Gems from the Crown Archives - Page 10 of 11

June 10, 2015 by Laura Diehl Leave a Comment

Are You Hoping for a Change?

I recently stayed at a hotel with my husband. He had to go away on a business trip, and I decided to tag along to have a nice quiet week to myself to get some book writing done.

The first night when we checked in and got to the door of our room, we heard little kids in the room right next to us. The next morning at breakfast we discovered it was a family of seven in that room. (I know exactly what that is like, having raised five children.)
Are you hoping for a change_
I went to the front desk to let someone know, even though the room next to us has five very well-behaved children, I might be asking to change rooms since I was there specifically for a quiet atmosphere to get some writing done.

As soon as my husband left for his business meetings that first morning, a crane pulled up to my third floor hotel window. True story! It was loud, and the diesel fumes were getting to me. A few minutes later there was some terrible banging and slamming on the roof, directly above my head, sounding like the workers were going to come right through the ceiling! So not only did I have a family with five kids next to me, I now had a noisy crane outside my window and this horrendous banging noise directly above me!

I found myself thinking, “It would be a real hassle and cut into my morning to have to pack myself and Dave up and move us to another room. Do I just hope this isn’t going to last very long? Do I hope the kids next door are gone most of the day, and if they are not gone that they are basically quiet? What do I do?”

I asked the Lord for wisdom, and felt led to go and talk to someone at the front desk. The woman there was very apologetic and said she would find me a different room right away. So I packed us up and moved us to the middle floor on the other side of the building, where it was nice and quiet and I could focus totally on my work. Ahhhhh…..

How often does something like this happen to us? Not just as an external situation, but often as an internal dilemma. We find ourselves in a situation we didn’t plan to be in. Do we make some changes to get back on track? Or do we stay put, hoping the situation changes? Most of the time it is much easier not to be inconvenienced, and hope for things to change.

I could have stayed in that room and continued hoping (for who knows how long) that things would quiet down, so I could do what I specifically went there to do. Even though I was inconvenienced for about an hour by going down to the desk, packing up the room, moving all of our stuff over, and unpacking it all again, from that point on I was back on track. It was worth the inconvenience of making the change.

gear shift How about you? Is there something going on in your life, that if you just made an inconvenient adjustment, things would get back on track? God wants you to push through. James 1:4 says, “Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything”(NIV). God wants you and me to have perseverance, which is a sign of spiritual maturity. Sometimes that perseverance means to stick it out where we are, and sometimes it means we need to inconvenience ourselves to shift our position. And when we pray, asking for His wisdom, He promises to give it to us. (James 1:5)

I was so thankful God gave me the prompting He did when I asked Him what to do, and that I followed through with it. I got a lot done those few days, things that will bear eternal fruit. I pray you will also make the adjustments God reveals to you to make; adjustments that will bear eternal fruit as well.

What area in your life are you seeking wisdom from God that might need a repositioning? Share it with me in the comment section below.

June 3, 2015 by Laura Diehl 4 Comments

Seven Ways to Help Our Adult Children Part 3

As much as we might want to, we can’t make our adult child bow to the King and live in the fullness of His Kingdom.

how to help your adult children part 3

In Part 1 and Part 2, I gave the first five of the seven ways we can help our adult children when we find ourselves in this situation. If you missed them, you will want to go back and read them both before reading the final blog of this series.

I have sometimes pictured my children standing on the edge of a cliff. They are very close to jumping off, trying to decide if they want to be totally separated from my beliefs concerning God and church. So I know what I do, or don’t do, is very critical.

Let’s take just a minute to look at this, especially the issue of going to church. Like it or not, it does not say anywhere in the Bible you must go to church to be saved. I know it says we are not to forsake the fellowship, and I know we need to be in fellowship with other believers. But the Western culture church is not a Biblical mandate: going to a specific building at a set time each week, worshiping God being led from a platform of musicians, sitting for another 30-60 minutes facing that same church in Haiti platform while someone preaches a message at us, and then dismissing and going home or out to lunch. Send me an email when you see that formula in the Bible, much less attaching the label of “church” on it in the scriptures.

God Himself is what needs to be relevant to our lives, more than the modern day “church” is. And I believe that is where some of the problem lies in the young adults across our nation. They spent up to 4 years in a youth group with lots of great bands and pizza parties, which had almost nothing to do with how God is relevant in their lives, or how He would be when they were sent out into life on their own.

They are part of a reality generation. They don’t want to watch things happen; they want to be right in the middle of what is happening. They are tired of going to a building, being told that is church. They want to go out into the world and BE the church.

The scary part is our children were not taught how to BE the church while being raised in the church. So when they go out into the world, they are easily swayed by the ways of the world, and we have the painful view of watching them flounder.

With all that being said, let’s look at the last two of the seven ways we can help them from the distance many of us are forced to be in.

6. Claim the promises in the scriptures over them

• I have a much worn book that helped me do this effectively over the power of a praying bk years as my children grew up called The Power of a Praying Parent by Stormie Omartian. I have recently purchased her book The Power of Praying for Your Adult Children. I highly recommend getting yourself a copy!

• My most recent event of having my “baby” move out from home and in with a group of friends who don’t have a relationship with the Lord has me working through all seven of these things, so I am writing this to myself just as much as anyone else. A scripture God has me praying over him is one of his own favorites growing up. “Greater is Jesus in him, than the one who is in the world trying to entice and deceive him!” (1 John 4:4).

• Another thing I have done with all of my kids is to take the meaning of their first and middle name, and ask the Holy Spirit to lead me to a scripture that encompasses the meaning of those names. I pray each of my children’s scripture over them frequently. (Several years ago I even made each one of them a plaque with their first and middle names, the meanings of those names, and their scripture which hangs under their yearly school picture – now all of their senior pictures – in our family room.)

7. Take yourself off the hook!

Many years ago I was walking around my subdivision, feeling sorry for myself at being one of the world’s worst moms. God interrupted my pity party with, “Did your parents make any mistakes with you?” I had to say yes to that. “And didn’t I use those things to make you strong and be an overcomer?” Well, yes, I suppose that was true. “Don’t you think I can and will use your mistakes for something good in the lives of your kids in the same way I did for you?” I had to repent for my lack of faith in who God is in their lives, and for putting so much pressure on myself to be a perfect parent, and blaming myself when my kids make bad choices.

In case you haven’t thought of this before: The only “parent” Adam and Eve had was a Perfect Father, and they disobeyed (Eve from deception and Adam from choosing to bend under peer pressure). They went their own way, messing up their lives from the plan God had for them. So if a Perfect Father has children who make bad choices, I don’t need to be burdened under false guilt for their choices, no matter how much I have prayed and modeled how awesome walking in God’s destiny is.

Abandoned_by_Artemis_Twitches Here is one of the times I will be totally transparent and say, even though I say those things, it is still something I struggle with way more than I want to admit. And guess who my greatest encouragers seem to be? My own kids! Here is part of a text I received from one of them, just within the last month.

“Mom I love you, and you are far from a failure, you have one beautiful daughter who has finished the race and gone to heaven (that’s 1 for 1 so far) and the rest are still running and in their process. To be a failure there has to be a definitive end. The rest of us are still going and learning, far from the end. So, you’re undefeated and still going in my mind. I know it’s hard, but try to stop putting so much pressure on yourself. You show us the way to God’s heart, and there have been things you can’t control so continue with your heart after God and working on you. We do see it, and God’s doing the rest. I love you my triumphant victorious mother!”

Needless to say, that text is locked in so I can’t accidently delete it!

God is faithful, not only to us, but to our children! He has an even deeper love for them than we do, and He has a perfect plan, including things we can’t see. Let’s be determined to REST in the love He has for them, and thank Him that the same grace and mercy He extends to us, is the same grace and mercy He extends to our children. God is a victorious King, yesterday, today, and forever!

In the Crown of Glory Ministries library you can find 31 Scriptural promises written out for you to claim and pray over your adult children. (One for each day of the month.)

I would love to hear from you. Leave the first name of a child you would like lifted up in prayer. I will come into agreement with you, and hold each and every one up to the King on the Throne in prayer.

May 27, 2015 by Laura Diehl Leave a Comment

Seven Ways to Help Our Adult Child Part 2

It is so painful to watch our adult children go their own direction, either making choices against God’s Word or compromising the calling on their lives. In the last blog, I gave two of the seven ways we can help our adult children in this situation. If you missed it, you will want to go back and read Part 1 before reading this blog.

So far I have talked about the importance of unconditional love (loving them in their love language, not our own) and knowing the difference between discipline and judgment or manipulation. Let’s look at the next three ways we can help our adult children when they are not where we would like them to be in their spiritual walk.

3. Lots and lots of prayer

This has been another huge critical key as my kids began to make their own decisions and live their own life apart from my decisions for them. We know in our heads that we are supposed to pray, but do we actually believe and do it? And if so, what kind of prayers are we praying for them? Are they our own selfish prayers, telling God what we want Him to do, or are they prayers of grace and protection, favor, and blessings over our children?

There are so many effective and powerful ways we can pray for our adult children.

Break generational curses – ask God what your child is dealing with that runs in the family, and break off those chains in the name of Jesus!
Break ungodly soul ties – who have they been connected with in the past and right now that have a hold on their souls? Break off those connections and your child’s desire for those connections in the name of Jesus!
Ask the Holy Spirit to hover over them
Speak over them that they will be on a “short leash” and not be able to get very far from God and his love for them
Study out the meaning of their name, and pray that over them, that they will come into alignment with who they are by name. God takes names very seriously. If you want to know more about this subject, I touch on it in Seven Ways to Help Find Your Royal Identity.

Prayer is extremely powerful. Don’t ever underestimate this weapon you have been given. Make sure to faithfully use it to blast the enemy as he goes after your child.

4. Take communion

I do this on a pretty regular basis, keeping a small bottle of juice (100% juice does not have to be refrigerated) and matzo crackers in my prayer room. Reminding myself and the enemy that I am in an unbreakable covenant through the body and blood of Jesus is another powerful weapon.

All of our kids were dedicated to the Lord publically. Often during my communion time, I remind myself, and the enemy of that fact.
All of my children received Jesus as an act of salvation at an early age. Taking communion reminds me that in the final battle, the enemy has already lost.
Most of them also chose to be water baptized at early ages (one waited until 19). Our oldest son was baptized a second time as a young adult, as a declaration of a deeper understanding of his old life being buried and a renewed commitment of being alive to Christ. Baptism is another weapon we have against the enemy. Once again, while taking communion, I claim that act of symbolism my children chose to participate in, speaking death to their fleshly desires and for the Spirit of resurrection life to be active in the lives of my adult children.

5. Worship

This is a HUGE key. I won’t repeat it here, but I have a very specific story about a time God showed me how to use worship to change the atmosphere over my adult child. (I write about it in my book Triple Crown Transformation.) My daughter was living at home at the time, but worship can change the spiritual atmosphere over our children no matter where they are living.

Worship is a weapon that has a dual purpose. Not only can it affect the spiritual atmosphere over our children, it affects US, to pull us out from that place of worry and anxiety into a place of peace and trusting God.

I actually experienced this again just yesterday. Two days ago, my youngest let us know he was moving out, and within a couple of hours his friends (who have the typical generational hodgepodge of religious beliefs) were there with a truck to load his stuff up. That was shockingly abrupt. Obviously I did not have time to process this before it happened (or have time to try and talk him out of it, which might be exactly why it was this abrupt…?) I pretty much cried the rest of the evening.

Yesterday morning, as I spent time crying and praying and crying and worshiping, I saw myself in a boat, and my son in a smaller boat next to me. I took the rope between our two boats, and released my end, dropping it into the water to let him go. Hard? For sure! And as I continued to read scriptures and saturate myself in worship, my peace returned and in my weakness, I began to take on His strength.

Later that morning in church (on Mother’s Day, go figure!) as I was worshiping the Lord from deep within my heart, I saw my son in his boat, which had already gone quite a bit away from me, but this time I saw Jesus in the boat with him waving at me. Wow! What a wonderful reminder and reassurance that no matter what happens, no matter where my son is, Jesus is right there with him!

I am so very thankful when we worship the One who is worthy of our love, no matter what we may be feeling, He will come to us and meet us in our place of need!

I pray this has been helpful to you. Next week I will share with you the final two of the seven ways to help our adult children.

Which one of these three ways spoke you the most, that you plan on implementing right away? Let me know in the comments.

May 20, 2015 by Laura Diehl 3 Comments

Seven Ways to Help Our Adult Children Part 1

Do you have an adult child you raised to know the Lord, and now your heart is breaking, watching them not walking in the fullness of His Kingdom? This is a place none of us want to be in, but many of us seem to find ourselves here at one time or another.

Having raised five children to know the Lord, each one was also filled with the Holy Spirit, able to minister in various ways as children from that flow of the Holy Spirit within them. I modeled the Kingdom walk in my home to the best of my ability through my own intimate relationship with God. My husband and I don’t swear, we didn’t bring sex or violence into our home through movies or TV (not unless Packer football counts). My husband and I are not drinkers, nor have either of us EVER been drunk, and we have never been smokers (I have never had a puff of anything my entire life). All of our children were either homeschooled, or sent to a private Christian school for most of their school years. I also drove them around the country to experience God and encounter Him in powerful children’s camps and conferences.

And yet, I have watched every single one of them go through a floundering process. It is heartbreaking and scary to say the least; to watch them making decisions you know can have lifelong consequences, which could leave them either defeated or struggling to overcome for many years.

My recent concern about this once again caused me to start doing some in-depth research on this generation of young adults – those in their twenties – and found myself in tears, crying out to God for this group of wandering souls!

I’m not going to talk about what caused this. There are plenty of organizations addressing this issue. I want to talk about what we can do if we find ourselves in this place.

It is important to realize that most of them still have a belief in God. Even if they say they don’t, that is usually the mechanism they use to not feel the guilt of things they might be doing. How can you truly not believe in someone who is living inside of you?

Many of them still pray and talk to God about things that are going on in their lives and ask Him questions. But they don’t want us to know that, because they don’t want to have to try to explain how they can pray and yet still be living the lifestyle they have chosen.

I remember as a Christian teenager when I found myself in a sexual relationship with my Christian boyfriend, I continued to pray. I continued to read my Bible. As a matter fact, my boyfriend and I would sometimes pray together. We still went to youth group, I still worshiped the Lord. The guilt of that part of my life stayed hidden for quite a while. Even though I knew what I was doing was not pleasing to the Lord, I did not want to lose my relationship with the Lord. So it wasn’t that I was being what has been labeled as a hypocrite, I knew I needed Him, and even though I was deeply rooted in my sin, I hung onto God in the ways that I knew how.

I tell you this because even though your child may not overtly be hanging onto God in a way that you can see, chances are very good that he or she is still hanging on to God in ways you cannot see.

Let me share with you seven things I have learned in the process of watching my own five children, as they each made their own life decisions that were not the decisions I wanted them to make, especially concerning their walk with God.

Give unconditional love they can receive

I know that we continue to love our children unconditionally, no matter what. But too often our children don’t know that. Our child’s perception of the truth is more important than the truth itself, when it comes to our love for them. It is important for us to find ways that show love to them in a way they can receive it. That can be a challenge for sure, especially if they are at a point where they always want to pick a fight.

Ask God to show you what their “love language” is, and to give you ideas that will get past the walls that have been put up. They need to know without a doubt your love is real, and it is strong, and it will never go away no matter what they do or the choices they make.

2. Know the difference between discipline and judging or manipulating

As my children reached adulthood, I could no longer bring discipline into their lives. That season of my life was over for them. When that time came, I found it very easy to turn the corner and become very critical and judgmental, trying to guilt them into what I thought they should or should not be doing. This was never successful and always pushed them away from me, which never failed to cause a chain reaction of ugliness, usually coming from both of us.

I have learned (and will admit I am still learning) to leave the judging to God. He will do a much better job than I will. He will do it right and he won’t mess them up like I can. And there is that little verse that says, “Mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13). When I think about it, I would much rather my child be given mercy than judgment. The truth is, it’s His kindness or goodness that leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4). If that’s the way God does it, then that’s the way I need to do it; which seems to circle us right back to that unconditional love. Hmmm…. Sounds a lot like the way God does things, doesn’t it?

We will continue this subject in next week’s blog.

In the meantime, would you please share with me in the comment area below: What is a creative way you have shown love to your adult child that you know they received as such?

May 13, 2015 by Laura Diehl Leave a Comment

Giving Yourself the Gift of Forgiveness Part 2

There is no question things happen in our lives that cause deep anger and pain. However, forgiveness is not based on those emotions. Just like love, forgiveness is a conscious decision we make which goes beyond our feelings.

Note: If you have not read Part 1, please click on this link Giving Yourself the Gift of Forgivness – Part 1 before reading Part 2.

I would say if there has been some kind of abuse in your past, (physical, emotional, verbal, sexual, or spiritual) there is a pretty good chance you have “seasons” where you spend quite a bit of time thinking about what that person did (or didn’t do), allowing yourself to repeatedly feel the painful emotions of that abuse . And that is very understandable.

But you won’t be able to get past it, if you don’t back up and allow the bitterness that is taking root in your heart to be removed.

Most of us already know this, but it needs to be said here as a reminder.

Forgiveness is not for the other person. It is for you. As long as you are holding on to unforgiveness, you are chained to that person through your anger and your bitterness.

When you make the choice to forgive someone, you are not saying that you are okay with what they did and how they wronged you. Forgiveness does not depend on whether or not a person deserves that forgiveness. It isn’t even based on if they are sorry for what they have done.

Choosing to forgive is making a choice to uproot the bitterness. It is making the choice of refusing to continue to be dragged through the emotional mud by remaining attached to that person.

Why would you want to stay connected to someone who has hurt you so deeply? Unforgiveness is not hurting them, it is hurting you like an internal cancer eating you up inside and killing your soul.

Forgiving someone is not offering them a way out, it is giving yourself a gift. A gift you deserve to have and unwrap! The best thing we can do is to forgive the person who wronged us, and let them go. In doing this, we release ourselves to begin to heal from our wounds.

Often we find it is a process; a very slow and sometimes painful process.

You will probably find yourself having to choose forgiveness over and over again. I know of one woman who took 10 years of choosing to forgive the person who shot and murdered her son before the reality of forgiveness was a part of her life. Is it extremely difficult? Yes, for sure. Is it impossible? Only if you say so.

It truly is your choice to hang on to it and be destroyed by it, or to start the process of forgiveness and eventually find freedom.

Would you like to know who I find myself needing to forgive multiple times (besides the situation I shared about in part 1 of this blog)?

It is a doctor who came to see my daughter, a couple of weeks before she died. She needed to be put on the heart transplant list, but one reason she couldn’t get on it was because she was quite a bit overweight. Not being mobile (only having one leg plus having suffered a stroke) made it extremely difficult to take off the 60 or so pounds they said she had to lose.

This doctor was sent to discuss some options to help her with this. One thing he told her was that if she really wanted to lose the weight, she could. Obviously he would not do it, but he could lock her up in a room and feed her nothing but bread and water and she would lose the weight. At that point she pretty much quit eating. We couldn’t even get her to drink protein shakes. Since the heart is a muscle and hers was already so weakened and enlarged, it did not take very long for her heart to give out from lack of any nourishment, especially the lack of protein needed for her heart muscle to function properly. Yah, I can’t spend time thinking about that or I find myself getting angry all over again. I forgive him… I forgive him… I forgive him…

You have probably heard this many times, and you know it in your head, (along with the scriptures like Matthew 6:15 that tell us if we don’t forgive others our Father in heaven won’t forgive us) but how do you actually do it?

Don’t play the blame game. It puts you on the enemy’s playing field.

The person who is guaranteed to lose this game is not the person you are angry at for how they abused or hurt you. It is you, and everyone who loves you and needs you in their lives without the poison of bitterness and unforgiveness.

There is power in our words, much more than we seem to realize. Oftentimes, something we are thinking doesn’t become a reality until we either hear it said, or we speak the words ourselves.

I strongly encourage you to speak your forgiveness out loud.

Let the forgiveness and the healing begin with your words. Speak forgiveness over the person who is responsible for causing such intense pain in your life. Say it out loud, right now, right where you are. Tell them, even though they can’t hear you, that you forgive them for ________ (and say what it is they did.)

It will probably be very painful, but in going through the pain you will be taking a step toward healing.

You may feel an immediate release, you may feel a deep stabbing in your heart, or you may feel nothing at all. But forgiveness is not based on a feeling, Say it out loud whether you mean it in your heart or not. Remember, it is not about feelings.

It is about setting yourself free from the chains that keep you attached to this person, which is preventing your healing and going forward into the fullness of life and what God has for you.

Remember, you are not forgiving them because what they did (or didn’t do) was okay. You are choosing to forgive for your own sake; your own freedom and healing. Make the conscious decision to refuse to remain connected to that person, allowing him or her to continue dragging you around in your darkness and pain. Release their hold on you as you choose forgiveness.

You may have to come back to this over and over again like I have shared in my own personal stories. You may need to come back and state your choice of forgiveness multiple times a day at first. Say it once, say 100 times if you have to. But keep saying it. “_____________, I forgive you for _______________________

Make a conscious choice to forgive, as many times as it takes.

You will find yourself having to come back to forgiving this person less often, until one day you suddenly realize you truly have forgiven them and you are free of the painful grip they once had on you.

As you determine in your heart to take these steps, God will be faithful to meet you.

What a wonderful day that will be!

Is there something that has helped you forgive in a difficult situation? Share it with us in the comment section below.