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39 pages

English

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Being a parent is one of the most difficult and rewarding jobs you will ever do in your life. Life with children is always an adventure and you never know what to expect. There will be difficult times and if you are having a hard time dealing with those challenges, this is the book for you. This book focuses on what parents should do for themselves during the struggles that your family is going through. It is important as a parent, to be strong and supportive. That cannot be achieved if you are stressed, depressed, or struggling to get through each day.

In this book, I share my own personal experiences and provide other parents with ideas to stay healthy and strong. If you aren't caring for yourself, you will not be able to care for the other people in your life. Stress can take a serious toll on a person and it is important to ensure that you manage that stress in a way that keeps you in the best frame of mind and able to handle any situation that may arise.

My goal with this book is to provide parents with the tools to survive difficult times. I hope my Sanity Savers will serve this purpose in your life. Good luck with your challenges and may you survive the storm.

Sujets

Santé et bien-être

Bien-être émotionnel

Vie de famille

Parentalité et Éducation des Enfants

Bien-être

Healing

Spiritual

Prayer

Parentalité

Informations

Publié par	eBookIt.com
Date de parution	13 janvier 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781456621001
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0400€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

A Light Through the Storm
B. BOYD

Copyright © 2014 B. Boyd
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-2100-1
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
http://www.eBookIt.com

INTRODUCTION
This book is not intended to give you answers on how to fix your child, fix your parenting, or solve your problems. The purpose and goal of this book is simply to relieve your symptoms, validate your feelings, and help you keep your sanity!
That sounds like a simple goal doesn’t it? Well, if you are reading this book, you probably realize that it is not so simple. As parents, we all have struggles. Sometimes they are short term and we can weather the storm. Then, there are the times when the storm continues to rage and we begin to lose hope that the light will ever shine again. It is during these times that we need help and hope.
I pray that this book will bring you that help and hope while providing you with ways to care for yourself during these turbulent times. I can remember times, in my own experiences, where I wondered if I could make it through. I became very depressed; I lost hope, felt empty, and helpless.
In each chapter, I will introduce you to “Sanity Savers” that will help you get through this time in your life. Sanity Savers are actions or challenges for you to try in order to help you find relief, hope, and a little bit of light and encouragement. I implore you to step out on faith and try at least one of the Sanity Savers. You would not be reading this book if you had other options or knew what steps to take on your own. It is perfectly understandable to reach out for help, to reach for some type of answer. I have been there myself. My storm was not a brief period of time that I weathered and then quickly recovered. My storm lasted for over 5 years. I felt very much like you. I was at a complete loss, depressed, feeling I was going to have a nervous breakdown, and finding nowhere to turn. The action items included in each chapter, called Sanity Savers, are things that I found helpful in my recovery process. I sincerely hope this book will guide you through your own personal storm and provide you with some small relief, even if it is just to know that you are not alone. We can sometimes feel isolated and think we are alone in dealing with these issues. I cannot tell you how many parents shared their stories with me as I began to open up and share things with other people. Parenting challenges are much more common than we think.
Your storm will have an ending and you will see glimpses of light through the storm. My prayer for you is that your story will have a happy ending and that you will return to the strong, happy person that you once were.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank my husband, Neal, for the support and encouragement he gave me in writing this book and getting it across the finish line. I love you and you mean the world to me!
I would like to thank God for all that he has done in my life and for being forever faithful, walking beside down life’s path, and carrying me when I was unable to walk on my own.
I want to thank Ruth Bowser for planting the idea of this book in my head.
I want to thank my therapist, Jill Carl, for helping me through one of the most difficult times in my life. Jill you have been a Godsend to me, and I appreciate all you have done to help me in my healing process.
Finally, I want to thank both of my boys. There have been challenging times, but I love them both so dearly, and I would not trade a single moment that I have had with them. I look forward to continuing to watch them grow and change and hope, when I am old and gray, they will love me as much as I have loved them.
1 A LABOR OF LOVE
From the time I was a very young girl, I always wanted to be a mom. I come from a large family of 10. I started babysitting when I was eleven. I babysat for my nieces and nephews and for other kids as well. I loved children and looked forward to the day when I would have my own children. Children are so fun to be around. They are happy and put a smile on your face. A child’s laughter is contagious. There could be no greater joy than to be a mom.
I married when I was 20, had my first child when I was 21 and my second at 24. I remember so clearly the incredible feeling of being pregnant and having a child grow within me. A woman glows when she is pregnant. It is an incredible time and a true miracle. Labor with both of my boys was pretty quick, and I had both of them naturally with no pain medication. Giving birth was a physically painful experience but as soon as you see your beautiful baby, you soon forget all of the pain because you are filled with an overwhelming love for this new life that you brought into the world. In Psalm 127:3-5 it says, “Don’t you see that children are God’s best gift? The fruit of the womb his generous legacy? Like a warrior’s fistful of arrows are the children of a vigorous youth. Oh, how blessed are you parents, with your quivers full of children!” MSG Being a parent is a true blessing but it is also the most difficult job that you will ever do.
I truly enjoyed parenting my children as they grew. We went to Disney World when they were 5 and 2. Both of my boys starting playing soccer when they were 4. They played soccer, baseball, football, and roller hockey. It was a busy time but a joyful one as well. I think I was as competitive as they were. As my boys became pre-teens and teens, things started to change. They were growing more independent and starting to make decisions on their own. I thought I had taught them well. We talked about everything and I provided sound instruction to them.
As time passed and they became older, I discovered them starting to make decisions that I didn’t approve of. We sat down and talked about their decisions. I warned them of possible consequences based on my own experiences. Unfortunately, neither of my children were willing to learn from me. They wanted to learn the hard way, through their own experience. All of the sudden I found myself in brand new territory. What I thought would work was no longer working. The children I adored, I started to despise. I found myself in a love/hate relationship with them. I recently heard a sermon at church where the minister discussed love and asked the church, “What is the opposite of love?” My minister described how the opposite of love is not hate. Love and hate are closely related and are very strong emotions that often go together. The opposite of love is not hate, it is apathy. Apathy is not feeling anything, not caring. If you have picked up this book, then I know you love your children. You may also be in a love/hate relationship with your children. That is okay, it is much better to be there, than to feel apathy for your children.
Have you ever stopped and thought about LOVE? What is love? Why is it such a strong emotion? How can it feel so good at times and cause us so much hurt at others? The dictionary defines love as “a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.”
Love is so complex that the one English word is not enough to truly describe all of its facets. In Greek, there are four different words for love: Eros, Philia, Agape, and Storge. Eros is passionate love felt between a man and a woman used to describe romantic love. Philia means friendship in modern day Greek and is characterized by loyalty between friends, family, community and can also be used to express the love for an activity. Agape love means “I love you”. It denotes feelings for one’s child or spouse and is illustrated by a self-sacrificing and giving love to all. Storge means “affection”, like that felt by parents for their offspring.
The love between a parent and their child is an extremely powerful love that encompasses Philia, Agape, and Storge kinds of love. We (with the power of God) created that life. They are our flesh and blood. We have a special bond with them. The love is so strong that we would do anything for our child. As parents, we will do anything to protect them, to keep them from harm, and ensure their safety. Throughout history parents have done incredible things for their children in the name of love. Mothers have been known to have super powers when their child is in a dangerous situation and lift a car, run into a burning building, and leap buildings in a single bound (okay maybe that one is Superman). We may have even lied for our children or defended them even when others have solid accusations against them. We think, there is no way “my child” could do something like that. Some parents have also had to make hard decisions in the name of love. Examples include giving up a child for adoption so they can have a better life than we can provide or turning them into the authorities when they have done something terribly wrong. Love is hard. It is the most incredible feeling in the world. It can also be the most heart wrenching thing in the world, especially when the love we give is not returned to us.
Love is a gift and each of us has a desire to give and receive it, which is why it is so ironic how love can be used and abused. Often times, the people we love the most are the same people that we hurt the most. Doesn’t that seem strange? Why do we as human beings do that? It is because we feel safe with those who love us. We are family. We have something in our brains that tells us, this person will always love me, always be there for me…no matter what I do. For the most part that is true. We put up with more abuse from those we love than we would from friends, co-workers or strangers. Our children know us well. They have been around us their whole lives. They know what buttons to push, how to gain our sympathy, how to irritate us, how to wear us down AND they use it against us.
We often treat people we love in ways that we would never treat others. We accept treatment from those we love that we would never take from others. Th