Daly Focus Blog
The call to forgive others lies at the heart of the Christian message.
But that doesn’t make it easy.
Forgiveness is tough. The human heart is wired for justice. When somebody sins against us, the hurt we feel is a cry for wrongs to be made right again. And when they can’t be, we often want the other person to suffer in some way that will help us feel that the debt has been satisfied. At least, we tell ourselves this is true.
It’s never been easy to be a mom, but social media is pressuring them in unique ways. Women are inundated with radically different ideas about what it means to be a mom. The image of perfection is everywhere.
But that’s all it is: a picture.
There’s no picture-perfect mom, and that’s a good thing. There’s no such thing as the picture-perfect dad, either. We’re all falling short. God’s grace is what brings us through, not our perfection.
Over the past couple of decades, more studies than you can count have been done to pinpoint the most crucial factors for raising emotionally strong, well-balanced kids. Almost all of them have arrived at the same conclusion: Eating together as a family is one of the most significant influences in fostering healthy child development.
A mountain of research indicates that the more families eat together the less likely a child will engage in drug use, suffer from depression, develop an eating disorder, or succumb to a host of other behavioral problems.
Whether it’s our marriage, parenting or our profession, it’s common for us to get so consumed in our own little world of trouble that we forget that every problem we face has, in some form or fashion, also been a problem for prior generations.
Nowhere is this more true than in marriage. In fact, in doing research for my book, Marriage Done Right, I reviewed plenty of old pamphlets and books that were full of marital advice.
A lot of you know my story. My mom died when I was nine years old, and my dad wasn’t around, so I spent a year in foster care.
That time could have been a bright moment in an otherwise dismal period of my life, but things didn’t turn out so well for me. Instead of support and compassion, I mostly remember feeling lonely, afraid, and desperate.
My past is one of the reasons I’m so passionate about God’s call on believers to care for “orphans and widows” (James 1:27).
Does this routine sound familiar? Fold the laundry, change the diaper, buy the things for that science fair project, make dinner, walk the dog. It never seems to end!
When you’re in the middle of a long to-do list it’s easy to fall into the temptation of measuring a day’s success by how many of those items you manage to cross off. That’s why in this post, I’m not going to share tips with you on how to get it all done.
If you haven’t already heard, in just a few days, Focus on the Family is officially re-launching Brio Magazine, our publication for teen girls. It’s a positive, godly alternative to most of the influences out there today for teenage girls.
Our “Brio girl” for the inaugural issue is Sadie Robertson. Many of you know her from the A&E reality show Duck Dynasty and from Dancing with the Stars a few seasons ago.
She’s just 19, but she’s an impressive young lady, and we’ve asked her to join us in the studio today to share how she is fearlessly living out her faith and using her public platform to be an excellent role model for girls.
I hope you’ll join us for our radio program tomorrow and Thursday when we’ll be talking to Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife, Mary Beth, about their journey with God and each other.
Through an award-winning career in music and the ups and downs of real life, Steven and Mary Beth say they feel “between heaven and the real world.” That phrase has become something of a caption to their lives. Pointing out God’s grace in the midst of a very troubled world is what Steven has tried to accomplish throughout his music career.
Just a few wayward sparks. That’s all it takes to start a fire capable of burning through an entire city.
The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 is proof of that. It is one of the largest disasters in American history. According to popular accounts from the time, Catherine O’Leary’s cow kicked over a lantern in a humble barn on DeKoven Street. What started as a small fire grew into an inferno that destroyed miles of homes and razed Chicago’s business district.
I never knew my grandparents, but family friends – Mr. and Mrs. Hope – became something like surrogate grandparents to me. They led my mother to the Lord, and treated her, my siblings, and me as part of their family.
Some of my fondest childhood memories are visiting with “Grandpa Hope,” as we called him. He would sit in a big recliner in his garden atrium, play checkers with us kids and – like any good grandfather – lose on purpose often enough to build our self-confidence.
Jim Daly is a husband, father and President of Focus on the Family and host of its National Radio Hall of Fame broadcast. His blog, Daly Focus, is full of timely commentary and wisdom designed to help you navigate and understand today’s culture. His latest book is Marriage Done Right.
