Phil,
First of all, I hope that my comments to Brad explain my choice of 
words in my first post.  Yes, they were my choice and I freely admit 
that.    I distinguish between a noun and a verb and I used that 
choice carefully to try to get my point across.

Secondly, I am concerned for Angel's physical safety as well.  That 
is why I spoke as boldly as I did, but thirdly, I am concerned about 
the soul and character of Angel's son.  My comments were not spoken 
out of anger as much as out of love for both Angel and her son and 
God's best for them.  When people come on this list and say that they 
are praying, praying for what?  That can become sucha pat response 
and easy to say, but what do we really mean when we say it?  These 
problems aren't going to just go away.  Something is going to have to 
be dealt with one way or another.   I didn't give any advice that  I 
myself haven't had to follow.  I know that its tough, just as you do 
and I don't think that you are a bad parent for handling situations 
with your children as you have.  You decided as you did, and continue 
to do so, out of love and concern that they will turn to the Lord.
Kathy



At 12:26 AM 12/23/2006, you wrote:
>      Angel, I have been married for just about 35 years to the
>same woman.  We have 3 grown children, and almost 7 grandchildren.
>Come March, it will be seven.  When I started creeping up on 50
>years of age, nearly 5 years ago now, I decided to take stock of
>my life as a Christian, husband, and father.  When I did this, I
>wasn't too happy with what I saw.  Yes, it was true my oldest son
>was married and had a great job with two lovely little girls.  It
>was also true that he had to get married.  I also kicked him out
>of my house when he was 20 years old due to his sinful life style
>and his disrespect to his parents.  My daughter has lived a life
>of rebellion against God since she was literally a little girl.
>She has had at least one abortion, been arrested 3 times, and has
>a felony drug record and she just turned 28 years of age.  I have
>kicked my daughter out of my home 3 times.  The first time, she
>was only 15 years old but was living so ungodly, I had no choice.
>I told her before I kicked her out that I would go down to the
>police station and register her as a run away.  This I did after
>she left.  She told me at that time, she did not want to be any F
>ing Christians.  When we found her 3 months later, she was
>pregnant.  The second time I kicked her out, she was 16 and her
>baby, my oldest grandson who is now 11 years old, was only a year
>old.  It was the hardest thing I ever did in my life.  The third
>time I kicked her out, she had two children, was married, and they
>all lived in my basement because we have a one bedroom apartment
>downstairs.  My daughter was already heavily into drugs and was
>sexually unfaithful to her husband multiple times.  My daughter
>was probably 20 years old at that time.  She is divorced now and
>Sandy and I have legal custody of her 11 year old son.  My
>daughter has stolen from her parents many times including
>jewelry, electronics, car stereos that belonged to her brother,
>cash we had, and probably things we will never know.  She has sold
>things she took from our house at pawn shops.  She has tried
>returning a cell phone that we had gotten her and tried to say it
>wasn't working and she wanted her money back.  She used my credit
>card several times, signing my name, and lied about it when I
>caught her by reading my monthly statement online.  My youngest
>son is 24 years of age.  He saw how his sister lived her life,
>and also saw what it did to his parents when his older brother had
>to get married, and decided he would not live as they did.  He
>hasn't either and he lives a Godly life and really loves the Lord
>with all of his heart.  As a parent, therefore, regardless of how
>I raised my children in a Christian home, with rules, going to
>church, and teaching my children how to live by Biblical
>principles, I would be judged as a bad parent.
>
>      During the past 17 years, I have had two, what used to be
>called, nervous break downs.  They don't call it that much any
>more, unless you have an old doctor, but now they want to diagnose
>it as bipolar, Obsessive compulsive Disorder, Post Traumatic
>Stress Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, and a whole bunch of
>other letters of the alphabet that are almost meaningless.  Why
>did I emotionally break down?  One real good reason, I decided,
>was due to the fact I think I was a failure at being a Godly
>Christian father.  In other words, I was a lousy parent.  The
>other reason?  I was a lousy parent, a failure at parenting,
>because, it just had to be that I was also a lousy Christian.  I
>crashed and burned not once but twice as a result.  Now I know
>those two things were lies but I had been deceived into believing
>they were true.
>
>      Kathy stated we were kind of rough on her but in her case,
>based upon some of her reports, I was concerned about her physical
>safety.  Plus, I often sounded harsher than I meant to be simply
>because I had experienced much of what she was facing and I hate
>watching others go through the same things I have experienced
>relating to parenting.  Plus, I'm a little cocky sometimes and
>act like I know more than I really do.  Pride is what that is
>called.  I'm still learning.  I especially get bent out of shape
>when a son picks on his mom, sort of speak, so I have a tendency
>to come off more aggressively in such cases.  In my case, that was
>never a problem, that is, I was never concerned about my physical
>safety.  In short, I have no doubt that some people, that know me,
>considered I was a bad, or poor, parent.  I considered myself such
>a parent.  I don't any longer but I still worry about them.  It is
>tough to know how to work with any given child.  They are all so
>different and their different ages, as well as so many other
>factors that must be figured in, making being a good parent down
>right impossible as far as I am concerned.  We all will look back
>and say, I wish I would have done better.
>
>Phil.