Weird Teachings

[danf]

I remember David Geftakys (DG) preaching in SLO back in 1987 (a few months before I left) about how the wife is to do anything that the husband wants her to do, even if it is sinful.  This was followed by how the husband is allowed to beat his wife.  He then indicated some scripture as an attempt to justify his statements.  There were no "Amens" in the crowd to indicate agreement.  My thought was, what kind of church is this where the leader is trying to justify spousal abuse with scripture?  I guess we didn't need to investigate what was going on behind closed doors in the DG household because he was preaching it openly at our faces.  Then there was the sound of DG loudly spanking one of his children in the bathroom of the Campus Motel conference room, so that everybody outside can hear while somebody else was preaching.  So, when he wasn't abusing his wife in the bedroom or spanking his children in the bathroom, he was preaching to us in the conference room about making his family miserable and how the scriptures justify it.  This was about 17 years ago.  

I'm amazed that the large group of people, many a lot smarter than me and making more money than me and owning yachts that I could never afford, remained for so long after this teaching.  Goes to show the power of the brainwashing techniques that this group uses, and apparently continues to use.

Dan Fredrickson

[editor]

Hi Dan

As the guy with the yacht....I didn't have it back then....I can definitely say that you are correct about the power that the group held over its members.   Indeed, what fools we were to listen to all that!  I heard it too, and did nothing about it until much later.  

Funny thing is so many want to say,  "We didn't know!"

Brent

[vernecarty]

I remember David Geftakys (DG) preaching in SLO back in 1987 (a few months before I left) about how the wife is to do anything that the husband wants her to do, even if it is sinful.  This was followed by how the husband is allowed to beat his wife.  He then indicated some scripture as an attempt to justify his statements.  There were no "Amens" in the crowd to indicate agreement.  My thought was, what kind of church is this where the leader is trying to justify spousal abuse with scripture?  I guess we didn't need to investigate what was going on behind closed doors in the DG household because he was preaching it openly at our faces.  Then there was the sound of DG loudly spanking one of his children in the bathroom of the Campus Motel conference room, so that everybody outside can hear while somebody else was preaching.  So, when he wasn't abusing his wife in the bedroom or spanking his children in the bathroom, he was preaching to us in the conference room about making his family miserable and how the scriptures justify it.  This was about 17 years ago.  

I'm amazed that the large group of people, many a lot smarter than me and making more money than me and owning yachts that I could never afford, remained for so long after this teaching.  Goes to show the power of the brainwashing techniques that this group uses, and apparently continues to use.

Dan Fredrickson

No surprise that David Geftaky's tutelage produced some of the most despicable specimens among the leadership posse of George Geftakys.
Has a more tragic picture of total emasculation ever been painted than in this post? Why were not the MEN in that assembly having a little chat with this slug out back after that message?
How fitting that the depth of the putrefaction was ultimately uncovered by Brent and men like Kirk- it had to be more than any man sporting a pair of functioning cojones could take. Anybody and everybody still defending, participating in, or excusing this perverted, polluted and demon-promulgated system of depravity deserves fully what is coming to them - No Exceptions...
Verne

[danf]

Brent,

I'm sure glad you stuck around and blew the whistle when the time was right.  I took the easy route and just ran away.  Congratulations on getting a nice boat, and helping destroy the assembly so you could spend some time enjoying it.

Dan

[M2]

pg 29. The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse by Johnson & VanVonderen

Spiritual abuse puts people at odds with their best Friend. It causes some people to question, doubt, and even run the other direction from their Source. They see their strongest Advocate as their biggest accuser, their Ally as their enemy. For some people, spiritual abuse can have eternal consequences.

[delila]

Good thread to revive, Marcia!

I have this theory, just a thought, really.
And it's this:  shame.  I was reading: Gen 2:25  "The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame."
Shame was a wonderful weapon for those in power to use.  I see it more as time goes on, that false shame that we were made to wear if we questioned, or 'lived' or even 'stepped' just a moment out of the cruel and unusual expectations of our leaders in the assembly.  
My daughter had a dream last night.  She was crying so I woke her up and held her and she told me she was forced to wear a diaper to school (she's 8, nearly 9) and I held her as she cried.  Shame.  "And everybody knew!" she cried.  Shame, I thought.  Where did that come from?  And I assured her no, that won't ever happen and how much I love her and I got her a tissue and she held me and went back to sleep.
And, I was reading  in Gen 1:27 that God created us in His own image, something wonderful, something honorable.  So where did this shame come from?  Especially since the 'finished' work of Christ is to take away any shame of sin, why was shame such a controlling factor in the assemblies, among people who claimed to be no longer 'eating with the pigs?'.

I think it's telling about an abusive person, parent or leader or otherwise: if he/she uses shame to control another human being, that's got to be the most deceitful tactic, the lowest you can go.  Shame, when we were intended for dignity.

Delila

[M2]

Good thread to revive, Marcia!

I have this theory, just a thought, really.
And it's this:  shame.  I was reading: Gen 2:25  "The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame."
Shame was a wonderful weapon for those in power to use.  I see it more as time goes on, that false shame that we were made to wear if we questioned, or 'lived' or even 'stepped' just a moment out of the cruel and unusual expectations of our leaders in the assembly.  
My daughter had a dream last night.  She was crying so I woke her up and held her and she told me she was forced to wear a diaper to school (she's 8, nearly 9) and I held her as she cried.  Shame.  "And everybody knew!" she cried.  Shame, I thought.  Where did that come from?  And I assured her no, that won't ever happen and how much I love her and I got her a tissue and she held me and went back to sleep.
And, I was reading  in Gen 1:27 that God created us in His own image, something wonderful, something honorable.  So where did this shame come from?  Especially since the 'finished' work of Christ is to take away any shame of sin, why was shame such a controlling factor in the assemblies, among people who claimed to be no longer 'eating with the pigs?'.

I think it's telling about an abusive person, parent or leader or otherwise: if he/she uses shame to control another human being, that's got to be the most deceitful tactic, the lowest you can go.  Shame, when we were intended for dignity.

Delila

Hey Delila. you turned the page; unless Gen 2 is on the first page of course.

I love your comments on shame, and agree with you.

I was reminded of this thread because of something I read in Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse by Johnson and VanVonderen on pgs. 87&88

quote--
Matt 16:24 and 1Cor 15:31 have been misused in order to place a performance weight on people in the name of self-denial.  In addition, "taking up the cross" in an abusive system usually turns out to be an attempt to get followers to take up the agenda of the leadership.

What we ought to be concerned about is directing people to the source of life, which comes from rest in the presence in God.  The Christian life does not begin or continue with the kind of self-denial that calls for doing a lot of Christian behaviors in order to check "humility" off the list.  Self-denial is crucial -- so essential, in fact, that in order to have life we must deny that there is anything we urselves can do to get it.  It is only available on the basis of the cross of Christ.  If that cross is not our "cross", if our own cross (built by behaviors and denials) is what we bear, we are in deep trouble.
--end-quote

Lord bless,
Marcia

[delila]

And he needs me, right?

I’m making dinner, frying meat in taco spices, laying out the soft tortillas, the sliced
onion and red pepper.  River (now 19 months) protests behind the baby gate, reaches
his little fat hands out for me.  He wants me.  He needs me, right?  I look from the hot
cast iron pan to my son.  No, he doesn’t.  I fill his sippy cup with cranberry juice and
pass it into his fat hands.  He mutters his two syllable gibberish I take for ‘thank you’
and walks away, satisfied.  He doesn’t need me.  He needs a drink.  He’s happy now,
pulling on his sister’s snow boots and walking around like my grandmother, walking
around on the moon, on the living room carpet.  Happy.

Aha.  He doesn’t need me.  I turn back to the stove, spread pesto on the flour tortillas,
lay on the Havarti cheese, stir the meat, forget the black beans.  He doesn’t need me.
He’s happy.  He needed a drink.  He thought he needed me, but he needed a drink.
Selah.

So?  I can’t help but make connections to my assembly days.  Barred from what we
needed, from exploring our options even, waiting on the ‘Lord’ aka assembly leaders
for guidance and telling ourselves, as they told us: “No, you’re not hungry, you’re not
thirsty, you don’t need sleep. You don’t need to skip this meeting and do your
homework so you’re not up all night again.  Just wait on the Lord.”  And, had we
broken through to really seek God, we’d have seen he was there, pointing to that sippy
cup, that way out, that much needed sleep, that common sense we forsook, what we
needed.  

My son can screech.  When he wants something, it’s hard to ignore.  Screech, I call
him sometimes.  The ear drum rattles.  He does not go quietly into that good night.
He rages, until he gets what he needs.  Often, it doesn’t take me long to figure out
what that need is.  Sometimes, it’s just a good sleep and he doesn’t squawk long
before he’s singing himself a lullaby and off to dream land in his crib.  But, until I
figure out what he needs, he’ll screech.  That’s just him.  My daughter never did that.
My ear drums were happier then.  She was different.  We are all different.  I think
God is much much different than I ever imagined.

“Wait on the Lord” how many times have you heard that?  I wonder if God frowned
every time those instructions were spoken in the assembly since we were not taught to
wait on God at all.  We were taught to wait on our leaders, to check all our
understandings with them, to dull our own sense of understanding and replace it with
what the assembly taught.  And I wonder if that’s hard for those who received much
of our obedience then, those who remain ‘in the race’ for assembly power, assembly
peace, assembly assembling.  Broken, like a bunch of scrambled eggs, it is difficult
for them to see their own individual persons, where one ends and another begins,
where one exists in dignity before God and another, a whole system of others in fact,
has muted that dignity, compromised it in some way, denied it.  We looked through
the tiniest of pinholes for God’s ‘perfect’ will, edited and approved by those who
‘took care’ of the flock.  I look at myself differently now too.  

So what did God see when he saw me leaving the assembly, trying my legs, being ‘an
apostate’ because, having left the assembly, that’s what I had to be, making some
poor choices.  I think God saw me like I look at my children, knowing they’re
learning to walk, on wobbly feet.  I think God smiled.  I think it made him happy.
“She doesn’t need me to pick her up right now, put her in a ‘good church’* she needs
some sleep.  She needs to make some friends.  She needs to trust her own ability to
think again.  She needs to sort this mess out.”  God might have said, I think.

   “...For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you
   will be like god, knowing good and evil.” Gen 3:4

 I think the assembly took these words of the serpent and twisted them to mean
something even the serpent didn’t intend (though probably, he was pleased
nonetheless).  George’s teachings made almost everything sinful.  A single
‘unyeilded’ issue in your life was sin.  Your body, so broken that you contemplated
staying home from a meeting to recuperate, was sin. For a time, in some assemblies,
being sick (like Betty) was seen as spritual.  Beating your wife (like David) was
allowed, under ‘God’s’ authority.  How did we know the myriad of things that were
‘sinful’ now except that the assembly taught us this was so?  Everything was evil,
except George.  Everything compromised, but the ‘simplicity of new testament
testimony’ as found with yours truly, ‘servant of God’ GG.  And still, it is said in an
existing Canadian assembly ‘We were not influenced by George’ and ‘Stay off the
bulletin board  because people who read it leave the assembly.’ like that’s the worst
thing that could happen.  My suggestion: the opposite is likely the truth as it is in
Jesus.

I like simplicity.  I think that’s why God gave me children.  To simply love them, to
simply see that life is about growing and experiencing and thinking ‘outside the box’,
about marveling and aha moments, not about towing lines that are tightly tied around
our necks, cutting the blood supply to the brain.  If that one choice to eat that fruit in
the garden was so serious that God sacrificed himself to reconcile the human race to
God, how is it that we yet operate in boxes?  How is it that we poke around for a
‘pattern’ in the new testament and then build an airtight box out if it?  Funny how
Jesus didn’t leave directions to that affect.  How is it that we still seek out Pharisees
and priests to lay out the way back to God?  How is it that we bow, shut off our brains
and remain ‘faithful’ to a structure like the George Geftakys assemblies that were
created by an unfaithful, brutal, violent liar?  This is not simple.  This requires
complicated and dishonest ‘reasoning’ in order to pull it off, especially for so long.
This requires an auto-pilot, a barbed wire playpen built around oneself.  This requires
total erasure of the thinking mind, the honest heart: aka - death to self, in G’s dynasty.

Had I been in the assembly, I would have taken the time out from making supper to
beat my son with a stick until he stopped fussing. I would have held his mouth so that
we didn’t have to listen to the voice God gave him, the voice God gave all of us to
speak and be heard.  I would have probably have had him practice silence on the mat
and had the stick right there and handy, ready to beat back any suggestion of self
assertion, any indication of need.  The hierarchy was all that mattered, right?
Duplicity had to be upheld (obey me or I’ll beat ya!  Obey me and I’ll beat ya anyway.
I’ll beat you ‘cause I love ya, you know that, don’t you, sister?) I see things differently
now.  Thank God.  I believe I am becoming more free everyday, in my thinking, even
after so many years ‘out’ of the assembly.  It is a wonder to me.  A wonder.

My son, is very happy walking around in other people’s shoes, the bigger, the better.
I am very happy to watch him, especially dancing in them.  It’s hilarious.  I wonder if
God laughed too, the first time I went out dancing with my friends.  I know I did.  I
laugh now, dancing with my children, in our freedom dance.  We eat all kinds of fruit
too, lots of fruits and vegetables, get lots of sleep (it heals the body), talk out our
differences, seek to be honest with one another, challenge each other’s perspectives.
And of course, we love each other.  I wish this existance on all who’ve experienced
life in the airtight box.

Delila

[Kimberley Tobin]

Oh Delila,

Every time I read a post like this last one, I weep.  I weep for me, I weep for my children.  I weep for their lost innocence that I beat out of them at the direction of my leaders.  

I watch my sister parent her 19 month old (interesting, the same age as River.)  I weep.  I wish I could have parented my children with this kind of love (and she isn't even a "Christian"!)  My sister is playful with her.  She spends time with her, listening to her.  My niece is not relegated to a mat for 5  hours a day.  She is not beaten for speaking when it is a "no talk" time.  She is not beaten when she voices her needs and asks that they be met.  No, she is loved and nurtured the way parents should love and nurture.  My children never had that.  And it is such an up-hill battle to remedy the damage.  

I ask God, "When will you deal with these men and women who perpetrated this abuse for two generations?  Will my children ever hear an apology from these men and women who took their childhood away, who left them with trauma that will affect the rest of their lives, that is affecting it today?  When will things be made right, God?"  And there is no returning answer and I weep.

I dreamt last night about Mark Miller.  He came to our home and asked why we had left the one true church.  I argued with him, yelling at him all my anger about the truth that noone will acknowledge who still belongs to that evil system.  In my dream, we then went to a meeting, where I continued to try and inform the people who were continuing to be a part of that evil, wicked system, and noone would listen to me.  I woke up emotionally spent, as if this had truly transpired.  These dreams are with me nightly and they make me weep.

I am cleansing away the pain with my tears.  It is refreshing.  And I wonder, will the pain ever go away completely?

[al Hartman]

Kimberley,

     Sometimes your posts make me weep, too.  For you and your children as for my own family.
     In the early days of Fullerton, G & B often told us parents that if we beat our children for disobeying, they would "not surely die," and that "the blueness of the wound" on a child was a sign of parental godliness.  Fool that I was, I thought that welts and bruises begot by discipline were a good thing.
     My oldest (of four) will turn 35 this year, and I can still see the utter trust in her toddler eyes as she submitted herself to me for a spanking.  I spanked hard, as if I could beat all disobedience out of her.  That's how I wanted it to work-- for her sake and for mine.
     No, the pain of such memories has not gone away, and may remain until our Lord wipes all our tears away.  The pain is not a constant, as it once was, but every time the memory is stirred the pain rekindles.
     What get better are the feelings of guilt and shame.  For awhile I saw guilt, shame and pain as one huge lump.  All three are factors that the enemy of our souls can use to discourage us and to sap our strength.  But I have learned that the pain can be a good thing, like the pain that made Jesus groan in His spirit; that made Jesus weep.  It is an evidence of sensitivity toward others.
     Guilt and shame, however, need not be tolerated.  Never in His earthly ministry was Jesus ashamed or guilty.  Not everyone who heard Him and saw Him do miracles was convinced.  Not all accepted or followed Him.  But He was obedient to the will of His Father and suffered neither shame nor guilt.
     But at Calvary, Jesus took upon Himself and bore our shame and guilt, the products of our sin, and for that reason, they are no longer ours to bear.  In fact, for us to succumb to the siren call of guilt or shame is to deny the effectiveness of Christ's sacrifice for us.
     I have both made apologies and received them, and both have been beneficial experiences, but neither has offered me a sense of freedom from being ashamed of, or feeling guilty for, my sins.  Those who I followed are surely guilty of teaching me falsely, but my deeds in following them are chargeable to my personal account as sin.  My only hope of absolution and relief is in allowing Jesus to have borne my sins upon Himself and away from me forever.
     Sure, my kids all bear marks from the assembly's influence, as do my wife and I.  But in the long haul, our recovery uses our past to make us stronger, and our post-assembly influence in our children's lives far outweighs even the events of their "formative" years.  The weight of works we performed in ignorance is nothing compared to the power of Christ working in us and through us.
     When you weep, you do not weep alone, and when you rejoice, you do not rejoice alone.  Take heart.  In the world we shall have tribulation, but greater is He Who is in us than he that is in the world, for He has overcome the world.

God bless you and yours,
al

[tkarey]

Just some passing thoughts...

Kimberley, when I read your post I thought, " 5 Hours? Oh wow, that's why my kids weren't very good mat kids. Now it all makes sense!!!!" It isn't that I was a loser assembly mom, I just didn't take the necessary time. I am ashamed to admit that made me feel better!!! I always thought if I could just figure out what was wrong with me, if I could nail THAT down, everything would work out. So I looked at myself from every possible angle to try and get a fix on the problem. The more I looked, the more depressing it was.  

aside: I was trying to make the letters bigger so I could read it better. I hit the Capital 'A' with an up and down arrow. None of the writing got bigger and I don't know how this will look once posted. Can anyone help?

end of aside:An LBW told me once she didn't put her kids on the mat more than two hours a day. She said that "they needed time to run around and be kids".  So I religiously did not put my kids on the mat for more than two hours (max) and would be SOOO frustrated when they would need my attention during a (3 hour!!) Sunday meeting. Of course, I'm sure I lacked diligence during that two hours, but the point I wanted to make is that there is still a part of me that longs to fit the assembly mold. Southern CA saints were considered more serious, more diligent, and all-around good examples. Even now when someone from Southern CA posts I automatically consider them better than me. "Oooh - they're one of THOSE - I could never fit in with THEM". I remember thinking that a good number of them also lacked any sense of humor, but figured that's what had to happen to be really successful.

I am soooo not writing this as any condemnation against how anyone parented. It's a comment on how after 8 1/2 years AFTER leaving fellowship I can continue to have those same instant reactions and be riddled with an unsettling sense of guilt/shame. I was RELIEVED to think that if I'd just lived in a different locality, with different advice, I likely would have been more successful. THAT IS SO SICK!!!!!!!!!!!! Common sense has to reach in and shake my brain a few times to bring me to the reality of what this would have done to my kids; what this means about my willingness to follow any Tom, Dick or Harry who happens to tell me they have a better way.

Kimberley, your posts are so healing to me. I've been confused about child-rearing from the beginning. Your posts bring out the fallacy of the advice we got in a way that CANNOT be denied by anyone. These experiences can't be "outtalked". The example I grew up in was abusive, both mentally and physically. My dad tried to stop that cycle (the physical stuff that he got) by being permissive, but we all knew to avoid his anger at all costs.  We got the worst of permissiveness AND harshness. Thank you Kimberley, Delila, and Al (good comments on shame and guilt - kudos) and everyone for opening up and sharing your thoughts. I wish I had the language to really express that. You are so brave, so willing to face the challenges of learning and loving. You are my heroes a thousand times over.

Thank you. And thank you, Mary Fortezzo - if you ever read this - for your not-so-strict advice. Hate to think what would've happened if you'd said "Oh yeah, they need to be on the mat 24/7 - that's the only way to go..."


Karey Thornton

[Kimberley Tobin]

tkarey - I didn't want to be diligent (and truth be told with my other children it wasn't as severe.)  But for my older daughter, I was a single mother.  I was in a home with another couple (who didn't even have children) and they DEMANDED of me faithfulness to mat times.  I had to mimic the meetings six days a week.  My only reprieve was Saturday afternoons, which I didn't have to do in order for my daughter to visit with her father (I longed for those Saturday afternoons - I felt that I was escaping prison.)  If I somehow fell down on the job and messed up one of those mat times, I would receive a consequence from this couple.

You would think this would exact obedience from my daughter and mat times would make her a stellar example on Sundays, right?  Absolutely not!  My daughter faught me tooth and nail on those Sundays.  It was her only way, I suspect, of voicing in public her hatred of those mat times.  The LB's wife who was "discipling" me regarding these mat times, indicated that it was my fault that she wasn't obedient on the mat.  I didn't make it difficult enough during the home training sessions.  My daughter would be incredibly obedient in the home with nary a wink or nod - wouldn't you if there was a switch just moments away to exact obedience?  I should have been spanking and spanking in order for her to know who was boss and that only obedience would be tolerated.

The meetings were a horror in themselves.  Since we couldn't discipline at the meetings with a switch, we were taught to hold our children.  Placing them on your lap, you would wrap your legs around their legs, wrap your arms around their body, using one hand to completely cover their mouth.  You would continue to uncup their mouth at intervals, allowing them to gasp for breath.  My daughter literally fought for her life!  I would spend most meetings in the bathroom in this fashion.  I would emerge with a limp child, who had finally given up from exhaustion, both of us dripping with sweat, having battled against one another for the better part of an hour.  This went on until she was approximately four years old.  Her formative years were spent with the one who was supposed to be her protector (me), man handling her and fighting with her for dominance.  This is the legacy I have left my daughter.  

It helps to write about it.  It is cleansing to put it to paper (so to speak) to acknowledge that it was wrong and evil and that I want no part of this kind of parenting any further.  I have apologized numerous times to my children, but no apology can take away the memories of what I did for the sake of the "assembly way."

[delila]

Just a quick thought:

I think it might every so often do us good to consider where this parenting 'advice' ultimately came from: George, a man who beat his own sons and ran around on his wife.  A man who reproduced himself in his son David: a monster - the ultimate child training product of the entire dynasty.

Now, look again at your children and thank God you escaped, even with your wounds.  You have your mind.  And it actually works!

That's a miracle, and no small one.  

And I praise God for all of you as well.  Those who remain assembly sympathetic still deny my story, my experience, even though the George machine is supposedly 'dead'.  So your affirmation means something too.  The truth is still the truth, regardless of who saw it, who believes it.  Still, it's nice to be believed, isn't it?

Delila

[M2]

Kimberley,

I had similar experiences with my kids.  Perfect at home on the mat, but at the meetings well...  I would be sooo angry with them when they would not comply and I had to leave the meeting and miss the ministry.  Since I grew up in a dysfunctional environment, I had no faith in my own child training abilities and threw my lot in with the assembly way.  But then, the assembly, if it was truly God's house, should have been a place of healing for wounded pilgrims.  Instead it ended up being a place of further wounding for the already wounded.  Yes, I agree with Verne.  And I say shame on that couple for laying such a heavy burden on you, one which they themselves could not bear.  In Ottawa, we have often agreed amongst ourselves, that there is a double standard - one for the leaders and one for the rest.  The sad thing is, even till the day I left the assembly, after they had claimed that they had repented, a very similar child training was expected of the young Mums by the older ones.  I would speak up on behalf of the young Mums, but the problem is that I was not a LBW, and had never been a worker either, so my pleas fell on deaf ears.

When I think of the kids of the leaders who were our child training experts, I wonder if they are better off for being the 'model' kids that they were under the assembly umbrella.  Famous quote from you-know-who: Remember it's not how you begin the race, but how you end the race that really counts.

It is only God's mercy that my kids have turned out to be compassionate and caring and considerate individuals that they are today.  Oh we still have our problems, but people have problems.  And I have much to learn yet.  I trust God for the outcome of it all.

Lord bless,
Marcia

[al Hartman]

     We have been discussing the assembly version of parental discipline of children, and I wonder whether the thread topic should be Wicked Teachings.  Mat training is not a bad concept, but the extreme to which it was carried exemplifies evil.  In essence, parents were required to sacrifice their children to satisfy the high priest's greed for power and wealth.
     In the earliest training sessions, workers were told that our children were to attend public schools to be a testimony before a godless community.  Demanding perfect obedience of our children was essential to their fulfilling the ideal of that testimony.  The testimony was essential to the growth of the work.  We were to be as Abraham, willing to offer up our children to God, no questions asked.
     It was all perfectly reasonable, in principle, but carried to unreasonable measures.

     As parents, our hearts now ache for the pain we inflicted upon our own innocent children, and we are tempted to believe that the harm we did them was irreparable.  Perhaps, excluding grace from the equation, that would be so.  But grace is not excluded and, by its inclusion, the formula is elevated to an entirely different level.
     No two stories, just as no two parents, are alike.  But in common we have a sense of regret, sorrow, guilt, shame and general wish-it-could-be-done-over.  It cannot, of course, but there is great comfort to be taken in the words of Jesus, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."  He does not hold against us those acts of ignorance...
     The Son has borne our guilt and shame, and at His request the Father has forgiven us.  Our role is to accept the gift of God, pursue our walk with Him and trust Him for the final disposition of the matter.  Our children still need us.  They need our intercession.  They need our example.  We cannot help them while weighted down by feelings generated from the past.  
     Our Lord has promised to set everything right in His time, and we can bank on that, casting down imaginations, bringing our thoughts into the captivity of obeying Him, casting all our cares upon Him.

     And what are we to do when all these things ring hollow in contrast to our feelings, and seem to be empty words?  That is when we must say, "Lord, all these things seem empty and hollow-- I believe; help my unbelief."  Because He cares for us, and will not reject an honest prayer.  He is touched by everything that touches us.  He will hear and He will answer.
     He will restore all that was lost, and He will make us vessels of our children's deliverance.  Our tears of sorrow, and theirs, will be turned to tears of joy...