Sandy and I experience quite similar circumstances relating to my family.  I
was still 18 when Sandy and I got engaged.  My family, before this time,
thought Sandy was quite wonderful and one of my older sisters, Saundra, we
often called her Sandy, comment on the fact that Sandy had the right name.
When I told my mom I wanted to get my money I had been saving out of the
savings account to buy Sandy's engagement ring, the mud it the fan.
Everybody in my family turned against the whole thing.  My mom literally
said she wanted me to marry someone who could see so they could, and this is
a quote, "Could take care of you."  My oldest sister, who wasn't married at
the time and didn't get married for the first time until she was 50 years
old, had loads of free advice and all on the subject of marriage I might
add.  It frankly, I hate to say this, took me several years of marriage
before I realize what my family was doing.  In fact, we had been married, I
just figured it out, 10 years before all the things Sandy was trying to tell
me about my family finally came to the surface.  My sisters, to this day,
still don't get it.  My mom did finally start to understand.  What made the
difference, was that we began living independent lives.  As Kathy mentioned,
this is hard to do when your whole family lives in town.  When the Lord
called me to be a youth pastor in western Colorado, my family went off the
wall.  They said I was crazy.  That is something they have said dozens of
times to me over the years.  I finally learned that no matter what I said,
made any difference at all.  Todd is in this same situation.  There isn't a
whole lot he can do about it except for what he has been doing.  This issue
has come up during our prayer times in church many times so fortunately,
besides echurch, they have a number of other people praying for them and
especially during this week.  If I told you some of the things these two
people have suffered as a result of the family situation, you wouldn't
believe it.  I'm honored Todd and Lelia have shared a lot of the personal
things they have suffered with us so we can be praying specifically.  This
isn't one of those situations where Todd, or Lelia, can roll over and play
dead.  Fortunately, Jesus is in on this whole situation.  Believe me when I
tell you, this isn't your average family controlling situation.  There is a
whole lot more to it than that.

Phil.