Many parents in pain have grown accustomed to maintaining a kind of “silent shame” concerning sharing the circumstances and issues surrounding our adult children. Attending or assembling a support group is the last thing we want to do.
Yet it’s one of the first things we must do to gain strength in a season of life that will most certainly require every ounce of fortitude we can muster. At times when our strength runs low, we must have others willing to intervene on our behalf and hold us up. We must begin looking at our circumstances objectively, emotionally distancing ourselves from our situations in order to gain a healthy perspective.
Making clear intentional choices based on facts and not on feelings will be critical as we move ahead. The best way to do this is through prayer and group support.
“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken”. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
Find out more about starting or attending a SANITY Support Group in your community by visiting our website.
Allison,
Please reply to this email. Please offer an online support group for parents of adult children. I would like to go through the material and then have a support group for parents in my area.
Dear Virginia, I would love to be able to offer an online SANITY support group, and I continue to pray that if this is God’s will, He will open the doors for me to be able to do so. In the mean time, there is a SANITY Support Leader Guide available to use in conjunction with the SANITY Support Study Guide. We have hundreds of parents all around the country who are conducting SANITY Support Groups in their homes and churches. Please pray about starting your own group and I’ll help in any way that I can. I visited for one session via SKYPE with a recent group in Alabama. Please stop back and let me know how things are going…
Allison,
Where are my royalty checks? Because you have mirrored my life with my son Heath in Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Children. He is 22 years old and is currently in jail. We have initiated Tough Love but I believe it is tougher on me than him……and yes, I know it is my fault. I am an enabler. And after reading through the 9th chapter in your book I know (as I have known) that I have not done him any favors by ‘helping” him out for so many years. I do, however, have another issue…..which makes this situation even harder for me to bear….my oldest son Paul was killed by a drunk driver Sept 19, 2008. He was 21 and in the Navy. Only two weeks from graduation and engaged to be married. He was the son who GOT IT……he understood our trials and tribulations with Heath, he didn’t like it and he couldn’t control him either…..but he also understood the pain and suffering that his dad and I went through. He expressed his appreciation for us, our support and for all we had done for him through out his life. He also expressed his deep love and admiration for us as his parents and as a couple he could look up to as role models for marriage. We have been married for 31 years. It was a God thing. He communicated many thoughts, hopes and dreams in the months before he died. Things that we needed to know and hear. It was almost as if he knew his time with us was short.
Heath has been incarcerated since Friday June 28 and is desperate to get out. But he violated his probation and there will be consequences for that also (other than what he was arrested for).
I am broken. I am doing my best to turn him over to the Father. He calls and calls and is playing to the hilt the manipulation game. “Are you going to let me get hurt in here”, “you mean you are going to leave me here”, “do you want me to turn into what these people are”, “I cannot belive you have kicked me to the curb” ETC ETC ETC.
I know where Paul is, heaven ……and sad as it is I know where Heath is, jail. I know he’s not out buying drugs or doing them……it is easier to sleep (I didn’t day rest, just sleep).
My husband and I have talked at a couple of speaking engagements about Paul and the effect drunk driving has on families. And it may be that one day we will be speaking to people as a result of our life with Heath. God has a plan I just need to get on board and allow this boat to float where He leads it.
Thank you for reading this and thank you for sharing your life with others. Alisa