What the Parents Did When Their Daughter Rebelled

“If you won’t sign for me to get married, then I’ll get married as soon as I turn 18,” Grace’s defiant daughter Carrie shouted. The weight of their daughter’s rebellion crushed her parent’s hearts. 

Carrie and Bill willfully formed wedding plans for just two weeks after her eighteenth birthday. Only God could quiet the parents’ hearts as they watched their precious daughter marry into an abusive, alcoholic family. For the first few years, they tearfully begged the Lord for grace to watch the disaster they felt was ahead for their daughter. They prayed negatively, rather than believing God could change the situation.

Then the Lord took them to the school of prayer and their hearts opened to His teaching. “Teach us to pray,” became their heart cry. They began to write scriptures into a prayer diary and prayed these verses aloud for the young couple regularly. Their faith grew as they heard their own voices speak God’s Word over their children.

“Blessed is Bill who walks not in the counsel of the wicked...Bill’s delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law Bill meditates day and night” (Psalm 1:1, 2).

“All your sons, which include Bill and Carrie, will be taught by the Lord and great will be their peace” (Isaiah 54:13).

“Bill, man of God, pursues righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness” (1 Timothy 6:11).

Speaking the Word stirred their faith. As they prayed scriptures, they believed it as though it had already happened.

First, their daughter’s heart tenderly turned back to the Lord. Eventually their son-in-law was healed of his addiction to marijuana, and he, too, became a follower of Jesus. The young couple later went as missionaries to Poland. 

Thank You, Lord, for victory when we go forward with praise and Your Word (the two-edged sword).

“May the praise of God be in their mouths and a double-edged sword in their hands.…This is the glory of all his saints” (Ps. 149:6-8).