Daly Focus Blog
I can’t remember the sound of my mom’s voice.
That’s because she died of cancer when I was just 9 years old. It was a blow, of course, the security of my entire world shattered in an instant. The tragedy was made even worse because nobody told me my mom was so ill.
How do you explain to a young child that his mother is dying of cancer?
It’s not easy to explain death and terminal illness to a young boy or girl.
As you know, the term “rose-colored glasses” is used to describe someone who sees the world in an optimistic fashion. It provides a good word-picture because the lens we use to see the world certainly impacts how we perceive it.
In the same way, our worldview influences how we see culture and life around us.
In today’s broadcast, we’re featuring a conversation I recently had with John Stonestreet, who works as the executive director of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview.
Looking in from the outside, this young pastor was living a God-honoring life. He shepherded the church’s youth, taught Sunday school, and led a church neighborhood outreach.
But his young wife knew better. She knew her husband had a mistress.
Addicted to Busy
On today’s broadcast, we’re talking with Pastor Brady Boyd, who heads Colorado Springs’ New Life Church. Pastor Brady shares with us how his overly busy schedule almost destroyed his marriage.
Brady’s wife, Pam, had had enough.
Most parents can agree with the following two statements:
We love our kids
Our kids can test our patience
Part of it is simply the paradoxical nature of the role. Busy lives, hectic schedules, strong personalities colliding – it all works together to make parenting a “glorious act of chaos,” as Bill Farrel, one of today’s broadcast guests, aptly described it.
Yet, we also know that, without clear leadership and a plan, home life can spiral out of control and become crazier than it needs to be.
I have two boys, Trent and Troy. It was challenging enough for me as a dad to have “the talk” with them (and all the other related conversations along the way), so I admit that I cringe a bit when I think about the parents who have to broach these subjects with their girls. For some reason, it seems like a conversation on puberty might be a bit more complicated with a daughter.
For example, girls have to deal with the unrealistic expectations placed on them to look a certain way.
Sometimes you find good relationship advice in the strangest places – like an online review for a film.
Time magazine recently highlighted “112 Weddings,” a documentary by filmmaker and wedding videographer David Block. In it, he follows up on about a dozen of those couples whose weddings he has filmed over the years to see how those marriages fared.
The review includes Block’s best advice on marriage. His take?
“Pick wisely.” He also advises husbands and wives to stay flexible and accept imperfections.
Many of you commented on and shared my recent blog post, “Could Robin Williams’ Faith Have Prevented His Suicide?”
That’s not surprising because mental illness directly impacts about one in four individuals… yet sadly, it sometimes seems that the Christian community doesn’t talk about the issue as often and as thoroughly we should.
Focus on the Family is hoping to help change that by helping families and churches better understand topics related to mental health – things like depression, bipolar and schizophrenia.
When you first got married, did you assume your relationship with your spouse would remain pretty much the same from year to year?
Many couples do.
That’s probably why so many wind up shocked and utterly confused when life around them changes … and their marriage along with it.
According to our guests on today’s program, relationship experts Bill and Pam Farrel, the key is to recognize that changes are coming – probably sooner than we think – and to prepare for them.
Few events in modern America’s collective consciousness embody pain and suffering like the terror attacks we experienced on Sept. 11, 2001. It was this generation’s Pearl Harbor, a day so unthinkable and awful that we spent months reeling from the shock of it. We ached as a nation. We grieved with moms and dads, husbands and wives, children and friends who had lost loved ones.
Where was God in the middle of all that heartache?
It’s a question many people asked themselves in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and understandably so.
Do certain memories from your past still haunt you after all these years?
Every day Focus hears from good people who have faced difficult, even tragic, circumstances. Many endure life with a sense of agony few of their family and friends are even aware of.
In some cases, these folks refuse to seek help because they don’t believe it’s possible to overcome problems from so long ago. “Why bother?” they think. “What’s done is done. We can’t change the past.”
Strictly speaking, that’s true, of course.
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.
