It was a blustery, cold November day in Pennsylvania as I preached my Father’s funeral. Many Pastors have officiated the final service for their parents, but this was different. Standing at the cemetery that day were family members and friends that knew the real story.

You see, some 60 plus years before, a three-year-old little boy heard a door slam shut, and his Dad was gone. The resulting divorce created a single parent home, a kid growing up without a Dad, and all the resulting issues and hurts that come from it imbedded in a young heart. That divorce many years ago was still pretty much socially unacceptable, and the children of divorce often felt that resentment. Down deep in the heart that young boy began a life long struggle with feelings of rejection, abandonment, insecurity, a struggle to believe that he could be loved by anyone and a feeling that even God couldn’t love him.

The young boy’s mother was a strong Christ follower. She was a Registered Nurse, and she did everything she could to make a home and raise that boy to love the Lord. They moved in with Grandparents, and life went on. There was school and church every Sunday, but those nagging hurts deep in his heart never seemed to dissipate. No one really seemed to notice. Like many children of divorce, this young boy buried his difficult emotions deep inside. Most adults assume(d) that “kids will get over the divorce”, but the truth is quite the opposite. Heart damage is not something that heals overnight, and today there are thousands of adults who are still struggling from their fractured family.

Over the years, that young boy grew into a man himself. For all of those years though “Dad” was simply gone. There was never a birthday gift or even a card, no Christmas gift. He missed his Son’s baptism, High School Graduation, and even his wedding. He was indeed fatherless. The Son went on to college at Penn State and then heard the call of God for ministry. For the next 5 years he prepared for ministry, and eventually became a Pastor.

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Editor’s Note: Linda Ranson Jacobs is back with a “Top Ten” list.  This week, she offers ten ways to pray for children of divorce and their families.  You can access a printer friendly (and shareable) pdf version of this list by clicking anywhere in the list below.

Just under a year ago, we announced that Divorce Ministry 4 Kids was becoming Hope 4 Hurting Kids. Over the last year, we have continued to find new ways to help hurting kids and train those who work with them. We have published roughly 230 articles in that time with just under 100 representing new content and the remaining representing the migration from Divorce Ministry 4 Kids and I Am A Child of Divorce. We continued to create new free resources and offer new avenues to find help. And, as we move into our second year, we have some exciting plans to increase the utility and reach of Hope 4 Hurting Kids all with one aim in mind – to help hurting young people to find hope and healing.

With that goal in mind, we are excited to announce that Brad Iverson has joined the team of Hope 4 Hurting Kids as an Advocate for Hope 4 Hurting Kids. Brad was born and grew up in the State of Pennsylvania. He graduated from Penn State University and Summit University (Baptist Bible College). He served as a Senior Pastor in Western New York, and then in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania for 25 years before he his wife Margie left the Pastorate to serve with Awana Clubs International. They served in Southern California, and later moved to Fort Worth, Texas where they now reside. Brad and his wife Margie met in a small church in Pennsylvania where Brad went to preach one Sunday. They have been married 43 years, and have been blessed with three children (all grown) and 3 Grandkids. Brad has a lifetime of ministry experience, and knows first hand some of the struggles and heart issues that hurting kids face, but more than knowing the struggles and hurts, he knows there is Hope 4 Hurting Kids.

Brad will be contributing articles on a regular basis and speaking at conferences and other events on behalf of Hope 4 Hurting Kids. We are excited to have Brad on board and look forward to seeing how God will use his passion for helping hurting kids to further expand the work we are doing. Check back Thursday for Brad’s first article which will share a little more about his background and mission.

For the last couple of weeks here on we have been talking about a new report titled “Does the Shape of Families Shape Faith?” which confirms that divorce has a profound impact on a child’s faith.  Earlier this week, we looked at 10 Key Observations and Conclusions from that report.  We will get back to our extensive look at the spiritual impacts of divorce next week, but today we wanted to summarize what I found to be one of the most helpful portions of last week’s report – the advice contained at the end of the report for pastors, church members, parents and children of divorce.  We have created the information sheet below which quotes/paraphrases the advice from the report.  You can click on the graphic for a printable pdf version.

For more resources and information on divorce, family disruption and modern families please visit our Hope 4 Hurting Kids Divorce and Modern Family Help Center.

This article is updated and adapted from an article originally published on Divorce Ministry 4 Kids on January 23, 2013.

H4HK FAQs are designed to answer questions kids and teens ask when facing difficult situations and circumstances in their lives.

One of the questions that comes up more than any other after parents separate is, what do I do if I don’t like the person my parent is dating? You can find some ideas here, and here if you find yourself in that situation.

But, what if that person your Mom or Dad is still with is the person that caused the break up of your parents in the first place. Maybe the guy your Mom is with is the guy she cheated on your Dad with. Maybe your Dad’s new girlfriend is the woman he left your mom for in the first place. Maybe both of your parents are dating (or remarried to) the person they left your other parent for. How do you deal with that?

Let’s start by acknowledging the pain and the hurt that this situation causes. When your parents split up, it hurts! When you’re left to pick up the pieces and trying to figure out how to move on with life, it causes pain, confusion, stress and so much more. The loss of your family (as you knew it) hurts, and it is a loss that must be grieved.

When one (or both) of your parents cheats on the other and then leaves to be with the person they cheated with, the hurt and the pain can be that much worse. It is natural to feel betrayed, angry, confused or even abandoned. And, when your parent has a new person in their life, it oftentimes feels like they’re spending all of their time with that person and ignoring you when you need them the most. When that person is the one who “caused” the split, that feeling of being ignored or abandoned is even more intense. On top of all that, many times your parent will expect or pressure you to accept the new person in their life when that is the last thing on earth you want to do! So, what can you do about all that and how do you handle the situation? Here are a couple of suggestions: Continue reading

If you know the story of Mother Teresa, you know that she experienced the worst of this world can throw at people. Despite that, she remained focus and determined to the very end and helped innumerable people in the process. Sometimes life has a way of getting us down no matter how hard we try. This short but inspirational poem from Mother Teresa reminds us why it is important to always persevere.

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.
FORGIVE them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
BE KIND anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.
SUCCEED anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.
BE HONEST and SINCERE anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.
CREATE anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.
BE HAPPY anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten.
DO GOOD anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.
GIVE YOUR BEST anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.

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Over the last several weeks, we laid a foundation for examining how divorce affects the development of children (specifically spiritual development), how kids are wired to connect and recapped some of the impacts of divorce. Today, we are going to look more specifically at how divorce impacts the different areas of a child’s development.

Development stops or is hindered at the time of the divorce.

Emotional/Social Development

Much of the literature and studies surrounding children of divorce focuses on emotional and social impacts of divorce. Often times, this development gets put on hold or gets stuck in anger following the divorce. Many adult children of divorce end up walking around as adults functioning on the equivalent of an eight or nine year old emotional level. Emotions may or may not improve with time, but most adults can fake it enough to survive and get by in an adult world. However, what is going on underneath the skin may be detrimental to their health and well-being as adults. Continue reading

These Super Simple Feelings Management Technique Activity Cards are based on Hope 4 Hurting Kids’ Super Simple Feelings Management Technique to help with emotional understanding and regulation. They are designed to be used with a variety of emotions listings of games (see a partial list above) to help young people master the five skills involved in the  Super Simple Feelings Management Technique:

1. See It!
2. Say It!
3. Feel It!
4. Mimic It!
5. Talk About It!

There are nine cards for each of the five components that will help young people to better recognize, understand and talk about their emotions. The pdf file also includes a set of blank cards if you wish to add your own activities to the pile.

How To Play

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Last week we reported on the release of a brand new report titled “Does the Shape of Families Shape Faith?” by Elizabeth Marquardt, Amy Ziettlow, and Charles E. Stokes studying the impacts of divorce on children’s faith. The following represent ten key observations and conclusions from that report.

1. Churches struggle to reach children of divorce.

“When parents do not involve their children in an active life of faith, churches seem bewildered about how to reach them.”

2. Children of Divorce are less religious on whole than children from intact families.

“While there are a diverse range of theories about why the adult offspring of divorced parents are less likely to be religiously involved than their peers from intact families, little doubt exists about the correlation or connection.”

“…when children of divorce reach adulthood, compared to those who grew up in intact families, they feel less religious on the whole and are less likely to be involved in the regular practice of a faith.”

“The authors found, for example, that those raised in happy, intact marriages were more than twice as likely to attend religious services, compared to those raised in good divorces. And, those raised in happy, intact marriages were more likely to report an absence of negative experiences of God, compared to those raised in good divorces.”

3. Children of divorce are more likely to leave religious practice all together.

“One important study by Leora E. Lawton and Regina Bures found that Catholic and moderate Protestant children of divorce are more than twice as likely to leave religious practice altogether, and that conservative Protestants are more than three times as likely to do so.”

4. Children of divorce are more likely to consider themselves “spiritual but not religious.”

“It is also becoming clear that grown children of divorce stand at the leading edge of a generation that considers itself “spiritual but not religious.” Yet they form a kind of broken leading edge, with spiritual stories quite often characterized by loss or suffering. Having perhaps turned to God for solace and hope, they may think of themselves as spiritual persons, but they report more difficulty practicing a faith within religious institutions.”

“In a separate study also using the Glenn and Marquardt data, Zhai and colleagues find that adult children of divorce are much more likely to identify themselves as ‘spiritual but not religious.’”

5. A parental divorce during adolescence increases the odds of some sort of religious change.

“…it appears as if the experience of parental breakup in adolescence triggers an increase in the odds of religious change, whether that change is a move toward or away from religion.”

6. Children formulate their image of God based on their experiences with their own parents.

“…children’s early images of God arise at least in part from their lived experience with their own parents.”

7. Parents and families are key to a child’s faith journey.

“Parents play a vital role in influencing children’s religious lives after divorce, particularly in a culture in which congregational engagement and other forms of civic involvement are no longer as normative as they once were.”

“Melinda Denton writes that the greatest predictor of the religious lives of youth is the religious lives of their parents: ‘Youth with highly religious parents are much more likely to be highly religious themselves, while youth whose parents are disengaged from religion are more likely to be disengaged as well.’”

“…some studies show that family practices are more closely linked than family structure to strong faith in adulthood, but intact families are more likely to have the stability necessary to maintain these practices.”

8. A father’s involvement is of particular importance to a child’s future faith.

“Overall, as reported by Elisa Zhai of Miami University and colleagues in an analysis of the Glenn and Marquardt data, the link between parental divorce and lower likelihood of the grown children’s regular practice of a religion appears to be significantly explained by lower levels of father’s involvement in the religious lives of these children.”

9. A so-called “good divorce” does not eliminate the faith issues faced by children of divorce.

“The odds of religious attendance are more than twice as high for those raised in happy, intact marriages compared to those raised in amicable divorces.”

10. Divorce can provide an opportunity for children to develop a deeper relationship with God if their questions are answered and they a provided with spiritual role models.

“The health and future of congregations depends upon understanding, reaching out to, and nurturing as potential leaders those who have come of age in an era of dramatic social changes in family structure. The suffering felt by children of divorce may actually offer a pathway toward healing and growth, not only for themselves but for the churches.”

For more resources and information on divorce, family disruption and modern families please visit our Hope 4 Hurting Kids Divorce and Modern Family Help Center.

This article is updated and adapted from an article originally published on Divorce Ministry 4 Kids on January 21, 2013.

H4HK FAQs are designed to answer questions kids and teens ask when facing difficult situations and circumstances in their lives.

In an earlier article, we looked at why it is so important to forgive people who have hurt us:

Should I Forgive My Parents for What They Have Done?

In this article, we will look at some specific things to keep in mind and steps you can take to forgive even when it’s hard.

How Do I Forgive?

1. Remember that forgiveness is not an event, it is a process. It may be easier to think of forgiveness as being made up of two steps. The first step is making the decision to forgive. The second step is working towards getting out thoughts and emotions to match up with that decision. The decision to forgive can be made in an instant, but many times it takes a lot longer to complete the second step.
2. Forgiveness isn’t always easy. So, don’t assume that just because you’ve decided to forgive that the hard part is out of the way. Sometimes, the process of reconciling your emotions and thoughts to that decision is even harder than the decision itself.
3. Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting. If someone has harmed you, particularly if that harm involved some sort of neglect or abuse, forgiveness does not mean that you forget what the person did or put yourself in the position to be hurt that way again.
4. Empathy can be an important step in the forgiveness process. Empathy is trying to put yourself into the shoes of the person who has hurt you. Why might they have done what they did? Why were they probably feeling at the time? Did they intend to hurt you? Trying to understand the situations from the other person’s point of view can be a valuable step in forgiving.
5. Understand your emotions. How did the actions in question make you feel? Why did they make you feel that way? Naming those emotions and recognizing them in yourself is an important step towards releasing those emotions and ultimately towards the ability to forgive.
6. If it is possible, safe and appropriate, tell the person that you are forgiving how their actions made you feel and that you are forgiving them. It is not important whether they choose to accept your forgiveness or even admit that they did anything wrong. If it isn’t possible to do this in person, write it in a letter.

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