Updated: Oct 22, 2019
We launched our new book, Choose a Better Path: Overcoming the Impact of Your Parents’ Divorce at the American Association of Christian Counselors Convention (AACC) last week in Nashville. 6 – 7000 attend. Statistically, near 50% of those have divorced parents.
One surprise was the number of divorced parents who stopped by our booth. I’ve been concerned that divorced parents would think Choose a Better Path bashes them—which is NOT true. But I spoke with parent after parent who were very concerned about their adult children’s relational future.
Divorced parents have expressed this to me before, but because of the volume of people I saw, I was caught off guard by the intensity of these feelings.
Surprised by the hearts Some parents had tears in their eyes. Others tried to hide their concern with aloofness or humor. A few made great efforts to reassure me that they’d done a good job handling the divorce and their ACD was doing fine. But often even those seemed to be trying to convince themselves more than me.
I wrote Choose a Better Path: Overcoming the Impact of Your Parents’ Divorce to help ACD identify the issues that are negatively impacting their relationships. God is using it to give divorced parents, and the adult children they love, some topics for discussion.
A divorced mother, who purchased the book for her adult children, read the book herself. She said it changed how she communicates with her adult children because the book helped her better understand their perspective.
Can this be true?
For some of you, it’s a tough sell to believe your parents care. I get it. It’s true that some are so wrapped up in their woundedness, denial, or narcissism they can’t or won’t care. But they are the minority. Most are just clueless—the same cluelessness ACD have to the various ways their parents’ divorce continues to impact them. So what can we do?
Listen to the podcasts on this site. There is a ten-part series that reviews the major issues that affect ACD.
Order the book or eBook. Repeatedly, I’m told there’s nothing out there like this book in the way it deals with the issues in a user-friendly way.
Trust that God can bring healing. Too often we have our eyes on the hurt and not on the Lord.
Psalm 18 verses 1 and 2 say:
I love you, Lord;
you are my strength.
The Lord is my rock,
my fortress,
and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield,
the power that saves me, and my place of safety.”*
God is all this and more and desires increased understanding and reconciliation between parents and their adult children.
*New Living Translation version
Images
Worried by Giorgio Montersino
Father and daughter by Chany Crystal