mute just-like-that. My youngest hadn't a clue....

I came "this close" to snarling, "Lissen, Missy...just WHO was given an airplane ticket, hotel paid, and a fee for keynote speaking at a banquet in Washington DC at the Mayflower Hotel and part of the money I earned sent YOU on a 3 week student trip to Hawaii???" I decided it wasn't worth it. (Now she claims I sent her to Hawaii to try to cause a relationship breakup...Wow.)

My youngest was horrified when we returned to her apartment and she learned why I had become so silent.

Due to reading a lot, analyzing, I know what is at play behind the scenes and I also rather suspect demon influence, too, as Eckhardt above mentions and said Christians can be not possessed but influenced.

The grandsons are delightful, I know they love us, but I'm aware there is a lot of ridiculing and trash-talking regarding us. My SIL;s mother died last winter and the youngest posted RIP, GRANDMA on Facebook which is how the elder one away at camp learned of it, and I will admit I'm human enough to rather relish that HE was really upset and fearful it was ME and not his 85 year old g'ma in the nursing home with Alzhiemer's. Both boys are highly intelligent and maybe one day they will figure it out.

I did tell the eldest grandson that he really needed to research Leonardo's Brain as it'll help him in social discourse figuring out who/what he is dealing with.

One narciccistic Jezebeal/Ahab Whole Brain Thinker smart and devious can have the impact of a huke device dropped into a family.

The Lord's lessons don't come easy...but they SURE DO STICK....I could write an amazing novel starring that kind of twerp as the lead character in a book again but I gave that up a decade ago. Fiction would be preferable to the FACT WE ALL LIVE WITH.

They take responsibiity for nothing. And they are Olympic Quality with blame-game lying accusations.

HERE'S THE LINK to unlock some information. (I was disturbed when I learned Leonardo Da Vinci was homosexual (!!!) but knowing what I do of sexual molestation and his terrible early years and upbringing, 'tis probably no wonder for the poor fellow seemed the boy toy of nasty men who'd have been at home in Sodomj and Gommorah and maybe THAT is why Da Vinci thought so much and lived in his HEAD.

WHOOPSIE!

Link!

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Leonardo%27s+brain+pdf

And The Jezebel Spirit Syndrome. Partway down the page of links is one how to recognize and protect oneself from the Jezzie's. MANY of these are Christian links, BTW.

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=the+jezebel+syndrome

"I am a peacemaker by nature, so believe me, I have tried. I have apologized for some rather cockamamie accusations over the years to try to keep the peace and family together. Interestingly, the apologies never "stick" and the same litany is hauled forth repeatedly and repetitiously making me relate to another scripture, that in Job as Satan shows up to swagger around as the Accuser. Our eldest daughter IS our consanguine family "accuser". It gets tedious."

It is interesting that apologies never stick for someone who is a stalwart Christian. What did you specifically apologize for, and why would you apologize for a cockamamie accusation? What were the cockamamie accusations specifically? If you did apologize and change for something you did do that hurt her, why would it be brought up over and over? If you were sincerely sorry for something you DID do (which I don't hear in this conversation), and the evil daughter did not accept your apology, THEN it is time to brush your shoulder off and walk away, according to scripture.

"Things came to a head again yesterday, blindsided, and my peacemaker daughter was trying to fix a situation I didn't even know was broken again (silly me...rejected and too stupid and busy to KNOW it, LOL...) I suggested she quit trying to fix it...stop putting herself in the middle of it, and it seems she's now irked with me, too. I realize both she and her younger sister have been subjected to tremendous amounts of propaganda.

I told her I relate to the scripture of family at serious odds, one from the other, it was warned in scripture and "no footnote" of 'Christian families excluded' and my opinion than the Evil One attacks Christian families the hardest."

It DOES sound like they have been subjected to tremendous amounts of propaganda. It sounds like your daughters can think for themselves and are not just a bunch of fools being influenced by "evil" just because there are mysterious "reasons" which are unnamed floating around. It sounds like you don't need to wait until you die to be at peace when you could use the resources that are available in this day and age, self-reflect, and offer REAL reflection and apologies for things that seem very upsetting to your daughter, the one you are calling the devil.

Cockamamie? This 40+ year old girl now saying she was STARVED as a child and went hungry all the time.
We have a huge garden, raise our own organic chicken,beef/.hogs and always have. I've baked bread since I was 9 years old. Kids used to say they could smell fresh bread getting off the school bus 75 yards down the lane and knew it'd be warm with butter waiting.

The younger brother and sisters screamed with laughter when she accused us of starving her. They thought she was kidding (as she's always had to watch her weight as an adult.) I had many people suggest I open a restaurant and I told 'em that'd be "worse than a herd of dairy cows had to be milked".

She also accuses I made her wear "too small shoes" and caused ingrown toenails. Again, not true.

BTW I have NOT bothered to apologize for that patently untrue stuff. But she STILL whines about how her husband of 20 year "feels so bad" over how he was treated. (I guess SHE told him the things I told her wear deficits).

When they were dating his dream was to have his mug on the face of TIME Magazine for acumen as "a corporate raider". Well, I've always read in THAT area, too, and remember the BCCI debacle, Michael Milliken and his Junk Bond Mayhem...and when she told me THAT was his "goal" I told her being known as a corporate raider was NOT something to aspire to nor be proud of doing to impoverish others.

We have been lousy grandparents, too, dontcha know, and I have apologized basically that they
FEEL that way. AND I have apologized for my husband really yelling at them when they g'kids drove two ATVs through his newly planted/sprouted garden. I was furious (but no one here but my husband to hear me explode) when they'd been in an outbuilding and gone through plastic storage boxes (WITH their father) and tossed stuff onto the dirt floor for me to find. We had a shooting range set up, with a special target thingie my husband bought...and he and I discovered that father/sons had gone and gotten some 1/2 gallon glass milk jugs and used THOSE for targets. Crumpled glass down into the winter dead soil we got to pick up.

I guess it sounds like I did nothing but door mat apologize. That's not accurate. I am at the point where I've cut my losses...have little contact...and she wants to "confront" me all the time. Any ill done by anyone in the family (including siblings) and she's torqued off and wanting to "confront".

She's NOT a devil...She has strong Christian principles and is beloved in her church and is KIND to others, although my youngest did tell me she once got angry at a closes friend with whom they even take lovely trips and kids are best friends, and THAT poor woman had to grovel almost ENDLESSLY to be allowed back in. (No doubt that woman walks on eggshells now.)

Our daughter who lived in the city going to medical school told me a lot about the relationships over there...Now the youngest is back in this state (eldest sister was FURIOUS she took a job 75 miles from us and for $25,000 more per year) and this youngest child sees the games played and does NOT want ib the middle of it to which she and I agree. We don't discuss the insanity.

The middle child two States east tries to fix stuff and is in way more contact with Big Sis. Last winter our SIL's mother died. WE were not told until the younger daughters informed us. We soooo liked (and pitied his parents - his brothers have nothing to do with him/them we realize for good reason.( BUT had we known in time we would have gone to pay respects and be there for the grandsons.

I got a call on Monday with my Kentucky Kid asking had I heard from or talked to eldest daughter. No. Why? "I think you should contact her, Mom..." Why?

Turns out the SIL was in a bad ATV accident, knocked cuckoo, lacerations, contusions, bruises, broken shoulder, broken wrist. A day after it happened she texted her sisters. The youngest, not playing the game didn't telll me. The Fixer in KY insisted I contact Big Sis. So I sent a quick email praying for rapid recovery (and I( AM) .

It has NOT been acknowledged.

Now the Fixer Kid is furious with me, because I suggested that since I am so clearly and purposely left out of the loop all the time, not worth contacting, that it is a "game" being played - telling her sisters and KNOWing they will tell ME...and then I can know that I'm not diddlysquat to them.

Noiw...keep this in mind....she probably thinks I should apologize for not going to a funeral I didn't know about, LOL, and being an "uncaring MIL" over an accident I found out about belatedly. Will. Not. Happen.

THESE games have gone on endlessly and for years. And I figure they both really, really get off on the prayer circle/worship group meets in their home once week yada-yadaing about the nasty horrible parents they both had....telling it to people in our age bracket who no doubt ADORE them both to the point they'd adopt them in a heartbeat;.

As for the ATV accident. Thankfully, it was on an ATV he bought. One Christmas I gave my other two
SILs who couldn't be more my SONS if I had given birth to them...each one of the ATVs. Both are trained mechanics and machinests who can keep the ATVs running. One was a RACING bike, powerful. The other two SILs experienced. NO WAY gonna have grandsons on a racing ATV that could go 70 mph.

So what did I get snarled at over that Christmas (which got shredded after enjoying the other SILs happiness) I got to hear that Pouty Baby was "hurt" that I hadn't SOLD him the ATVs. (He'd never mentioned wanting them - talked about getting his own.) But I was a battleaxe SHREW and "hurt" him.

Little matter he got one of my husband's firearms and a family heirloom watch she promptly took to a jewelers to find out it was worth $2000.

God IS Good. On that Racing Bike he probably wouldn't have been bunged up - probably KILLED and that could've been pinned on me, too.

I heard him badmouth his parents, dislike his brothers (they had it so good , he did not...blech!) and she has made nasty remarks about her sibling (which I haven't told them hurtful as it'd be.) I have HAD uit.

I have decided: I'm not doing Christmas this year. Not after last year and plans made for here...and then two weeks before she calls KY sis and tells her Pouty Baby would really like to spend Christmas
Eve and Christmas in Kentucky. Everyone else has scheduled to come after work (Deputy and EMT wife) so the Problem Couple bollixed it up for everyone.

Yet...I/we are the problem?

My husband took us all out to favorite restaurant a week later. No such consolation this year.

I know they trash-talk us to the grandsons...who I know love/respect us, actually (and amazingly) and (I have muttered that WHAT an EXAMPLE they are setting. That "Children Learn What They Live" poem new parents often get in the hospital pack. The way HIS parents have been maligned, and us, too....they may be programming their sons to one day walk away from them and never look back.

I DO hope if the boys are around during their worship circle meetings at their home that they have some old fogies who ADORE the boys and are GREAT surrogate grandparents.

Wow. I'm sorry you're going through so much turmoil. The thing is, everyone's perceptions are valid. But they are all perceptions and there is truth, as well as assumption, in all of it. It sounds like you are really focused on this one daughter who is the scapegoat. For example:

"THESE games have gone on endlessly and for years. And I figure they both really, really get off on the prayer circle/worship group meets in their home once week yada-yadaing about the nasty horrible parents they both had....telling it to people in our age bracket who no doubt ADORE them both to the point they'd adopt them in a heartbeat;."

You don't know this. This sounds like projection. (You are a player in the game too, otherwise it wouldn't be a thing.) By "getting off on" do you mean getting narcissistic supply? If they are indeed talking about these things in a group gathering where they are supposed to be growing in their knowledge of the love of God and fellowship with other Christ-followers, do you truly think this is going to be the focus of discussion? Would the others not redirect it if it was?

Everyone has a right to their opinions, where they want to spend holidays, who they want to be with, if they feel hungry or not, if their shoes were tight, if they want to fling themselves off a cliff on an ATV going 70 miles per hour, hang on to a family heirloom or not, etc etc. Telling them they are wrong for feeling what they feel is not going to attract them to you. Do you want them to just feel obligated to be with you? Respect you just for the sake of "respecting their elders?"

If they DO trash talk you to their kids, I would be willing to bet those kids are smart enough to see through that and will one day make their own choices based on their relationship with you, or that they want to have with you, not based on their parents ' words..

Clarify: I do NOT tell them they are wrong; apparently like the old timers here (and you're a day younger than I am on this site, LOL) I go out of my way to avoid contact. They can come around here, everything is cordial (except running the RTVs through the new garden AND taking a steel fence post and shoving it in the bee hive that save visit and tipping the hive off its platform...) it seems to begin well/ go well/ end well....(which IS why we now try for neutral stuff...like restaurants.) Until LATER when the goofy accusations begin.

Interesting you consider this child a scapegoat. May YOU never get treated like this yo-seff, m'dear,

And yes, I do think the maturing young boys who've outgrown some or the horrors are sharp enough to see upon which side of the bread the butter is annealed.

I live my live now quietly....very quietly....choosing to live like a Fugitive From INjustice.

We have around 200 head of sheep...raising sheep has taught me SO MUCH about what the Lord has to say about sheep, lookiing for lost lambies, rejoicing when found all alone several acres away from the flock in the upper barnlot pasture, down where ravening coyotes would come forth in an hour or two.

We had a smelling billy boat once (they stink because they urinate in their beards!) and some wiseacre dropped him off in our pasture to have a kind home and he died of old age. Even HE wasn't given scapegoat treatment.....

I'm sorry, I forgot to add something I was thinking about...several people have said they majority of people on here have no idea why their child is estranged.

If they have not talked to you about it, do they feel safe talking to you? Have you dismissed their perceptions as inaccurate? Do you switch the subject from them back to you when they try to talk to you? Have you told them what to think, believe and how to feel, or what they think, feel and believe?

There are lots of reasons why someone would not tell someone their feelings, none of them good. Of course, maybe they are just evil and that is that. And if that is so, WHY would that be? All just evil forces at play?

You have gotten out of line, discerner. We know the truth but more importantly God knows the truth of estrangement. We only answer to Him. In most of our cases our EC do not want a relationship with their parents. We can not force one. We do not control another. Many of our EC have others in their lives who are controlling them. You clearly are not an estranged parent and do not know this pain. Maybe one day you will. Then you will see that you can not make sense of the senseless.

Somehow this comment got added to this thread when it was meant for the one that apparently has gotten deleted. My comments were not out of line or off topic, so I guess the "powers that be" decided they didn't like anyone asking questions. It doesn't make as much sense in this context but still a relevant question.

I am simply open to hearing how an estranged parent, who is wishing things were different, might go about thinking it through and making changes. Apparently my question-asking is a BIG no-no according to those on this site. Which based on the responses, makes sense.