Your Family Matters: Loving Your Children Even When They Hurt, Rebel and Won't Listen!

By Larry D. Lamb

Training children is not easy! When has it ever been easy? Seeing children to adulthood requires selflessness, sacrifice, prayer, and the willingness to not quit when its tough.

Your Family Matters is written in journal style that will take you on a journey of a family who had every reason to quit on one another but didnt. In this fast-paced story, you will see how to keep your family together even if you think its about to splinter apart.

You will discover help in your own endeavor to see your children make wise choices and flourish. Your Family Matters may make you smile as a parent and even touch a tender spot in your soul because of your love for your children.

If you are just beginning as a parent or you have been a parent for years, Your Family Matters will ground you when the winds of adversity come against you. Keep hoping and praying with resolve that whatever you are going through now does not have to define you or your family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503594227

Larry D. Lamb

For over three decades, Dr. Larry D. Lamb has communicated the life-changing truth of God's Word in congregations in Amarillo, Texas; San Diego, California; Beverly Hills, California; and Cocoa, Florida. His current ministry is at the historic Cielo Vista Church in El Paso, Texas. Larry and his wife, Heather, have three daughters and a lot of grandchildren who provide an endless supply of free entertainment.

Book preview

YOUR FAMILY MATTERS

Loving Your Children

Even When They Hurt,

Rebel and Won’t Listen!

Larry D. Lamb

Copyright © 2015 by Larry D. Lamb.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-5035-9423-4

                eBook           978-1-5035-9422-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

NLT

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Website

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 10/05/2015

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

717297

CONTENTS

Introduction

LESLIE

Choosing to Love

A Life-Changing Decision

Our Day in Court

Color Blind

California, Here We Come

All Girls

A Foundation for Parenting

II. Unparalleled Parental Trauma

Abounding Confusion

The Beginning of a Long Bend in the Road

The New Millennium

Leslie Is Pregnant

Deeper in Trouble

We’re Moving

Looking for a New Place for Leslie

Next Stop: Utah

On to Texas

Leslie Is Missing

January 2, 2004

Preparing for a Move Florida

Preparing for a Baby Boy

A Missing Father

There’s a New Baby in the House

The Profile of a Family in Distress

dys.func.tion

Leslie’s Wedding Day

Pushing Your Kids to Grow Up

Moving to Atlanta

It Happened Again

Grandma Seibert

Living in the Future

Leslie Meets Peggie

Consequences

Trips to Dallas

Love Caused This

We’ll Take the Children

Author Biography

Introduction

On Tuesday, June 17, 2008, I found myself in a conversation with my wife, Heather, and our two youngest daughters, Aimee and Noelle. We were pulling away from the train station in Marseilles, France, to begin a much anticipated European vacation. For several years, I had wanted to write in journal form the turbulent path we had taken with our oldest daughter, Leslie, in hopes that other parents could locate a place of hope in their own journeys. I had kept this desire to myself because I didn’t want Aimee and Noelle to resent a project like this. They had been at the epicenter of our family’s turmoil when all the attention focused on their older sister.

Both girls quickly gave me their blessing! With their words of assurance, I began to sketch out a decade of our life as a family. It was not a decade of glamour, but what you will read about is a family that persevered—at times hanging together by a thin cord. My hope is that as you read this, you will find hope to persevere in whatever situation your family may be in.

When I told Leslie that I wanted to write a journal about the last ten years of our family’s path, she, without hesitation, told me how flattered she was that I would even attempt such a project. It was like I had handed her an extravagant gift, and she blushed with honor. I reminded her that some of the scenes in the story will not be too flattering because of her choices in life, and I would willingly take a pass on my idea if she felt it was too revealing. But with complete confidence, she said, Write, and don’t leave anything out.

I haven’t met many people who would give someone an all-access pass to write about their life in a way that exposes their sins, bad choices, and rebellion. Leslie urged me to start writing, as Heather, Aimee, and Noelle had on the train that day leaving Marseilles. It’s as if they were all saying, What are you waiting on?

The following pages answer their question.

Leslie

Choosing to Love

It takes courage to be a parent!

Life at conception is a biological miracle of God, but training a child takes constant fortitude, wisdom, and faith. Every day, parents have to provide for their children and make decisions that affect their children’s future. Parents have to dive into the deep end of the pool of responsibility for the sake of their kids. They have to correct reckless behavior, point to what’s true, model nobility, insulate them against cultural stupidity, and not waver when peace in the Middle East has a better chance than peace around their home.

Our journey into the bold world of parenting began because of our desire to be foster parents to add value, hope, and love to children who desperately needed it. In 1986, I was on staff as an associate pastor at Southwest Baptist Church in Amarillo, Texas. At one of the women’s ministry dinners, someone from the Texas Department of Family Services came to speak on the need for people to be foster parents in our community. Several days later, Heather asked me what I thought about going through the six weeks of training to become foster parents so we could take infants into our home. She was way down the runway on the whole foster-parent training idea, so when she asked the question, all I heard was six weeks of training and infants.

Without too much information, I agreed with a weak, Okay. It was the kind of enthusiasm you show when your boss asks you to come to work on a Saturday morning or when your wife asks if you will help her paint the utility room. Though my okay was weak, I had made a commitment. As the class progressed, my attitude changed, and we eventually graduated from foster parent school along with the other couples who wanted to care for children.

Everyone needs love, encouragement, and appreciation. Yes, everyone. There are no exceptions. Foster parents are able to fill in some major gaps in the lives of needy children, give them affection, take them to doctor’s appointments, and get up in the middle of the night for feedings. They attend games, plays, and teacher conferences for school-aged kids whose parents are not in their lives at the time. They sit around kitchen tables and help with homework. Often, foster parents take children in their homes for a season because the parents may be too young to parent, they may need a season of maturity in developing parenting skills, or the home environment is less than desirable. The contributing factors to why children end up in foster homes are endless. I am just thankful that people step up and become caregivers for children regardless of the circumstances.

The Texas Department of Family Services informed us on the first Friday of August 1986 that we would be getting a twenty-one-day-old baby girl from Houston sometime on the following Monday afternoon. That call on Friday would be the beginning of a relationship that would eventually change our lives forever!

Heather and I had a lot of work to do over the weekend to get a nursery ready for our little guest from Houston. I have to admit that I was scared. The rubber was about to meet the road! There were a lot of unknowns, including my parenting skills. How long will this last? What’s the story of this child? Is this really happening to us? What does this all mean? Most parents get nine months to prepare. We had about thirty-six hours to get our parental game face on. Did I mention that I was scared? This would mean getting a car seat, a crib, baby formula, bottles, diapers—diapers that would need changing and middle-of-the-night feedings. Our mobility as a young married couple was evaporating by the hour.

After that call on Friday, Heather and I got a tip that we could get free baby items from the basement of a Methodist church in north Amarillo. We made our way over to the church to get a crib, car seat, and other necessities. How thankful we were for the people who had donated car seats, clothes for infants, used furniture, and other items that made a quick nursery setup. Everything we had in the nursery was used, but it was clean.

The foster parent office had given us an approximate time of the arrival on Monday, so we kept looking out the front window every few seconds. I couldn’t take the anticipation and anxiety any longer, so I decided to go to the back room to pray, look in the mirror, or take another glance at our quickly assembled nursery.

It wasn’t too long before Heather yelled, They’re here!

We had prepared for the big day as if a high-ranking dignitary was arriving. In fact, a dignitary had arrived, and her name was Vanessa Ann Grady. At that time, we had no idea that she would eventually occupy a secure place in our hearts for the remainder of our days on earth.

Vanessa Ann had flown up from Houston on Southwest Airlines with an escort from the Department of Family Services. We could not take our eyes off of her. To say we were intrigued would be a gross understatement. We shot questions to the caseworker with the rapidity of a machine gun. She didn’t have much information because she was only the escort.

She left us staring at this little person who couldn’t talk, walk, or communicate any valuable information. Pinned on Vanessa’s little yellow dress that day was two brief messages: Sleeps all night and Has a little thrush. Being a parent of six minutes, I wanted to know about this deadly disease called thrush. What is thrush? Should we go the emergency room, call a doctor, or call 911? Why would the department give us a child with thrush? Heather assured me that it wasn’t serious, and as she gently held little Vanessa, my fears began to subside and her thrush was gone in several days.

Vanessa’s precious life entered our world, and everything permanently changed for us. Instead of two people getting ready to go somewhere, there were now three. Bottles had to be sterilized, diapers needed to be changed, and tiny clothes with miniscule buttons (I think made by elves) had to be buttoned with my thick fingers. A stroller claimed its rightful place in the trunk, and a diaper bag had to be ready at all times with all the necessities.

The worst of all sins was to be out in a restaurant and realize that the familiar odor wafting over your table is what you think it is, and someone forgot to make sure the diaper bag had been adequately prepared. The sin just under that is not having an adequate supply of baby wipes. Just mess up the accouterment of baby items once, and once will be enough. From that time forward, your car trunk, SUV, or back of the van becomes a mobile nursery stocked with everything needed to live for a month away from home.

We settled into the routine of parenting. Getting Vanessa on a schedule was