When You Can't Pray or Hear God

Thank you for your prayers and encouragement. I don't know how I missed your post before, but God knew I needed it at this moment. Thank you so much.

@ThereRoseaLamb ...
I have seen the darkness in my own family as you are seeing it in yours , and I know how much your heart is breaking...One thing I have learned through this pain to do with these family matters , is to love and shine Christ on the ones He gives me...I spent so much time in my hurt that it broke me , but God showed me that I must just lift them up to Him , and not to take them back on unless He sends them back into my life...

There comes a time when we have to let people go , no matter who they are , and love and pray for them from a distance...You can do nothing , but just enjoy this new baby , and leave the rest to themselves...Who knows only God what plans He has for your life , so lay it all down once again at our Lords feet , and stop picking it up again...I am praying for you as you greive...xox...

tell him rummors are for the ungodly.

secret to prayer, both Jesus and Holy Spirit are intercessors and can pray too.

Romans 8

{{{{ hugs }}}}

♥♥♥♥♥

I have read your whole thread. And truly sympathize with your situation and the horrible stress your family is under.

I'm a guy, so I like to fix things when sometimes listening is all that's required, so please don't be offended reading my suggestion.


Early in the thread, you alluded to the likelihood that this young lady engaged in sex before she was with your nephew.

Is it remotely possible your sister may have it right and the child is not your nephew's?

If it absolutely is your nephew's, then maybe your sister would be open to the idea to completely heal the family with a paternity test. Maybe she wouldn't even care. I don't know. But if all parties agree to do it, it would at the very least get your younger nephew onboard with his brother, SIL, and baby nephew.

Praying for all.

To be honest I have been thinking about that very idea. But I believe my niece in law would be terribly offended and hurt. My sister has already flat out told her that her son was a good boy till she corrupted him. Now I love my nephew like he is my own son. I have gone against his mothers will to help him. But it takes two to have sex, and she didn't force him. If the child is not his, he has decided to still enter into marriage with her. So in the end this is how I feel, that child is my family as if he was adopted into the family if he by chance is not my blood. I'm not going to punish the child for what the parents chose to do. I really don't see healing from a paternity test. My husband and I talked about it last night and he said we would pay for it if it was something they wished to do. I really don't know. My sister has said so many things about my niece in law that I don't know what is true. It's a small town and they are horrible gossips and story tellers.

The issue is when they began to date my sister treated her like she was already married and part of the family. Before we even got a chance to meet her. Then without telling us, they all showed up on our doorstep to visit. My sister had her involved in the music in the church on stage. At some point I asked my sister if this girl was a Christian and she said "as much as kids are today". So I left it at that. I added her to my Facebook after asking my sister. My sister said she came from a hard background. But once she found out about the pregnancy well the girl is the spawn of satan. And this isn't like my sister. I can't reach her. She's spreading these rumors and upsetting my parents. My mother has come through cancer, my father is having issues that we believe may be dementia. Both of them adore that child. And they would even if he wasn't their blood. But my sister keeps coming to my mother with more rumors about the girl. And as I said she has her other son carrying the rumors and it's hurting our relationship with him. IDK and I appreciate any advice brother. Especially from you. If she doesn't stop I'm going to have to shut her down, she's hurting her entire family. I wish I could see a way to healing but I can't right now.

*Huugggsss*

I'm so sorry for this Miss Rose, I was reading the thread last night through tears. I'm not sure why it got me so hard.

Your sister said that her son was a "good boy" before he met this girl, but what she really means is that he was a compliant boy. As soon as he found something worth defying her for, she dropped him like a hot potato. His decision was wrong of course (even if the baby isn't "his", they must have behaved in a way that he would believe it could be). But as you said, none of that is the child's fault and your nephew has decided to raise him as his own. It sounds like he's making the best of the situation, and currently showing a lot more maturity than your sister is.

The reality is that, even if she knew it was 100% true what she's saying about the baby being someone else's, yadda yadda.....she should not be spreading it all over town and she definitely should not be involving her young son in it. That shows a staggering lack of spiritual maturity. It sounds like it's all about appearances for her, if she can convince everyone that the baby isn't his then she thinks that will make herself look better. And that seems to be mostly what she cares about right now..... LOOKING good, not actually BEING good. There is a huge difference, and it's stressful situations like this that reveal a person's true character.

Your nephews are being abused, in my humble opinion. I question if the oldest even wanted to join the military, that may have been purely his parents idea. And I think you are right that your sister was using him for emotional support in her difficult marriage. The kids are clearly being controlled and told what to think and how to feel, and that is a very heavy burden for a kid to bear. Thank God that you and your husband are there to offer support, I do believe that He has and will continue to use y'all in this!

Anyway......I'm actually going through a similar situation with a friend of mine, she is the worried Mom of a good son who made some bad choices. But she has been mostly biting her tongue and opted to show love and prayers. It has been hard on her, but God is working in the new little family and we are already seeing fruit. I believe God can and will do the same for your nephew if he keeps seeking Him <3

And in the meantime.....prayer works, God's got this, and Bless you and your husband for being a stable, Godly influence in your nephew's lives, they seriously need that right now! I will pray-

I absolutely agree it would be terrible if a test revealed your nephew wasn't the father on multiple levels.

But if somehow you could tactfully speak to the young lady and say something along the lines of " I don't have any doubts that my nephew is the father. I'm only suggesting to take any weapons away from my sister to drive further wedges between ALL the family members. If you consent to a test, it would at the least mend things between the 2 brothers.".

To be perfectly honest, for there to be any chance of reconciliation between the family, it seems to me this test would have to be done eventually. Your sister, having put that prospect of some other father out there, isn't ever going to accept the child as her grandson without it. Probably better sooner than later.

Maybe she would relish the idea of getting that rumor squashed forever.

Prayed...xox...

on my three knees

Hello, new here and just wanted to share; As trying, moving and complicated the situation is, even imagining how good can come from this, maybe a little from the bible can help, maybe; Broken families is a theme, along with immorality issues, yet somehow despite poor choices, GOD is still turning bad into good, so we can find hope, even in the hard times; Consider our Lord and Saviour's own genealogy, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Uriah's wife - if you know biblical genealogy, it's odd that woman's names would appear, but in HIS, four woman's name's appear, (well, three and a reference to the fourth, but as Uriah's wife); Look at the stories, the challenges and more; Yet hope remained;

It's not just here, there are many examples of other's lives, where such intense challenges of family troubles are written of, time and again, sexually immoral, attempts to displace parants, and more;

I say this in hopes that you'll look at scripture, see the real people, the real trials and undestand that GOD still chooses to work with troubled people, people with challenging pasts, broken families and more.

Thank you, this is what I have tried to speak into my nephews life. Yes, he made a mistake but God has not given up on him. He has chosen to keep the baby and to get married, but it seems all hell has come against him. He's a quiet person, a deep thinker, and he loves with all of his heart.

I have walked through this valley with him since he called to tell me he got his then gf pregnant. My sister, who I love but can't understand, made him call all his relatives on both sides to admit his sin. She has not relented, nor has his fathers side of the family, on punishing him for what he did. When he came to me he said "Aunt I just want to do the right thing." So I got my pastor to marry them in a private ceremony. Just my parents and I were there. He was afraid to tell his mother. When she found out she basically screamed at my mother for 5hrs. telling her to stay out of her sons life. But her son came to us, and I wasn't about to let him down.

We have talked privately and he said he has asked God to forgive him. I believe him. I said that his past mistake is gone, God has thrown it in the sea of forgetfulness never to be remembered against him again. But while I say all that, the family he lives closest to have not forgiven him and they hate his wife. First they said she wasn't pregnant, then they said the child isn't his. I am worried about the mental state my nephew is in. I've held that baby in my arms, I'm not a mother myself, but I have walked the floor with this little one singing him to sleep. I can't understand how my sister can hold that child and still not give in and forgive her son. She has said she believes her son did it on purpose and betrayed her. She will not soften her stance toward him, his wife and child. It's beginning to take a heavy toll on my nephew. I say all this for those who are praying. So they could pray more specifically. Thank you for your advice and responding to my post.

Hi Miss Rose, I'm praying for your family and I debated if I should post or not but I think there's something worth saying, so here goes:

Your nephew is accustomed to feeling responsible for other people's emotions, especially his mothers. She used him as a crutch to lean on and a shoulder to cry on for many years, and now he probably still feels like her happiness is his responsibility. It isn't and it never was. He has enough on his plate without also feeling like he must raise a middle-aged woman who is acting like a petulant 8 year-old.

Is there anything you or your husband could say to him that might free him from this ridiculously heavy emotional burden? He sounds like a sweet and soulful guy, used to carrying the burdens of everyone around him. It's like she's loading more weight on him in the hopes that he will eventually break. I'm not sure what she thinks that "breaking" will accomplish. I guess him running back to mommy and things going back to the way they were, she has her "good son" emotional support and the facade of a perfectly perfect spiritual life? As if such a thing even exists.....

Please forgive me if I have overstepped. I know it's really difficult because you don't want to say bad things about your sister, especially to her son. But her behavior has gotten to the point where it could actually be dangerous for him in a physical sense. It might be time to prayerfully consider calling a spade a spade, for the sake of this fragile young man who has already been through so much.

Anyway...I will pray that you and your husband know what, if anything, you need to do or say.

Love,
Nichole

Remember Elijah. God spoke to him as a still small voice. He didnt speak in the wind, in the storm. Etc. 1 Kings 19.12. God speaks in quiet moments, He speaks through His word. It maybe an insight into circumstances, it may be a word from a friend, or even something on TV. But what actually speaks is your response to the news and how it effects your mentality. God speaks spiritually, and we can only hear Him using spiritual tools.

So the lad is your nephew and NOT your son. His conduct behaviourally is broken down and has predicates that are 'common' to what is generally perceived and expressed in both the churches (more often though not exclusively) and of course generally in health perceptions, as regressive.

That clearly doesn't make for a very balanced place to be in, and so your sense of 'asking'.

You may find that taking a reasoned approach will help your Nephew. He clearly made his choice and one would have to ask if he is in love with the lass.

If he is genuinely in love and believes that he must uphold her (a clear dial arising out of his upbringing it would seem) then her actions no matter how bad, are NOT the issue. As dissatisfying as that may seem to others (yourself and his mother) he is the father of her child.

And the reason for the dissatisfaction is her BMI (inflected laziness), uncleanliness bordering of poor health objectives and appropriate functioning consistent with parental responsibility both before God and the State.

You also tell of her broken home - and one assumes graciously that this sense is inflected to mean her inability to function as a female and as a mother.

So here is why I say this.

Broken homes do NOT produce rebellion as we imagine - other than in the very real sense of a perceived grievance with God. That perceived sense of a grievance with God is implied in your own sense of hopelessness - and I say that not to 'accuse' or to misdirect what seems likely a sincere understanding of the situation. Yet for your Nephew AND more likely the young lady that grievance is in fact reasonable anger with God. That effect is so replete in Christian circles by now that rather than going to God ourselves with the help of our mentors and family members old enough to have authority in families, we have contracted a 'natural' view of our faith and forgetter that God speaks.

My position in many of these type of circumstances is to advocate that biological father's take their grievance to the Father in heaven and be clear about why that grievance exists. So if we see then that it exists for far too many reasons that are simply ordinary to life, to answer growing up and leaving our father and mother and cleaving to our wife, then our anger is entirely justified.

Your Nephew has done that very thing whether he understands it or not.

Interesting take on this brother Rhomphaeam I came from a broken home, and the first thing that leaves you is trusting anyone! With that lack of trust, one asks themselves who can you really believe?? One does not first blame the Lord they blame first their parents, and then the problem is how can one have confidence in even trusting self?

With this mindset hope in anyone or anything seems lost. Now anger arrives on the scene, and one really begins to think about their placement in life itself. Jesus came to me at 22 years of age in a mop closet in college, it was a very unbelievable experience! What i found out is just how important words are to others and self!

Words can kill or heal depending upon the use of one's words. And so, it was Jesus taught me from (James3:1-18!) Trust was restored, and anger began slow but sure to leave me. The Nephew is right where I was when Jesus can arrive to him, my hope is that his grace will fulfill the same thing he did for me! It really will take that drastic of an event to change him, I should know I was right where he is some 55 years ago.

No he is not my son, but how I wish he was. Yes his wife grew up in a broken home, she doesn't know her father, she raised her siblings while her mother lived from man to man is my understanding. But on the other side of the coin, my nephew grew up in a "Christian" home, in church. But his father had literally no self control and he would beat holes in the walls, break the boys toys and throw them in the cow pasture, he threatened more than once to take his own life. My sister felt that it was her responsibility as a Christian to stay married. Therefore I believe she was afraid of him and his children still are. When my nephew married with my help, he asked me if I would stay on the phone with him until he told his parents. He is crippled by fear of not only his parents, but his parents family.

My sister called me yesterday and I do not and did not begin a conversation about her son. But she started. I believe she is telling her son if he would just leave her and give up the baby, everything would be right again. She said yet again that she believes the child isn't his. Whether it is or he has decided to take on the responsibility of the child, what difference does it make? I believe my sister and BIL along with his side of the family are pressuring my nephew to let go of them and making promises that everything will be better if he just lets go. She told me that the girl is akin to the devil himself. She has said she cannot be trusted. Yet she stayed at my parents for a month and I saw nothing more than a first time wife and mother struggling.

If my sister would relent enough to care about the child and set aside her hatred for her DIL I am sure good things will come of it. She says she's basically a heathen, that you can't talk about God to her. But I have had no such issue. I told her when we part company we pray and I asked if she was ok with that day one. I laid my hands on them both and prayed and have ever since. She's at the point now that she hates to leave here and she has begun to say "I love you". To myself and my parents. Hubby works a lot but still she allowed him to hold and look after the baby without hesitation. She won't even allow my sister, her mother in law, to baby sit the child.

My sense is this girl has not had much genuine love in her life. My sister acts as if she is lazy and unintelligent, but I have not seen that when she is here and they have spent a lot of time here. She offers to make meals, she looks after the baby, baths him each evening, feeds him and they are off to the doctor if they see the least thing wrong. Are they struggling as a couple? No doubt, no one is trying to encourage them. My sister didn't want them to get married. I was the one that helped them do that. My sister swore the girl wasn't pregnant up until the day she had the baby. Now she swears it's not her sons baby. And she has my youngest nephew saying the same thing.

Sorry this is so long but I appreciate any insight anyone might have. My sister accepted this girl as part of her family. When I found out I asked if she was saved, born again, and her answer was "well as much as kids are these days". She told me the girl would not be staying at their house. Which quickly changed and the next thing my nephew was dating her. My sister had them up on stage in church playing instruments in the worship service. So she seemed to have no qualms with the girl then. This has been a very hard thing to cope with, loving my sister, but also my nephew. I felt when the baby was born surely she would relent. She has not. I am visiting with them all this weekend. Please keep me in your prayers.

George Fox in his remarkable move against the 'hypocrisy' of the Steeple Houses of England (Anglican Churches) made a saying out of some of that labour. He learned that to attach to the hearer, both the Anglican Cleric and his Ministers, as well as the Parishioners filling the Pews, he needed to speak to their condition. All of them, and not simply one 'type' of 'them'. Otherwise where would the mercy of the Lord come from - if not by Grace? If we speak to types of people (stereotypes in sociology and spiritual types in theology) then inevitably the other 'types' outwith that message - are by authority of God offended.

My comment to the author of this post was predicated to the condition of the Nephew. It was also speaking to his biological father, AND to his chosen (own) wife. What I was speaking about is the anger that arises from knowing God as a child knows God - only to grow cold and turn away because our Christian Father was a violent and angry man. As our mothers know well enough, and be powerless to answer it other than in whispers in their children's ears. When children realise that God requires them to honour their father and their mother and in that childishness little children can skip with delight in the sheer liberty of it because we can hold onto our mothers apron strings and know that God is over us in Jesus. Once that safety net is removed, then the children are broken already. That is not a mere psychological fact of observation. It is an ordinance of God.

It is not without good weight of necessity that the Scripture tells fathers not to cause their children to stumble.

Few children easily refuse God when He is given in our father and our mother. At the back of the necessary zeal we need as parents to preserve our children in the faith, as they grow in understanding and their childishness is taken from them by reason of moving into young adult life, or else they throw it away because of anger. And so out of that reality for the Nephew his condition is now anger - not psychological anger derived from need. It was produced by his obedience as a child. I would also assert that his anger is predicated on fear. Anger that arises from genuine rebellion is characteristically very different from anger that arises from fear. The latter condition as awful as it is - is his escape. He simply needs to step away from his father and his mother and put his trust in his aunty. He should also tell his mother privately that he does NOT reject her.