Parenting an adult who happens to be your child

Failure to launch…. sure it was a movie but it is also a book. A book about today’s 20 somethings that are still at home and not transferring into a state of adulting.

UGH and– it is real life in my home.

I have a 24-year-old who recently busted up his computer. It is all he was living for. His goal for the last few years has been to become a professional gamer or content creator.

day & night gaming, gaming, gaming with a few shows in between.

Why did he bust it up? Long story and irrelevant to this post. He just did. (no offense for asking).

Now– he has given up on life.

given up

I will give it to him: he does better than I do when he is depressed and has given up. I tend to want to stay in bed in my depression. But he only did that for 2 days and has been up the remaining 3 days. He uses his phone to watch gaming streams, space movies, anime.

yes he even laughs from time to time

But other than that, he wants to be left alone.

He is not interested in hearing that I believe in him and that he can turn his life around. He doesn’t want to hear me ask “How can I help you succeed from here?” In fact it makes him angry if I bring it up.

I think I need to join CoDA ( Codependents Anonymous).

fellowship in 12-steps

I already attend daily NA meetings; therefore, I am not sure I would keep up with another 12-step program. But I need help separating what is his vs how I can help without taking it on. (this includes letting it drag me down in a heavy way all day long)

Today I opened up my little booklet “Who I Am in Christ” and my eyes fell on this verse:

Philippians 4:6-7 International Children’s Bible

⁶ Do not worry about anything. But pray and ask God for everything you need. And when you pray, always give thanks. ⁷ And God’s peace will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. The peace that God gives is so great that we cannot understand it.

There is a lot to unpack here.

First- don’t worry. Too late (!) but I can re-focus my mind as it keeps happening. It will take effort but I do have control of my mind and can make the choice to do this.

Second- Pray and ask God for what I need. I am doing that.

Third- always give thanks. I am but not enough. It is hard to get off the worry and just praise God. Maybe I could put on Praise and Worship music to help guide my thoughts.

I know it says AND the peace of God will keep my heart…but I think it means THEN the peace of God will guard my heart.

HA! I did what every good Bible scholar does (just kidding) I looked up each translation til I could justify the “THEN”. The NLT for verse 7 says: “Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.”

The reason I think it is “then” is because I am not feeling it at this moment. I think it is due to a lack of faithfulness on my part.

What is interesting is I wrote 90 devotions for an upcoming book. They are all about reaching up to God in our distressing times. You see even though I can write about it, I have times where I need reminding of it.

Today I will pull out the devotions and help turn my heart and mind where it belongs.

Here was the first video on my feed this morning. It helped me some. Maybe it will help you as well.

God is bigger that your circumstances

Until Next Time~
Blessings, Kate

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