Your child is in trouble. Perhaps he has been arrested, run away, affiliated with a gang or turned to drugs. Or maybe it is simply a matter of failing grades, poor school attendance and general disobedience. You feel angry, discouraged, heartbroken, and ineffective as a parent. Finally, there is a place to take your grieving soul. In Tragedy's Ark, you will find authentic comfort and begin the process of your parent-child relationship transformation. Be happy Find peace Love your child and yourself. It's possible, and you're about to learn how! Praise for Tragedy's Ark "Never is there a time when parents feel more hopeless than when their child is on the edge of a cliff of drugs, alcohol, or crime. Jayne Garrison has given us an enjoyable, short, to-the-point read on successfully getting through each day of a crisis with your child. I am impressed with the depth of her work and recommend this book" -Christopher Ian Chenoweth, Positive Christianity Ministries, www.positiveChristianity.org "A wonderful source of comfort and wisdom for hurting parents, written by someone who truly understands. The easy-to-read format makes it a win-win selection for anyone in family crisis" -Laura Silva Quesada, President, Silva International

Tragedy's Ark

A Book of Comfort for Disheartened ParentsBy Jayne Garrison

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2011 Jayne Garrison
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4525-3748-1

Contents

Chapter 1 Smile - Maybe He Isn't Calling From Jail...................................11Chapter 2 If I'm Here, Where is God?.................................................17Chapter 3 Blueprint for Comfort......................................................21Chapter 4 Who's to Blame?............................................................25Chapter 5 About Those Other Lovely Parents...........................................27Chapter 6 When It Hurts So Bad.......................................................31Chapter 7 Let Go and Let God.........................................................35Chapter 8 Judge Not..................................................................39Chapter 9 Choose Joy!................................................................43Chapter 10 Unwanted Gifts............................................................47Chapter 11 The Anger Storm...........................................................51Chapter 12 Word Power................................................................57Chapter 13 Could Badgering Count?....................................................63Chapter 14 What Now?.................................................................67Chapter 15 Lonely Hearts.............................................................71Chapter 16 Never Mind, God...........................................................75Chapter 17 The Bad, the Good and the Great...........................................79Chapter 18 A New Story and it's Yours................................................83Chapter 19 Forgive and Really Forget?................................................87Chapter 20 What's Left to Do?........................................................93Chapter 21 The End of the Story......................................................99Chapter 22 Postscript to Sorrow......................................................103The P.S. I Love You Section Extra Goodies to Help You on Your Way.....................109

Chapter One

Smile - Maybe He Isn't Calling From Jail

Keep the faith. Stay upbeat. Smile. Be happy. Be Kind. Count your blessings. Never give up. It could be worse.

You've heard these words a million times, but never were they more unwelcome than now, as you sit at the kitchen table mulling over your child's latest disaster. Typically, there's no need putting a name to the crisis—they are always different, each one seeming a little more problematic than its predecessor. John has been arrested for stealing. You've just come home from the police station. Tiffany has been using the latest fad drug. You were the one who found her stash. Lonnie has posed for pornographic photos which were somehow discovered by the law. You're scared to answer the phone. Cory has been expelled from school for carrying a gun in his backpack. Plans for graduation with a scholarship have flown out the window. Sunny has pushed the results of a pregnancy test in front of you. It's positive. Chad has hesitantly revealed his sexual preference. There's no way you can tell his father.

Tristan has been arrested. They think he killed someone, and you're afraid he might have. It is, in fact, this "fear" that seems to be the underlying factor in all your emotions these days.

"The older Todd gets, the less we can do to undo the damage; or to protect him from himself. The stakes get higher," one father confided in a moment of sorrowful stress.

How well you understand.

On the other hand, your situation may not be at all so dramatic. Maybe you're simply dealing with Jason who lies, or Katy who refuses to come home at curfew. Perhaps it's Allison, who blatantly cheats on exams, or Damien who sneaks out of the house at night to smoke with friends. It could even be that you're struggling with 42-year-old Greg who won't get a job, and insists upon living with you, or 50-year-old Margie whose drug problems have taken the family on a series of roller coaster rides for the past 30 years. Perhaps it's just the overwhelming sadness of being a parent to a grown child who no longer wants to share his life or the joy of his children with you.

Whatever your particular problem is, the fact of the matter remains that something went terribly wrong in your family dynamics, and you're not sure what or how it occurred. Until now, you've equated problem children with bad parenting. But suddenly, you're confused. You don't see yourself as such a bad parent. As far as you know, you've never been unloving, uncaring or unfit. You feel pretty sure that you taught the right values- and you know for a fact that you've had your child in church and held him in your prayers right next to your heart. At the same time, moments like this make your ego look around for an event or a person to blame, and with society telling us that "it's all caused by something Mom and Dad didn't or did do," this little part of you pushes itself to the forefront to be cleared of all fault. You immediately start to examine every little action-every little nuance of your parenting life- for the culprit of your problem, but quickly discover that it's impossible for you to remember just what kind of a parent you really have been.

You're no longer sure if you were truly strong, authoritative, and unyielding in the things that mattered. You're no longer sure if you touched enough, praised when appropriate or listened with both ears. You wonder if you disciplined correctly-were not too lax or too strict. Even when you suspect that someone else such as the school is at fault, you wonder what you could have done or said that would have made a difference.

And how about God? Where was he in all of this you want to know? Better yet, where is he now? Suddenly your thinking becomes a kaleidoscope of contradictions, and you begin toying with the idea that perhaps God could have made things turn out differently if only you had been the right kind of parent-the kind of parent he wanted you to be. Whatever that was. If only he had loved you as much as you thought he did. If only you had been lovable enough for him to favor you with his love.

Your mind rocks with emotions so varied, you don't know what to address first. Should you try to curb your anger? Seek comfort for your hurt? Try counseling for your fears? Concentrate on good health habits to remedy your stress? Look for deeper religion in a different church? How can you possibly know what to do next, when your child seems to have destroyed both his life and yours with a single thoughtless act carrying unredeemable consequences?

Now take a deep breath and as you exhale, allow yourself to envision all these troubling thoughts leaving you with exhalation. The picture is not as formidable as you may have thought, because life is not always what it seems. Ironically, though most of us intellectually acknowledge this statement as true, few of us take the time to examine life events with the kind of questions that would enable us to prove it so. Perhaps this is because, stepping outside of the comfortably "known" requires us not only to think differently, but to see...