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To Restore Hope in the Hurting Home We Must Take a Walk in Our Child’s Shoes
Dear Friends,
It’s very difficult to raise kids in our modern, secular culture. There are so many distractions that keep the family apart, and if you have children born after 1995, they have influences on them that make it almost impossible for parents to really understand life from their perspectives, to really walk in their shoes.
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| Parents Weekends: This Autumn, the Institute for Healthy Families (IHF) hosted two retreats for parents where we asked parents to do just that: Walk in the shoes of your child. It was a powerful experience! At our Key to Your Child’s Heart weekend for mothers in September, moms were challenged to ask themselves: “What it would be like to struggle with my own sexual or gender identity? What if I had to walk in my child’s gay or transgender identity?” It was a powerful experience, with many tears shed! Here is what one mother had to say:
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| “This weekend really helped me to empathize with my son. I can see now how he has felt all these years and work toward his and my healing and love him unconditionally” |
| At our fathers weekend in November, the men were asked to identify what family conflicts and hereditary wounds they were passing onto their children that were unhealed and hindering their personal relationships and walk with God. As we demonstrated to the dads, our children often carry the problems that we, as parents, do not resolve in our younger years. As one father assumed the role of the child, each man labeled a problem, wound, or sin (i.e., addictions, adultery, divorce, etc.) in their lineage that they believe may be “showing up” in their child’s life in the form of a sexual or gender identity struggle. The man in the child’s role then symbolically handed each sticky note, one-by-one, to each father for him to take back from his child and work through on his own healing journey. One father at the retreat commented:
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| “After we did this exercise, the verse (in Exodus 34:7) – ‘He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations’ – takes on a whole new meaning for me!” |
| Online Parents Classes: It’s a difficult place to be in, really, but healing can only come about by squarely facing those dysfunctional beliefs and patterns of behavior that we have learned or adopted in life that are (even without our knowing it) preventing us as parents from conveying the fullness of authentic love to our families and children.
That is why IHF is here – to help parents learn the tools to walk in their child’s shoes – to empathize, and help the whole family heal, not just the same-sex attracted or gender-confused child. To further that goal, in 2017 we had two concurrent year-long online parenting classes for mothers and fathers of children who self-identify as LGBTQ or have unwanted sexual/gender identity conflicts. Each month, a diverse group of parents from different countries and cities across the United States met to work on family healing and strengthen their marriage and parenting. Our course includes lessons on unconditional love, boundaries, intimacy, healthy communication, processing emotions, reflective listening, understanding the five love languages, and much more. The parenting classes are a meaningful way to learn how parents can better love themselves, their spouses, and their children unconditionally in the context of family healing.
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| | Inner Child Healing Retreats: When our counselors and coaches were not working with parents, we continued to work with many men and women struggling with sexual and gender identity. This summer, we were blessed to host two brand-new retreats in Virginia called Break-Free Your Inner Child! We had so much interest in the June weekend, that we added a second weekend later in the summer. All in all, over thirty men attended these retreats and we were blessed to provide over $2,000 in scholarships for men financially in-need! At the retreats, we led men into experiential exercises where we had them draw their wounded little boy. The picture on the left was drawn by one of our men as he got in touch with his “Angry Child.” Another man at our retreat had this to say about his experience: |
| “I finally broke through with the inner child. I realized I had no idea of what fun was. It seemed like most of my life I punished myself for being who I am. I want to experience compassion first hand. I want to live.” |
| Publishing a new book: Last year I wrote about my new book, and am excited to say that it will be published by the end of this year! The Meaning of Sex: A New Christian Ethos replaces the negative sexual “ethic” that we learned from parents, teachers, and pastors (“Don’t Do This”) with a positive “ethos” about thriving in God’s love, and how our sexuality can be redeemed to the way God wants us to live. Over the years, I have found that many of our clients come to us without a good understanding of what the purpose of sex really is. One of the reasons is that their family did not have a clear picture as well. Because of this, as well as through their own wounding, they grew up not having a healthy sense of themselves and others, which in turn led to distortions about their masculinity and femininity and what Christian sexuality is all about. In The Meaning of Sex, I talk about God’s complementarity design for male/female marriage, lay out three simple steps for how we can love those who are sexually and relationally broken, and discuss how we can transform our Christian communities with love and authenticity! |
| | The work of IHF is growing, but we can only continue to grow with your help! In 2017, I was able to give presentations on our work all across the country, including the Joint Conference with the American College of Pediatricians and American Association of Pro-Life OBGYN’s in Chicago, IL (see photo on the right of me and Dr. Michelle Cretella, President of the American College of Pediatricians ).
I would like to share our message of hope and healing to many more in 2018! But we cannot give what we do not have! Please consider partnering with us by making a secure, online gift today on our website: www.InstituteforHealthyFamilies.org
Please join us in our work by giving a generous tax-deductible donation to our non-profit work: Restoring Hope in the Hurting Home! We are also able to accept gifts of appreciated stocks/securities. If that is how you would like to give please e-mail us at: IHFINFO@InstituteforHealthyFamilies.org and we will send you the proper information to make an electronic transfer of stocks or other securities.
We are teaching hearts and minds what is helpful in each person’s walk with God so that we can learn how to walk with each other in healthy relationship. Thank you for partnering with us, and may God bless you and your family abundantly!
Sincerely, |
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