ABOUT HIS WORK
WITH JANET
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Lord Bring Our Prodigals Home! |
I wrote Praying for Your Prodigal Daughter: Hope, Help & Encouragement for Hurting Parents in 2007. Fifteen years ago and yet still, it remains a relevant and pertinent topic for parents maybe even more so now than when I originally wrote it. I’ve always appreciated that the publishers Simon & Schuster have continued to make it available, but suddenly I’m inundated with emails from parents and requests for podcast interviews. At first, I thought it was just a coincidence, but then I realized it was God awakening me to the need of parents for hope and encouragement as Satan is blatantly attacking the family and our children more openly and abrasively than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.
Abortion for teenagers without parent’s consent. Parents who want to know what their children are being taught in schools are labeled domestic terrorists! Drugs are rampant and killing our children. Child suicide has reached record numbers. Schools are teaching young children about perverse sex practices as “sex education,” even as young as kindergarten. As “gay rights” became mainstream and legalized, Satan had to move it up a notch to transgenderism. Children are given drugs and surgically mutilated, irreversibly in some cases, and deceived into thinking they can change their gender from the way God created them. Drag is considered entertainment for children.
This is not normal or biblical. Even if you have a child involved in these activities, it still doesn’t make it right. Yes, I know it hurts and it’s painful. Parents often think they need to go along with what their child is doing or risk losing the relationship with their child instead of being godly parents getting their children emotional, spiritual, and mental help that they’re so desperately crying out for and also praying unceasingly for them. If they were a murderer, and some are, you still love your child but you don’t decide that murder is acceptable because your child committed it.
I’m not writing this article to promote my book, but there’s a reason God had me write it, along with my daughter Kim including her thoughts at the time, and there’s a reason it’s suddenly flying off the shelves today. Because it focuses on how to love and pray scripturally for a daughter or a son, and still maintain a relationship with them while not backing down on your biblical beliefs.
Just last Sunday at church, a man came up to me and told me his wife was reading Praying for Your Prodigal Daughter and then he went on to tell me about their adult prodigals and even a loss of a son to drugs.
This morning an email from American Family Association Action Alert was focused on Prodigals with a Prodigal Prayer Guide.
Here are two exerts from emails I’ve received recently. When I asked these mothers if I could share with you, both said absolutely, and Mary added, “anything that will encourage moms to pray unceasingly!”
Mary wrote: Thank you for the wonderful book Praying for Your Prodigal Daughter. I have completed reading it and now going through the 40 days of prayers [at the back of the book]. My daughter went through a very difficult divorce and now is in a lesbian relationship on the rebound. She accepted the Lord in the seventh grade and attended church with me until she graduated from high school. I do believe in the power of prayer and believe that it is His will that she return to Him. Your book has been very helpful for me and it has helped me to communicate with her without causing her to shut down.
Suzanne wrote: On page 64 [Praying for Your Prodigal Daughter] is the story I shared with you about [my daughter] Anna. It got a lot worse for the next 10 years, with another drug infused marriage and his untimely death, then she was jailed the next year for attempted murder by stabbing her brother in law in the heart! It's a story movies are made of, for sure, but God has miraculously brought her out of that mess, and she is now serving the Lord with all her heart and soul. I am feeling called to start a new women's mentoring group at my church, and praying about it. I purchased your Mentoring for All Seasons, and Everyday Brave. I look forward to reading them.
My response back to Suzanne was that yes mentoring is so badly needed today at all ages, which is why I wrote Mentoring for All Seasons. But I also told her that maybe God is calling her to start a support group for parents of prodigals. Dave and I have led several groups. We go through Praying for Your Prodigal Daughter together discussing the questions at the end of each chapter. When someone emails me and asks if I know of a support group in their area, I often reply that maybe God is calling them to start one.
Or like Suzanne mentioned, perhaps God is calling you to start a mentoring ministry like the Bible instructs us to mentor each other in Titus 2:3-5. Times have always been bad back to the sin of Adam and Eve, but God has an answer to all of our woes if we’ll only ask Him, read His Word, and help each other.
If you would like to hear the interview I did with Solomon and Jamila Jefferson about praying for your prodigal on their podcast It’s Not How You Start But How You Finish, just click here.
A line from Suzanne’s story that I’ve highlighted in my copy of Praying for Your Prodigal Daughter is “I know God isn’t done with her, and I choose to see her the way He does!” I sign each of these books, “Never stop praying!” 1 Thess. 5:17
About His Work with You,
Janet
New Blog Posts and Janet's Crosswalk Articles:
PSSSS: Please share with us a story from your mentoring ministry to encourage other churches.
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FEATURED RESOURCE OF THE MONTH |
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Praying For Your Prodigal Daughter
Hope, Help, & Encouragement For Hurting Parents
What to do with a child who has walked away from the Lord, or is not living out her faith, or maybe is not a believer yet? Janet gives hope to parents of sons or daughters who have gone astray.
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MANY CHRISTIAN PARENTS THROW UP THEIR HANDS or suffer from guilt based parenting…neither of which helps the daughter. Based on Janet’s own testimony of praying for over six years for her former prodigal daughter, Kim, she offers hope to parents in what may seem like a hopeless situation.
Praying for Your Prodigal Daughter chronicles Janet’s realization that only God could bring back her daughter and the journey of praying daily for Kim’s salvation and God’s will to be done in her life. Their story, as told by Kim and Janet, of God’s redemption in both of their lives, along with the stories of many praying mother’s and former prodigal daughters, will give hope and encouragement to hurting parents of prodigal daughters. Janet also shares practical tips to help parents and families cope with the trauma of having a prodigal daughter or sibling.
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Each chapter has discussion question designed for use as a family or support group, and Janet encourages families to pray and receive support together. There is also space to journal and cry out to the Lord at the end of each chapter. The Appendix includes “Forty Days of Praying Scripture for Your Daughter” and a Prayer & Praise Journal.
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In This Issue
Resource of the Month
Do You Need a Speaker?
Mentoring Moment
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Mentoring Tip
Mentors, guide your mentee by the Bible’s truths not the world’s lies.
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Share Your Story
TALK TO US
Share your Mentoring Ministry story with us!
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Coaching and Consulting Services |
1. Mentoring and Critiquing for new and Seasoned Writers
2. Manuscript Editing for new and Seasoned Writers.
3. Coaching and Team Building for Ministry Leaders and their Teams
Let Janet help you:
- Build a new ministry team
- Rebuild a current team,
- Take your team to the next level.
4. Freelance Writing
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This month we said goodbye to Gram who was one of our three Idaho grandkids grandmothers. This picture was taken in her backyard where we had many family gatherings over the years. My mind flashed back to those 4th of July and Easter get-togethers before Gram wasn’t able to host any longer. She always had fun gifts and activities for the grandkids to do outside.
I honestly wondered how long would it be before my eleven grandchildren were saying goodbye to me? Funerals and memorials bring up those thoughts.
Now, I don’t mean for that to sound morbid, just reflective and nostalgic. And maybe a reminder that I want to make as many memories with them as possible while I’m still able. I want my grandchildren to always know how much I love and cherish each one of them and my constant prayer as I pray for them each day is that they would remember me as a Grammie who loves Jesus and loves each one of them.
Children’s children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children. Prov. 17:6
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AHW Ministries
Copyright © 2020 Janet Thompson. All rights reserved.
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