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8/3/2019 Hope for Parents of Troubled Teens
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8/3/2019 Hope for Parents of Troubled Teens
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7
Contents
Itroducto: What Ca You Do? 11
1. Where Dd Ths Kd Come From, Ayway? 15
2. Gettg to Kow Your Adolescet 33
3. Moms ad Dads, Husbads ad Wes 52
4. What Parets Need s. What Kds Need Equals
Coct 69
5. Lste Here! Or Lste, Hear 85
6. Peer Pressure Goes Two Ways 101
7. Kds Need Somethg to Do 112
8. Tees ad the Uatural Hgh 133
9. The Lure o Sex 150
10. Rebello ad Ruaways 171
11. Hae We Doe Aythg Rght? 189
12. Keepg It Together Whe It Gets Bad 200
Reereces 213
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1
Where Did This KidCome From, Anyway?
We were drg to churchust my husbad ad I. S-
lently. Finally, I said, Hae we been too hard? Toostrict? Too unbending? Maybe we should hae gien
in more, let him do some things een i we werent comortable
wth them.
More silence. Then my husband replied, He did eerything
he wated to dowhether we OKd t or ot. Loo where t got
him. What else could we hae done? What could we hae done
dferetly ad stll bee true to our coctos?
More silence. We were both thining. Wondering. Stee was
sae or the momet the couty al. It was amazg how the
worries lited when we knew where he was and that he couldnt get
to more troubleor the tme beg. He was remorseul. Aga.
This was the third, or was it the ourth time he was incarcerated?
The rst tmes had bee to uele deteto. We celebrated hs
eghteeth brthday a ty room uele hallad the they
moed hm across the street to the couty al.We were the ones responsible or his rst arrest. Ater seeral
incidents, promises made and broen, we went to the uenile
authorities and ased them to help us. They did. They arrested
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hm ad coed hm. He was agry. The mute he got out, o
probato wth all ds o restrctos, he was of to be wth hs
riendsthe same ones he was getting into trouble with. Thent was oly a matter o tme beore he was pced up agaor
possesso o maruaa.
Stee had wrtte checs o our amlys meager ba accout.
Hed pawed amly tems. Hed borrowed hs athers truc to
run around in when he was supposed to be in school. He didnt
hae a lcese. Hs ather taught the uor hgh school across
the street rom the hgh school. May tmes he let at the ed o
the day thg he had pared hs truc oe place ad oud
t aother. Shag hs head, he blew t of to poor memory.
Then there was the day when he pulled into a neighborhood
gas stato to ll up the ta. Ma, your truc must really bur
up the gas. Your so was ust here ad lled t.
We had prayed that he would ot get away wth aythgad
God honored our prayer. At one point we sat in the oce o the
probato ocer (PO) wth our so, hopg to d a way to stopthis rush to destruction. He was in big trouble now. The PO was
giing him the opportunity to coness to eerything he had eer
doe, or mmuty. Our so looed at us ad wth a solem shae
o his head, said, They now everything I hae eer done; and
the to us, Hae I mssed aythg? We ddt th so. God was
aithul, and we made sure our son and the probation ocer knew it.
Out o al oce aga, we helped hm get a ob. We let hm be
home aga, as he earestly attempted to get hs le o trac. But
the temptations were too great, the will too weak, and he was back
trouble aga.
Thansgiing Ee, middle o the night, we receied a phone
call rom the sherfs oce. He had bee arrested, oce aga, or
possesso o maruaa. We were expectg a houseul o amly
and riends or Thanksgiving dinner. We were heartbroken, embar-
rassed, rghteed, ad we stll had to eterta.It was hard to tell the amily again. Eeryone had hoped and
prayed he was ally o the way to gettg t together. We eared
dferetly, but stll we hoped. Stll we prayed, Whateer t taes.
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So here we were.
The last time we had been in court with our son, the udge
had sad he ddt eer wat to see hm aga beore hs des. Hemade t clear that there was a ext tme, he would go away or
a log tme.
Our son had had a three-year history o orging checs, auto
thet, rug awayall crmes wth the amly. We could hae
oerlooed them. We could hae excused them. We could hae
threatened and required restitution. In act, we did all o those
thgs. Nothg made a dferece. We wet to the authortes or
backup, to orce him into complianceand now he was acing real
prso tme. We were earul. We were remorseul. We wodered
our rghteousess had codemed our so to mprsomet
wth elos, murderers, ad rapsts. What had we doe?
Hope Becomes Reality
Today, Stee has bee marred more tha twety-e years ad s
the ather o two grow chldre. He has bee a successul bus-
nessman, an entrepreneur, a planner, and a developer. He is a good
man. He honors his ather and his mother and appreciates his
siblings and extended amily. Lie has not always been easy. He
leared hs rst trade whle a e-moth drug treatmet pro-
gramthe alterate to prso tme. We hred a lawyer who ery
drectly put t to Stee: prso or treatmet program. You choose.He chose the treatmet program wth o hope that t would mae
a dferece or hm.
We were so earul he would bolt aga that we pced hm up
at the couty alhouse door, loced hm the bacseat o the car
(chld locs!), held oto hm rom both sdes whle we stopped at
the local musc store to buy hm a gutar (Chrstmas preset), ad
three hours later, delivered him into the hands o the intake personat the treatmet ceter. He ew he was ree to leae at ay tme,
but the momet he would do so, a all-pots bullet would be
ssued or hs arrest, ad hs ext stop would be prso. He stayed.
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Two wees ater eterg the program, they allowed hm to call
homeourChrstmas preset. Mom, Dad, I wat you to ow
Ie turned my lie oer to Christ. Im going to mae it. Ill stayhere as log as t taes. It too e moths.
ur Children re Unique
Sometmes le seems so uar. Just about the tme we eel we are
getting it all together, along comes a precious little bundle o
joy and energy who doesnt necessarily live up to our expectations.I we already hae a child who is totally delightul (yes, they do
exist!), the shock may be doubly staggering. And then we compare
ourselves to that perect amily who has only happy, manageable
chldreor at least appears to. Ad we woder.
It would be wonderul i all newborns were indeed a tabula
rasa, as Joh Loce suggested bac the 1600sa bla sheet o
paper, upo whch experece wrtes. We could be perect parets,
mprtg oly the best thgs o our chldres absorbet lttle
minds, and they would all turn out wonderully well. Or would
they? What a burde to put upo the parets o the world!
No, God had a dferet pla. Each o our chldre s bor wth
a unique and many-aceted personality. Dr. James Dobson o Focus
o the Famly sad t ths way: Just as surely as some chldre are
aturally complat, there are others who seem to be deat upo
exit rom the womb. They come into the world smoing a cigarand yelling about the temperature in the deliery room and the
competece o the ursg staf. They expect meals to be sered
the stat they are ordered, ad they demad eery momet o
mothers tme.1
Most parents o more than one child are well aware o their
childrens temperament diferencesespecially the diferences that
are annoying or that cause amily disturbances. But sometimes,
the daless o lg, we lose sght o the ddualty o the
1. James Dobson, The New Strong-Willed Child (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House,1972).
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child. We nd ourselves ghting with behaviors that might represent
some specal character trat that eeds to be recogzed ad deel-
oped to a stregth. I the mmature expresso o that trat, wed ourseles rrtated ad rustrated, so stead o aalyzg the
temperamet o the chld, we beg to ll somethg that mght
be qute mportat years to come.
Dr. Roger Wllams commeted hs boo You Are Extraor-
dinary o a study that was doe by the Meger Foudato.2
Oe hudred twety-eght babes were obsered rom oe moth
o age utl almost eght moths o age. Eerythg about them
was watched careully, rom diaper habits to eeding, sleeping,
playing, crying, bathing. Mared personality diferences showed
up as soon as they could be obsered. Some babies were bold.
Others were shy. Some reacted quicly to stimuli. Others didnt
ee seem to otce. Some could tolerate teso ad rustrato.
Others ell apart. These were all babies considered normal in
eery sese o the word.
This distinctiveness, this uniqueness o the individual stays witheach o our children as they mature. In spite o the act that we
mae bold attempts to mold them to a partcular patter o our
choice and conenience, they remain who they are. Maybe i
we could recogze who they are whe they are small, we mght
aod certa problems whe they are bgger.
Training Our Children, for Better or Worse
May parets quote Proerbs 22:6 to assure themseles that
they teach their children Christian ways, they will eventually come
bac to their early training. But this Scripture can also be taen
as a warning: Train up a child in the way he should go [and in
keeping with his individual git or bent], and when he is old he will
ot depart rom t. Ths mples that we are careul to dscoer
the uqueess that les wth our chld ad use that ddualty
2. Roger Wllams, You Are Extraordinary (New Yor: Pyramd Publcatos,1976).
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as a tool in our parenting, we will mae a considerable positie
mpact o our chlds le.
O the other had, we ca tra our chldre negatively as well.I we eglect to tra careully, cosderg the ddual eeds o
a particular youngster, we will unintentionally train them to go
the wrog way. The mpact o ths d o trag may reach us
whe our chldre reach adolescece.
Psalm 139:1318 describes the beauty o our individuality beore
God. The psalmist praises God or the earul and awesome wonder
o his birth. He speaks o being intricately and curiously wrought
[as embrodered wth arous colors] (. 15). He marels at the
revelation that Gods eyes saw his unormed substance, and in Your
boo all the days [o my le] were wrtte beore eer they too
shape, whe as yet there was oe o them (. 16). He woders
at the umerable thoughts o God toward hm, ad reels the
owledge that God loes hm.
I the wsdom o God, each o our chldre has bee bor wth
a special capacity to loe and sere God, and has been gien theuqueess o temperamet to do the ob well.
As parets, we ote despar at the wlluless, the cocess,
the deceitulness, the rebellious-type spirit we hae seen in cer-
ta o our chldre. But maybe we hae msterpreted ad ms-
hadled a depedet, create, potetal leader by our lac o
uderstadg.
Aother questo parets ote as s how these ds ca be so
diferent when weve raised them basically the same way. Given the
extraordary dfereces we d chldre, t s o woder they
do ot, caot, respod to smlar crcumstaces smlar ways.
Each brings his own distinctie interpretation to lie situations
ad to hs ow uque eeds. How each chld percees hs wats
beg met wll hae a maor efect o hs uderstadg o hs le.
Individualized Spaces
I addto to bor persoalty trats, each chld has certa
specic adustments to mae as a direct result o his particular
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situation. Birth order in the amily, genders o siblings, the number
o children in the amily, the multiple complexities o relationships
between parents and childrenall give each child a very individual-zed space wth the amly ut.
Also, parets chage. Famly structures chage. Eromets
chage. Sometmes amles chage drastcally cases o separa-
to, dorce, or death. All o these hae a drect uece o each
o the children in our homebut the message o that inuence
may be dferet or each chld.
Stages of Child Growth and Development
Just as each o our chldre s dferet rom the others, so he
s, paradoxcally, ery much the same hs stages o growg up.
A quic course in Child Growth and Deelopment might loo
somethg le ths:3
BABIES . . . Beautul . . . Bawlg
ONES . . . Wsome . . . Warrg
TWOS . . . Teder . . . Terrble
THREES . . . Trustg . . . Tryg
FOURS . . . Fu . . . Fearul
FIVES . . . Fabulous . . . Fghtg
SIX . . . Seste . . . Sluggg
SEVEN . . . Serous . . . Sour
EIGHT . . . Acte . . . Achg
NINE . . . Nce . . . Naughty
TEN . . . Terrc . . . Tempestuous
ELEVEN . . . Eolg . . . Escapg
TWELVE . . . Tatalzg . . . Troubled
TEENS . . . Terrc . . . TERRIFYING!
Some children seem to always be on the good side o the
diagram, with maybe an occasional slip over to the not-so-good.
3. Chart adapted rom Fraces L. Ilg ad Louse Bates Ames, The Gesell In-stitutes Child Behavior: From Birth to Ten (New Yor: Harper & Row, 1955).
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Others neer seem to leae the ar right, and their parents are
always coping with behavior that leaves them exhausted both men-
tally ad physcally, but especally emotoally. Stll other chldremoe bac and orth between easy-to-lie-with and hard-to-
le-wth relately smoothly.
Each o these oe-word descrptos s a oergeeralzato,
but it represents realistic and normal behavior or these general age
categores. Wth these categores, chldre respod to le ad to
circumstances depending upon their individual temperament, their
ow partcular patter o growth ad geeral deelopmetad
ee the tme o day!
Parenting Styles
An equally important actor that inuences our childrens deci-
sions and attitudes is the philosophy o child-rearing that each
paret, ddually, brgs to the amly. Most parets tra therchldre a way that seems comortable to them. I the mdst o
much cousg ad ee cotradctg adce rom the experts
(ad ot-so-expert), most mothers ad athers stll deelop ther
ow way o dealg wth ther chldre. They may completely ac-
cept the way they were rased ad ollow through wth ther ow
children. Or they may completely reect their parents practices,
or all somewhere in between. Whateer they end up doing, the
style o paretg that emerges wll hae a strog uece o thedeelopmet o each o ther chldre.
Four geeral styles o paretg hae bee obsered, wth each
style uecg chldre specc ways.
The Authoritarianparent is one who demands complete con-
trol oer hs chld. Whle they may usty ths approach arous
ways, the underlying motivation is oten a desire to control, or ear
that something will happen to the child, or the belie that the childis incapable o taking care o himsel. The child oten responds with
what appears to be a deal ature. He s obedet, well-behaed,
and easy to get along with. But oten there is an unnoticed volcano
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growg beeath the surace because the chld may ot be allowed
to express hmsel or grow aturally to a depedet perso.
His good behaior may be caused by ear. This child may beginto mae hs ow decsos as soo as he realzes hs parets cat
control him anymore. And his dependency on others to make deci-
sos or hm could put hm stuatos where he wll go alog
wth the crowd rather tha use good udgmet.
The Autocratic paret s smlar to the authortara paret,
but s characterzed by a more mpatet ad demadg atttude.
Its the Do t yesterday approach pared wth cosderate ad
inconsistent parental control. Moties are oten selsh and sel-
cetered, expectg much but gg lttle to help the chld grow to
independence. The child may respond with submissive behavior, but
ot wthout a ght. He ote loos sulle or moroseot a ery
pleasat persoalty to be aroud. He may ee deelop erous
tcs or eurotc behaor ad may be depedet o someoe else
to ru hs le. Whe he gets old eough, he may d ery specc
ways to assert hs mmature depedece ad tetoally hurtor embarrass hs parets.
The Indiferent paret s ot ge ths label because o a lac
o loe or hs chld. Ths paret may deed care ad be cocered
or his childs welare, but is so preoccupied with his own lie pursuits
that he has lttle tme or eergy to ge to hs growg ofsprg. He
allows the child much reedom and little restraint. He gies little
afecto or sgs o carg. Or, he perodcally shows a lot o at-
teto ad the wthdraws aga to hs ow terests. The chld
almost appears to be rasg hmsel. Depedg o the qualty o
the environment he is living in at school, church, and home, and the
character o other sgcat persos hs le, he may get alog
quite well. But oten there is an underlying eeling o resentment
and anger toward any proposed authority over his lieschool, the
law, ayoe superso oer hm. He may be argumetate, a
ghter, a poor studet, rebellous. I he doest hae someoe his lie he can relate to in a positive way, he may become delinquent.
The Democratic paret loos good o paper. Mom ad Dad
are willing to listen and discuss problems. They encourage the child
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to express hs eelgs about amly relatoshps. They accept the
chlds rght to mae decsos about matters that ole hm ad
trust him to make good judgments about his personal behavior. Thechild is usually riendly, basically cooperative, expressive, lled with
good deas, ad motated to do ad to be. He s wllg to ace
ew challeges ad ee loos or them. Howeer, the democratc
parents who do not combine democracy with a clear understanding
o a childs immaturity and the need or a certain degree o parental
authority, could hae trouble maintaining their own preerences
regardg ther chlds acttes through the tee years.
It is important that there is a good balance between control and
autoomy, betwee warmth ad a lac o cocer, or the chld to
be balaced hs approach to le.
Obously, the most efecte style o paretg s oe that helps
ree each ddual chld to become hs ow best perso. At rst
t may seem smple to aalyze ad adust a paretg style to our
childrens adantage. Howeer, theres a catch! Parents are also
caught the bd o ther own persohood, ther relatoshp tooe aother the marrage, ad to possble cotradctos ph-
losophies o discipline and child-rearing. In addition, the individual
temperaments o our children cause us to react in diferent ways. We
may use dferet patters o paretg wth each o our chldre.
Perhaps the greatest reaso to be aware o paretg styles s to
help us analyze our responses to each o our children, individually,
and to discover how we may have been using a mode o interaction
wth oe or seeral o our chldre that has ot oly bee efec-
te, but may hae cotrbuted to some o our problems. Itisnever
toolate to mae chages. Especally we ca commucate our
lac o uderstadg to that partcular chld, as hs orgeess,
ad mae a ew start.
Scriptural dvice for Raising ur Children
The Scrptures ge may suggestos or chld-rearg. Uortu-
ately, some parets hae msuderstood what they hae read or
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bee told, ad hae doe damage to ther chldres psyche the
process. Some portos o bblcal truth, tae out o cotext or
wthout regard to othertruths, ca be msleadg.For example, one dicult passage o Scripture is Proverbs 23:1314:
Do ot wthhold dscple rom a chld; you push them wth
the rod, they wll ot de. Push them wth the rod ad sae them
rom death (niv). Some well-meag but ll-ormed parets hae
actually made a parental practice o whipping their children regularly
or the most minor o inractions because they earnestly beliee it
s Gods wll. These same parets are dsmayed whe ther chldre
ally grow old eough to ght bac whateer way they ca.
We ca d the real meag o that partcular scrptural ad-
monition when we read the context. The reluctant, or detached,
parent is admonished not to withhold discipline rom the child.
The parent has not been doing his job, and while discipline implies
trag ad a correcto o steps, t also mples that pushmet
may sometimes be necessary. The rod the passage reers to is
the reed-lie grass ound so abundantly in the marshy places oPaleste. Le gradmothers gree stc, t could ge a stg-
ing reminder without bruising the body. Parents need to know that
sometimes loving our children means giving them temporary pain.
They also need to now and understand the diference between
a log step o correcto ad the harsh, emotoal, udgmetal
brusg o the body and the sprt.
The Gift of the Parents Faith
The most precous gt we ca ge our chldre s that o our-
seles ad our tme. I Deuteroomy 6:59, God ges parets the
ormula or rasg chldre who wll be most lely to accept ther
parets ath. You (mom and dad) shall loe the Lord your God
wth all your [md ad] heart. . . . Ad these words . . . shall be
[rst] your [ow] mds ad hearts; [the] you shall whet adsharpen them so as to make them penetrate, and teach and impress
them dlgetly upo the [mds ad] hearts o your chldre (.
57, talcs added).
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How do we whet and sharpen the words o aith and belie in
God so as to make them penetrate into the depths o our childrens
hearts? The words whet ad sharpen hae some ery appropratemeags. Whet, amog other thgs, meas to stmulate the ap-
pette. It meas to mae our chldre wat what we hae. It also
means to kindle or to quickento stir up action o some sort.
Faith causes us to act in response to the truths we believe. The word
sharpen challeges us to be clear ad dstct the example we
set beore our chldreto be ee, eager, wde-awae, watchul,
ad glat the ways we relate to our amly.
It appears that our ath God, as parets, must be more tha
a hand-me-down. It must be actie. But our actions must hae
words to go with them, because the next words in Deuteronomy
tell us that we must tal o them whe you st your house ad
whe you wal by the way, ad whe you le dow ad whe you
rse up (. 7). Furthermore, our ath ad bele must be obous
to all: Bd them as a sg upo your had, ad they shall be as
rotlets (orehead bads) betwee your eyes. Ad you shall wrtethem upon the doorposts o your house and on your gates (vv. 89).
Answering to God
But ee the there are o guaratees. Deuteroomy goes o to
gie the warning: Then beware lest you orget the Lord (6:12).
There are many Scriptures that give warning to willul and rebellious
chldre. God, Hs te loe ad sese o ar play, has geeach o us the power o choicethe choice to love and serve Him, or
not. We must recogze ad accept the act that our chldre hae a
choice as well. They will, each one individually, leave the comortable
place o paretal authorty ad stad beore God, aloe, to mae
that decso. Our ob as parets s ot oly to help them progress
toward Hm but also to aod hindering them rom establshg a
oe-o-oe relatoshp wth Chrst as ther Lord ad Saor.Fathers, do ot rrtate ad prooe your chldre to ager [do
not exasperate them to resentment], but rear them [tenderly] in
the trag ad dscple ad the cousel ad admoto o the
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Lord (Ephesas 6:4). (That goes or mothers, too.) Oh that we
could all maage to daly le that Scrpture our relatoshps
wth our chldre! But we are also huma. We hae our bad daysad good days. Ad some o those days are hard o our chldre.
Going Beyond the Parenting Verses
As parets, we must realze that all o Scrpture s our source o
le ad cousel. Too ote, we al to uderstad that what Gods
Word says to us about relatoshps geeral also apples to our
children. For example, we could paraphrase Matthew 5:2324:
Whe you come to church ad remember that your chld has ay
grieance against you, leavethechurch and go mae peace with
your child! Then come back to church and present yoursel to God.
Matthew 18:15, paraphrased, might read: I your child wrongs
you, show hm hs ault, betweenyouandhimalone.
Wse paretg s may thgs. But perhaps most mportat, t
s a sprt o humlty. We must be ready to admt our ow short-comgs to our chldre. We eed to as ther orgeess whe t
is called or. We must be real people in all things. We must be ready
to orgive our child, even i that child is not asking our orgiveness.
Our children need many things rom us. They need our loe,
our acceptace, our careul dscple, ad our orgeess. Each
o our chldre s a specal gt rom God. The gt eeds a lot o
tender caresometimes more than we are prepared to give because
o our ow umet eeds ad dececes character.
Parent Pain
Sometimes we wonder: Why this child? Why me, Lord? We truly
tried, but we just couldnt make it work. Maybe God made a mistake.
Maybe we made a mistake. This child should never have been born.Years ago, I sat in a group o people and cried inside when I
heard a mother say, We went through hell or eight years. The
oly rele we got was whe he ded.
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Parents o wayward children oten acillate between wishing
ther chld out o ther les ad earg he wll leae them. There
s o rele, oly momets less paul tha others.We do ask the question Why? many times over. Sometimes we
th we ow why, whch usually becomes gult oer some small,
or large, thg we remember we dd to that chld the process o
hs growg up. There are o easy huma aswers to the why. But
there s a aswer rom God.
God Has a Plan
The Scrptures remd us oer ad oer that God s charge.
May parets ca quote Romas 8:28 (kjv)Ad we ow that
all things wor together or good . . .and do it requently in
the mdst o ther troubles. But solatg that partcular erse o
Scrpture, we mss the teded message. Yes, all thgs do wor
together or our good the oerall prodetal pla o God; ad
all thgs that happe our les are ttg to a pla that God
ordaed beore the oudato o the earth. But what we mss s
that in the woring out o that plan, the good is or us to be
molded into the ery image and character o Jesus Christto
share inwardly His lieness. That conrmation comes or us in
erse 29: For whom he did orenow, he also did predestinate
to be conormed to the image o his Son, that he might be the
rstborn among many brethren (kjv). The deelopment o our
inward character, the md o Chrstthe log, acceptg, or-giving spiritseems to be best orged through painul experiences
whch we are orced to ace realtes, to loe, to accept, ad to
orge.
God Shows Himself Strong in Our Weakness
Theres aother aspect that eeds to be cosdered. Whe my
own children were small, I had a lot o opinions about parentswhose teeagers were trouble all the tme, or were ust pla
trouble. I have ew opinions anymore. I have empathy, understand-
g, ad a desre to ease ther hurts ad ears. I wat to help them
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come victoriously through these experiences with a deepened trust
God ad a more mature Chrsta character. The apostle Paul
alludes to this idea in 2 Corinthians 12:67: Should I desire toboast, I shall ot be a wtless braggart, or I shall be speag the
truth. But I abstain [rom it] so that no one may orm a higher
estimate o me than [is ustied by] what he sees in me or hears
rom me. And to eep me rom being pufed up and too much
elated by the exceeding greatness (preeminence) o these revelations,
there was ge me a thor (a splter) the esh, a messeger o
Satan, to rac and bufet and harass me, to eep me rom being
excessively exalted. The circumstances are diferent, but the main
ssue s smlar. Paul had a problem he couldt deal wth. There
has bee much speculato as to what hs dculty was, but thats
not important. The important thing is Gods answer to Pauls why.
Paul begged or release. Sound amiliar? God replied, My grace
(My aor ad log-dess ad mercy) s eough or you [su-
cient against any danger and enables you to bear the trouble
manully]; or My strength and power are made perect (ullled andcompleted) and show themselves most efective in [your] weakness
(2 Corinthians 12:9). That was enough or Paul. But, I imagine, not
wthout some struggle. He settled to the atttude o whe I am
wea [ huma stregth], the am I [truly] strog (able, powerul
de stregth) (. 10).
Does ths mea God plaed these dreadul thgs or me ad
my child? No. But God allowed these things to happen that we
might experience the truth o reedom and what it costs outside the
wll o God. Ad, He promses to be or us what we caot be
our humanness. Through these experiences, we can come to know,
ule ay other way, what t meas to rest the peace o God.
Using Our Sorrows to Help Others
Theres another reason or our agonizing experiences. Isaiah61:13 speas o Jesus ad the mstry He was to brghealg
the broenhearted, opening the prisons to proclaim liberty and
reedom to physical and spiritual captivesa ministry o comort,
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reconciliation, and restoration. Jesus ministers to us in our sorrow
so that we mght ow how to mster to others ther sorrow.
Secod Corthas 1:34 explas to us that God s the source oall comort and encouragement. He consoles and comorts and en-
courages us in every trouble so that we may also be able to comort
others wth the same d o log care we receed rom God.
Jesus us, as parets, ca reach out to those who are hurtg.
He assures us Joh 14:12 that we wll carry o Hs mstry ad
do even greater things because o the mystery o Gods Holy Spirit
wth us. Jesus was, a sese, lmted Hs earthly mstry. He
touched les where He was ad o seeral occasos ee whereHe wasnt. But the power o Gods Spirit living and loving through
Hs chldre, s multpled, maged, ad lmted oly by our -
ablty to see beyod our ow persoal tragedes.
God Knows What We Need to Grow
God ows what we eed to become le Hm. He ows whatour children eed to become le Hm. He puts our ddualtes
ad uqueess together order to help us all become more le
Him. The end purpose? That they may be called oas o righ-
teousess . . . the platg o the Lord, that He may be glorifed
(Isaah 61:3, emphass added).
Our ailures become the tools or His miracles. Why this child in
this amly? Perhaps ths s the oly place ths partcular chld ca
d roots that wll eetually brg hm bac to Gods amly.There may be pa or a tme. But there wll also be a tme o oy.
Tae courage, Mom ad Dad. Resole to tae poste steps that
will gie your lies beauty and solidity that will draw that child
bac to you, ad to God. Start ow.
Something to Do
1. Start with a blan sheet o paper, one or each o your
children. Write each childs name at the top o the page.
Tae at least tee mutes to ceter your thg o each
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individual child. Write words and phrases that come to your
md descrbg that chldpersoalty characterstcs, -
terests, character stregths, weaesses, thgs that bugyou, thgs that mae you proud, thgs that scare yoube
as thorough as you ca be.
2. Turn the paper oer, and again put the indiidual childs
ame at the top o the page. Tae aother tee mutes
ad zero o how you deal wth ths chld whe he doest
lie up to your expectations. Thin o a specic example
when you were angry or upset and were not pleased with theresults o your dscple. Th o aother example whe
you were able to cotrol your ow emotos eough to eel
you had accomplshed somethg wth ths chld. Ca you
ow oe o the paretg styles (outled ths chapter),
maybe reluctatly, because o some o the phrases you used
to descrbe ths chld?
3. Pray. Ask God to give you wisdom to know how to deal witheach child as an individual. I you recognize areas where you
hae bee eglectul or oerly rgd, or aythg betwee,
as God to mae you aware o how you may hae hurt ths
particular child and how you can regain his trust and respect.
4. Write a letter to each o your children. Tell them o your
hopes and dreams or them. Tell them o your prayers or
them. Expla what you hae bee dog these exercsesand ask them or orgiveness, i necessary. Remind them that
you are ot perect ad you ow t. Remd them that you
loe them. Ecourage them to be the best o who they were
created to beeen i it may be ery diferent rom your
ow dreams or ther uture. Ge them the awareess that
you wll accept them or who they are ad who they choose
to become. Hold o to that letter.
5. Ite each o your chldre out wth you, aloe. Share the
cotets o the letter. Be prepared or reecto, dsterest,
een accusation. But also be prepared or tears o relie,
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expressos o loe ad warmth, ad promses. Remember,
ths s oly a begg. You may ot get the respose you
hoped or. But you wll clear the stage or God to wor that chlds le wth a reedom that may ot hae bee there
beore. Be honest with your child. You may backslide. You
may orget a momet o rustrato ad ager all o the
good thgs you sad youd do or not do. As your chld to
be patet wth you. Let hm ow that you wat the best
or hm, ad you wat the best or your amly. Maybe you
cat all agree o what s best rght ow, ad those areas o
disagreement cause conict. Be real. Be honest. See yourchilds respect. Most important, decide now that you will
eer qut. You wll sacrcally loe ad be a paret to ths
child as long as it taes to get his lie on tracand then
oreermore.
PrayerGod, my Father, the perect Father, the perect Mother. Teachme to be more like you. Teach my child through me. And may
this child come to know you and love you and serve you. Use
his uniqueness to bring honor and praise to you. And use my
uniqueness to bring honor and praise to you. Amen.