Stephan knows how the enemy works, he recognizes the enemy in his life... he just doesn't know how to fight! If he doesn't surrender his life completely he will not have the power!
Stephan has started a class at church. It's part of our Celebrate Recovery Program. There are several groups. His class is all adult men I think. Confidentiality is critical, so I'm not very sure, but think it's all men. I believe that God is going to use this in more ways than one! I've talked to several women who have been through this for various reasons and they say that this helped them to peel back layer after layer and also really helped them to discover who they were. Most importantly helped them to discover who they were in Christ! They fully understood God's forgiveness and freedom from guilt and shame!
I truly hope Stephan will begin to mature in this cocoon he has built around him and break forth as a beautiful butterfly- I pray he spreads his wings and soars as he begins to walk with the God who loves him more than anyone ever could and created him for more than he could have ever imagined! Please pray for him... and for us! Through this, our roles as parents have changed so much! I could write a book on that... When their small, you lead, teach and train, but when they are young adults you have to break away from that. That's the part that's been especially hard for me. Stephan's been led, taught and trained! When he makes mistakes I have found that I have blamed myself in the past... I didn't lead, teach or train right in some way!! I have finally come to the place to where I realize he's making mistakes because he wants too. It's not really a mistake, it's a choice! We are having to allow him to suffer the consequences of his actions. We can't fix things for him... if we do, he will not learn anything!
We've transitioned from parent to partner I guess you could say. God has taught me so much about unconditional love... As a mom, you know it's not hard to love your children unconditionally! In the process of all the parenting roll changes around here, I have been reminded again, that God does not continually remind us of our bad choices. He chastens us.. but as our shepherd, he guides us and loves us unconditionally even when we stray. It's easy to love a child making all the right choices, and it's easy to love a child making bad ones! What's hard, is that when they make bad choices, we want to revert back to the teaching and training mode. Most of the time this involves reminding the child of past wrongs with the "hopes" of changing the outcome of future choices! We could consider that good! ... Nope, God keeps no records of our wrongs... He works with us where we are and guides us as we find our way back to Him. Reminding a young adult of their mistakes over and over only discourages them of any desire to do better and extinguishes any spark of hope. I have learned that it doesn't help or encourage... or teach them anything they don't.. already.. know.
