Listening And Listening My Way Out Of Strained Family Relationships

I first discovered your ministry in April 2009. My father had passed away only about two weeks earlier and it was a very sad time for us. My husband and I were staying temporarily in my mother's home to keep her company. It was actually my mother who had recommended your program to me.

Although I had been a Christian since I was a child, I quickly realized that I was hearing things that I had never heard before, even though I had spent years learning from men and women of God. It was exciting and I couldn’t get enough of it. It helped me through a very sad time as I am an only child and my father and I were close. Fortunately, he was a believer and I know that he is in heaven.

To my surprise, after that initial period of grieving, things went from bad to worse as my mother who is a believer became very angry and bitter toward God and everyone. Things became very difficult and after a few months our relationship became very strained. This had never happened before as our family had always been warm and close.

After university, my son returned home and moved in with my mother expecting to be a comfort to and company for her. Within weeks, things became very strained between them and this caused tension between us as he thought we should have done more to get her to be kind. All of this was shocking to me and it is only Pastor Prince’s messages that prevented me from being consumed with guilt about my feelings toward my mother and my disappointment with my responses to her and those of my son.

Soon after that my daughter began her first year in university and was plagued with depression that led to some disappointing results with her studies. To make matters worse, my parents and I had our finances invested in a family business. My mother has become very secretive and seems to be making very foolhardy and alarming decisions. However, she is my mother and I feel uncomfortable defying her or opposing her in any public way. All in all, our close-knit family seemed to be completely unraveling. All my efforts to mend fences only seemed to make things worse. I even began to have the unfounded fear that my healthy relationship with my husband would soon deteriorate.

Throughout all this, I kept ordering, downloading and listening to Pastor Prince’s messages. They kept me from despair and I kept learning and learning and learning. I learned how much my heavenly Daddy loves me. I learned about my older brother, Jesus, and His heart for me. I learned about asking for wisdom and discernment. I learned to take Communion and I learned that things could improve from thirtyfold to sixtyfold to a hundredfold. I wanted to jump for joy when I heard you teach about God putting in us both the desire and the performance to do things.

Things began to really improve with my children when I began to pray this instead of trying to tactfully advise them. It is much easier to let God teach them. I am so happy to be just a supporting cast member and relying on my Jesus to do the real work. It would take many pages for me to talk about all the different things I have learned and am learning. Things really began to improve when I learned to actively and verbally invite Jesus to guide my day and to receive His righteousness and favor. I learned to ask for blessings and for Him to bless my children. My daughter is learning to be a good student and to recognize attacks from Satan. My son and I have returned to the warm and easy going relationship we have always had.

This past week, I was praying for wisdom on how to cope with my mother, when I felt impressed to get out the DVD series entitled, The Power of the Cross, and listen to the third CD, A Visual Study Of The Tabernacle’s Golden Boards. Pastor Prince went on a “rabbit trail” and it seemed that he was speaking directly to me about how to treat my mother with kindness and personally deal with the verbal and emotional abuse without feeling so hurt that I want to run away.

My main point is that your messages, Pastor Prince, have made the past two most difficult years of my life, the two years when I have been able to enter most into God's unmerited favor. I thank you and everyone at New Creation Church and Joseph Prince Ministries from the bottom of my heart. Although I live in the little island of Bermuda—an even smaller dot than Singapore—yet God sent your voice over to me to teach me more about Jesus. I am stronger and happier and more grounded in the Word than I ever have been. Also, I am telling everyone who will listen to tune in to your program and podcasts.