NEED PRAYER, DIRE DISCOVERY, SAD...

I love and respect everyone's feelings as they go through this difficult journey, and I never mean to question anyone else's feelings. I know we are all so different, and handle pain differently.
My personal feelings are that the prodigal son didn't fall at his fathers feet, and begin dishonoring him by asking him to sit and listen to every fault he believed his father displayed that lead to his estrangement.
(Instead, it was the ungrateful son who did just that.) The prodigal son apologized, and began to confess his faults to his father. Nothing more was needed. Just as I have confessed my sins to my heavenly Father. I don't get on my knees and assault His decisions for my life. I may question them, I may cry over them, I may wonder why He allows them, but I don't assault them.

If my child, who I love very much came back into my life, and simply, sincerely embraced me, without any dissertation of mine or her wrongs, then a new love could develop and all could be easily forgiven, and a new start could take place. I do believe that to be very biblical. I think Matthew 7:6 probably describes it pretty effectively. It is painful to toss the pearls of our love and devotion to children who do not love or respect us in return. If this were not a painful process, estrangements would be short lived if they existed at all.... but we know better.

So forgive me if I am too frank here ... but I want to be clear about what I am trying to get across. For the most part, these estrangements are not born out of the respectful EC coming to their parents with some legitimate offense, asking for a discussion or explanation or an apology from us. In almost every story I have read or experienced or been made aware of first hand , the EC is rude, offensive, accusatory, lying, rewriting history and are absolutely bent on being our judge and jury and burying us alive! They are going to teach us a lesson no matter what ... and they either estrange completely without even a word, like a coward, or they spew hatred and venom that it is beyond ugly and vile.

I don't find anything in the Bible that states that we must 'listen,' or attempt to see their 'perspective' when they are clearly engaging in egregious blatant sin and foolishness. In fact, I felt that suggesting so, as Dr. Coleman advises can actually be dangerous.

So many EC's would have us running in circles, chasing our tails trying to figure out what we possibly could have done to cause their bad behavior in estranging us. Chasing them and trying to engage a fool, which is what our EC's have become according to the Bible, IMO, only creates more havoc and chaos for us. In short, this is why I so strongly (respectfully) disagree with Dr. Coleman's point of view. Had I followed his advice, and take the blame for whatever could have set my daughter off during her childhood .. and began to go down that path of trying to guess and admitting to whatever offense that could have been ... and "be generous" in what I can confess to (my words), I can't imagine what drama my mentally ill daughter would have created with that ammunition.

Lets face it, none of us are perfect, nor were we perfect parents. But, we aren't taking about (in most cases we are talking about), some horrific child abuse. We are talking about EC's who estrange and say and do horrible things to their parents because they didn't get the same amount of Christmas gifts as Johnny that one year. And, if that's not reason enough to estrange, lets campaign against parents and just make things up to fill in the blanks.

Sorry, got to run, maybe will come back and finish post later ...