In need of some council

Greetings

I need council and help with how to share with my niece, at one time when she was a teenager she professed to be saved but now she is living for self. She is holding anger, bitterness, and unforgiveness in her heart toward her parents. She has said that in her eyes her parents are died. I want to share with my niece in a loving Christ like way what Jesus says about those who will not forgive. If any one has anything that Father has placed on your heart to share please do.

God Bless
maryjane

I would guess by now she is either early 20's or mid-late teens. I would recommend start off by praying. See what God places on your heart. Don't just dive in and start saying "You know, the Bible says honor your father and mother" or any of that. Wait until you have her attention. It took me 6 months or so to get my sister saved. She was baptized a couple of weeks ago. At the start of the process she was doing good, then her dad (my stepdad) committed suicide and that threw her into a rebellious spiral. It took a lot of prayer, and a lot of work from my wife and I to get her to pronounce Christ, but she left for church camp a non-believer, and came back a saved sister in Christ! Pray, pray, pray because their is power in prayer! Don't be afraid to get people you know, or you both know who also profess Christ to be there to help you out. Like I said, I had my wife present so that helped with my confidence!

It took approx ten years for me to win my cousin to Christ. I partied with her when i was a teenager and then with her and her husband. When the Lord found me, I would still go over to see her and just be her friend. I would "try" to witness to her husband but he was a hard nut to crack. 1st off, he and I didn't have a love connection like I had with my cousin. Love connections goes a long way.

During that 10 years, I would tell her what the Lord did for me at different times but when I was with her it wasn't all about Jesus (meaning I didn't always talk about Jesus... I wanted too!). I always found where she was living and go visit! We would go for walks in her neighborhoods and talk. I loved her for who she was anyway, not who I wanted her to be.

It was worth the wait! She and I are best friends in Christ as well as sisters in Christ!

---------------

One thing I like to do with people is to go walking with them and (me) not talk... give them room to talk. When it seems that there is something on my mind, they tend to unload. I do this with my kids! It's very cathartic!

Maybe you and her could start a walking program and you pray while she talks! (huge grin)

It's just a thought!

God bless you, MaryJane for caring for her!

Greetings
Thank you so much for your replies. I am thankful that you shared your personal experiences with me in this. I am praying about this situation with my niece, I should mention that she is older now, in her late 20. I am really hoping to share with her concerning her unforgiveness of her parents, her bitterness towards them and her attitude of the heart toward them. She will not speak with them and sadly tells people that they were killed years ago even though they are both living.
I just want to share with her what Jesus says about those who will not forgive? At this time she will not hear or listen to anything concerning her parents. She will not talk about them, to her they are dead...Praying about how Father would have me share with her.

Thank you again and
God Bless you
mj

edit: I felt that I should come back and clarify some things. Sorry for not being more specific. I have not spoken to my niece directly about her unforgiveness towards her parents. I have sinfully taking the cowards way but I see now that I need to be walking in what the Father has been showing me in this. I don't want to get caught up in worry about what she might think or even if she hates me for speaking His truth to her, I just want to be faithful to His leading. I of course do want to share with her from a loving heart and not of the flesh. She does not have much communication with me as it is and I hope that before she moves away and closes all doors completely I will have this opportunity to share with her.

MaryJane,
May I suggest that you find out what happened that evokes such strong reactions in your niece. It is highly unusual for something like this to exist unless some serious offence has occurred. The options can be varied, but the probability is there was some kind of abuse and or sin.

You can find out by asking what happened that evokes such strong reactions. You could lead out by saying something like this: 'you know something is troubling her, that there is a serious rift between her and her parents and would she mind sharing this with you?' Then you listen but do not offer a rebuttal. Just hear her out and in the meantime, just listen. This may involve asking leading questions that will help you understand her anger, bitterness. DO NOT give any advice unless you are hearing the Holy Spirit lead you to do so. And through it all do NOT become emotionally involved if she shares. You have to be totally outside of it emotionally, be totally objective. You do this by distancing yourself emotionally from whatever she is telling you. (You can assist yourself in this process by taking deep breaths occasionally.)

Once you know what is troubling her, you will be able to address the issue that evoked such strong reactions. You may also somewhere need to include an outsider to assist...this may be unnecessary but consider it as a possibility until you know what is troubling your niece.

The point of it all is to get her talking. Without knowledge you have no idea what you are dealing with. You can tell her she needs to love her parents, honor them. But what if one or the other is a sexual abuser? or a thief? and this girl was violated? You see, if this is the case to tell her she must forgive will only anger her more. If any of these things are present you will have a long process to walk through before this can happen. The book "A Door of Hope" by Jan Frank is very helpful to those who want to help an abused victim

Another real possibility is the girl is suffering from Post Abortion Syndrome (PAS). You can ask her about whether she has had an abortion. If she says yes, but refuses to give any credibility to it as a cause for her anger, you will have a situation that will call for outside help. Or she may have unconfessed sin, like immorality...

These are a few possibilities that could be troubling her...I gave this to help you be prepared for the worst so if you do hear it you won't be shocked. These sins do exist among 'fine, respected Christians'. They are hidden, never exposed and it goes underground effecting them in unrelated ways. Sometimes it will take a trained counselor to help get to the bottom of it.

Blessings and please do come back and give us updates on how things are going.

Love,
ginnyrose

Greetings ginnyrose

Thanks for your reply. So many good questions being brought up that it makes me realize I should have posted with more detail it would have been less confusing and more helpful to those who have been sharing with me. So sorry.

I should have mentioned that this has been an ongoing thing in my family for a number of years. My niece has talked to me in great detail over the past years why she is so angry with her parents. I am glad to say that there was never any kind of physical or sexual abuse that went on with her, but my sister was very controlling and emotionally manipulative of my niece during her childhood. In my nieces early teenage years my sister tried to be more like a friend to her daughter then a mother. As I mentioned, my sister was very controlling and did not let my niece do anything unless she was directly involved, this included choosing her friends and even hanging out with them. This caused a lot of resentment and bitterness on my niece part, she was embarrassed by her moms actions. She hated being controlled all the time.

Another issue for my niece was that my sister was also sick very often. At times the illnesses were real and at other times they were more just for attention. My sister very much always wanted the attention on herself.She was on many different kinds of medications and those to had affected my sisters behavior. Often she would get very depressed and threaten to kill herself, this did have a toll on my niece who was growing increasingly tired of the manipulation by her mom. By the time she was in her late teens she was ready to leave her mom for good. The emotional ups and downs really got to her and that turned to even more anger toward her mother. On many occasions she looked to her dad for support and he was just never really involved so she became angry with him for not being there for her.I think she wanted her dad to take her side and he just never did. By the time my niece was able to move out of the house she was so angry and bitter that she just wanted to get away and never look back. She has not spoke with my sister in 6 and half years. over time she has cut off all contact with every other family member(grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins), even her contact with me is extremely limited because when she first moved out she wanted me to stop talking to her parents altogether and I did not do that. I only hear from her now a couple of times a year and I know that she is hoping to move away and then I believe she will stop all contact.

Her mother and I have talked many times and she sees now that her behavior was hurtful toward her daughter. She has repented and ask Jesus to forgive her. She wrote a letter telling my niece that she knows that she was not the best mother, and that she was sorry for the things that happened when she was growing up. She asked her to forgive her and if they might begin again. Sadly my niece wanted nothing to do with it and still refused to speak with her mom. She wants to punish her parents at this point.

My hope and prayer is that while I still have a window of time to speak with her I might share with her that the anger and unforgiveness she is carrying is sin, that it will matter when she stands before the Lord one day. Its not even so much about restoring her relationship with her parents as it is getting her to look at what her eternity will be? In the past when I had tried to share with her concerning her telling lies, she told me that she had to do what she felt was necessary and Jesus would just have to forgive her later on. She did not care that she was in sin.

Thank you for listening and for helping me with this. I am going to be looking for some teaching on unforgiveness and the consequences of that sin. Perhaps there is something in that to share with her?

God bless
mj

edit: I should add one last thing, one of the real sad things in all of this is that my sister is actually the one who instilled this attitude of holding a grudge toward others. When my niece was a little girl, my sister had a falling out with her husbands family and cut off all contact with them, she would not speak to them and for a number of years held unforgiveness herself towards others. My sister sees now just how damaging this sinful attitude of hers was and the effects that it had on my niece are clear. I think for my sister this is one of the things that weighs most heavy on her heart now.

MaryJane wrote:
edit: I should add one last thing, one of the real sad things in all of this is that my sister is actually the one who instilled this attitude of holding a grudge toward others. When my niece was a little girl, my sister had a falling out with her husbands family and cut off all contact with them, she would not speak to them and for a number of years held unforgiveness herself towards others. My sister sees now just how damaging this sinful attitude of hers was and the effects that it had on my niece are clear. I think for my sister this is one of the things that weighs most heavy on her heart now.

I have a friend who has done the same thing with her daughter and she has put her daughter and grandchild in the hands of the Lord. She will text her and ask to see the g/c and she might or might not be allowed. But she is learning to walk in faith trusting that the Lord will work it out in both of them.

One thing is that my friend's daughter is bi-polar. has your niece ever been tested for that? Or does she deal with depression in any way?

There is a great work that needs to be done in mother and daughter but God is up to the challenge!

God bless you!

MaryJane, you have a serious problem. And you know it cannot be fixed with psychology. My heart goes out to you.

I have a few random thoughts:
The sins of the parent are continuing down to the next generation.

If you niece disliked her childhood, what is she doing to assure her children will not be experiencing the same?

Her attitude towards her dad troubles me: since she has a bad attitude towards him, she will likely in time transfer that attitude towards her husband. (The saying is that when you are looking for a spouse, check to see how he/she relates to the parent of the opposite sex. This will give you a clue to how he/she will treat you. Like what you see?) So, if her dad did not give her any support when she needed it, she may not trust her husband either if things get bad. Now this is something I would be concerned about.

All the way around, she is digging a pit for herself, one from which she cannot extradite herself. God may have given her a concerned aunt who will work to help her, so you may have to consider her your mission field. There are no easy solutions apart from the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. You cannot do it and neither can anyone else. Just be sensitive to the Spirit and act when he prompts you to. And God bless you, sister. Will pray for you when the Holy Spirit reminds me. (I say this because I am forgetful.) :-(
ginnyrose

Greetings ginnyrose and Lysa

Thank you both for your care. It is true that the sins of the parents do continue on with the children if Jesus is not apart of a person life. I know for me personally before I knew Jesus as Lord and Savior made many sinful mistakes with my daughter(my oldest) After becoming a christian I sat down with her and share with her the many things the Lord was showing me and I told her that I had been in sin and that I was sorry. I shared with her that when she became a parent some day that I hoped she would not do as i did but as the Bible tells us and walk out with Jesus how to best serve Him and her family. Sadly my niece will just not allow anyone to speak with her at this time. I pray at some time, very soon she will repent and see her need of Jesus. I am also praying for the Lord to just show me His will in all of this.

Thank you for your prayers sisters as always they are so appreciated.

God Bless you
maryjane

MaryJane,

I have reread your posts, and mine and there is still a nagging thought that stays in my mind.

I still wonder if your niece has not gotten involved in other sins, other then the ones you mentioned. They could be things that happened as a result of her rebellion, a way of declaring her independence from her parents, and now she has gotten burned from it. AND she blames mom and dad for it but is too embarassed to admit it.

MaryJane, if you will be observant you will notice that when people are in sin, it will not be just one, but several - the whole [sin] family is there, some just have not matured yet, some are still 'babies'.

Just thought I would share this for whatever it is worth...

Blessings,
ginnyrose

Greetings ginnyrose

I have come to find out that my niece has involved herself with magic and witchcraft. She believes herself to have powers. I don't know how long this has been going on for sure but I think for awhile. Her heart is so hardened that she is not even the same person she use to be.

I am just praying for her and her two little children. Not sure how to go forward am praying for Gods wisdom.

God Bless
mj

I have come to find out that my niece has involved herself with magic and witchcraft. She believes herself to have powers. I don't know how long this has been going on for sure but I think for awhile. Her heart is so hardened that she is not even the same person she use to be.

My, Dear! This just gets worse...

I think all of us here on SI should make this a matter of prayer: for MaryJane and her niece. There is a war raging...

Blessings,
ginnyrose

EDIT: after posting this response, the verse "rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft came to mind." 1 Samuel 15:23. So, it literally has happened...

hi, rebellion is as witchcraft... the reason God commanded us to honor our father and mother is that some are not worthy of honor.some are in prison ...strung out... cruel and abusive etc...we must honor them sothat WE have long good lives.jimp

I was dealing with a similar problem in a 14 year old girl, in regards to her attitude towards her mother.

I could so see the rebellion in her. Not only but others around me, and in my family.

Then one day while meditating on this and seeking an answer I searched out some things on the web regarding the spirit of rebellion and found this great article, that not only opened up my eyes to "their" problems, but also made me see that I had the very same thing going on, and did not realize it.

The article is called the 5 evidences of Teen Rebellion. And I will give a link to it at the end of what I say here.

The reason this article had such a great impact on me, was in straightening out a piece of my own understanding.

I knew the scrpture that Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and I also knew about the verse that states, "lest any root of bitterness springing up, trouble you and thereby many be defiled. But I did not realize until I read that article that the words for bitterness and rebellion were the same thing.

Now I could justify some of my bitterness, over some issues, but I was horrified to realize that my bitterness was the sin of rebellion and like witchcraft. DAH! I suppose I should have known.

Anyway, I repented and got right with the Lord, and have continued getting deliverance in many areas since.

Here is the article hope it helps.

http://www.newhope.bc.ca/parent2.htm

Regards,