Family and Home Archives

Heroic Moms Raising Godly Heroes

“We practiced an active shooter drill today.”

Those words from Lee Nienhuis’ grade-school aged son, Ryan, felt like a gut punch. She could barely hold herself together when he told her, “We pile up in the corner like puppies, and we hide.”

That wasn’t the only time Lee was confronted by the darkness her children face in this world. Another incident happened in church. The congregation was singing the hymn I Have Decided to Follow Jesus. Lee could hear her son Ryan singing when they reached the words: “The cross before me, the world behind me.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith, family, parenting August 15, 2019 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Growing Your Marriage in Times of Stress

Does your marriage stress you out? If not, there’s still a good chance that you’re bringing stress into your marriage.

Either way, how do you handle it?

The natural inclination for a lot of couples is to seek stress relief in non-relational ways that enable them to hide – things like drugs and alcohol, or even behaviors like shopping, gambling, excessive cleaning, or binge-watching television – all of which lead to addiction, unhealthy obsessions, or lashing out at other people.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, conflict, faith August 12, 2019 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Redeeming a Marriage and Childhood Wounds

Grammy-award winning singer and songwriter Russ Taff grew up in church, but he was an adult the first time he was truly able to understand God’s love.

His dad was a pastor who preached what Russ calls a “hard Gospel.” That means there were rules about clothes, rules about hair, rules about attitude. Rules, rules, rules – so many that his father couldn’t live up to his own standards. His father relapsed with alcohol again and again for years and, ultimately, didn’t stop drinking until he died.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: Domestic abuse, faith, marriage August 8, 2019 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Discovering the Best Ways to Educate Your Child

So here’s the scenario. It’s a weeknight, and your child has spent most of the evening on the same school assignment. It’s pretty clear he doesn’t understand the information. To top it off, he’s brought home a note from the teacher warning you about a failing grade.

What do you do?

Many parents immediately assume the worst. They think their child has a behavior problem, difficulty learning, or is just plain lazy. But most of the time school challenges like this aren’t a crisis.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, children, faith, parenting August 5, 2019 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Cultivating a Healthy Single Life

Imagine two keys.

Now imagine threading those keys onto a key ring.

Here’s the question: are either of those keys more complete now that they are joined together than they were individually?

Answer: no.

And neither will you be if you’re single and hoping to be married one day. “Singlehood” is often considered synonymous with “incomplete” – as in, there’s something unfinished in you that only a spouse can complete.

As romantic as Hollywood makes that scenario sound, it’s not really true.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith, singleness August 2, 2019 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Facing Confrontation with Grace

Deborah Pegues was once vice president of MCA Universal Studios. She headed up the venture capital division that was responsible for starting new companies. It was a high-risk, high stress business. Her role frequently required her to confront people.

You might even say she got good at it.

Which is precisely the reason we’ve invited her to our studios to talk about how to confront someone effectively. We’re airing the conversation on our Focus on the Family Broadcast titled “Facing Confrontation with Grace.”

Deborah says most people try to avoid confrontation because it’s hard, and it doesn’t feel good.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, confrontation, faith, Grace August 1, 2019 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Walking Away from the Faith: What We Can Learn from Joshua Harris

I was deeply saddened to hear the recent news regarding well-known author and speaker Joshua Harris. First, Harris and his wife, Shannon, announced they have chosen to divorce after 21 years of marriage. Harris made his announcement in an Instagram post.

A few days later, in another post, he declared that he’d undergone “a massive shift” regarding his faith in Jesus and that he no longer considers himself a Christian.

Although Joshua suggests that these decisions were the result of “significant changes” he’d undergone in recent years, he hasn’t specifically described what has led to such dramatic shifts in his philosophy and worldview.

Topics: Family and Home July 31, 2019 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Offering God’s Hope to Families with Prodigals

You remember the story of the Prodigal Son. Traditionally, it’s told from the point of view of the younger son who demands his father’s money and comes crawling home in shame after he squanders it all.

But I wonder if we should call it the story of the prodigal sons. The older son stayed home, but he didn’t have the heart of his father. He rejected his brother and wouldn’t even come to celebrate that his younger brother had been rescued from the clutches of death.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith, families, hope July 29, 2019 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Rising to the Challenge of Parenting

When author and counselor Dr. David Clarke speaks to parents, he humorously asks if children are a gift from God … or instruments of slow torture.

His answer: both!

He tells parents they’re fighting three wars:

With their own children. Kids are wonderful gifts from God, but they’re fiendishly inventive at getting their own way.With their spouse. Most couples find out after their first child is born that they have different parenting styles.With the culture. Everything from the entertainment industry to social media to public policy makes parenting children increasingly difficult.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, challenge, children, faith, parenting July 25, 2019 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Making Your Marriage a Picture of the Gospel

“Maybe D.A. and Elicia shouldn’t get married.”

A lot of friends and family must have thought that about D.A. and Elicia Horton … even the drug dealers on the corner. No kidding!

One night two months before their wedding, D.A. and Elicia got into yet another terrible argument. This one was the worst in a long string of them, however, because what started as a disagreement inside quickly escalated into a six-hour screaming match outside. It was so bad they say drug dealers moved their business further down the road because D.A.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, couples, faith, marriage July 23, 2019 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura