Family and Home Archives

Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, Scientology and Divorce

The dissolution of any marriage is tragic. In fact, the southern novelist Pat Conroy may have said it best, declaring that “every divorce is the death of a small civilization.” It is.Tabloids have been abuzz lately regarding the high profile split between Hollywood stars Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.

The couple has a six-year-old daughter, Suri. I don’t know much about them, but their split seems a bit unusual, even for Hollywood.Prior to the divorce proceedings, the Cruises were arguably the highest-profile members of the Church of Scientology, a movement that was started in 1950 by the release of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health by L.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: pop culture July 12, 2012 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Free Slurpees and Our Twenty-Four-Hour Culture

7-Eleven celebrates its 85th anniversary today (7/11/12) and to mark the occasion, stores will be handing out free seven-ounce Slurpees. And all the kids – and adults who have a little kid inside them – rejoiced. Coming from a business background, the explosion of the convenience store model is pretty fascinating.

Started as the Southland Ice Company in 1927 in Dallas, Texas, the original store evolved and expanded over the years.In 1946 operators decided to open at 7 AM and close at 11 PM – a bold and unprecedented move at the time.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: events, policy, pop culture July 11, 2012 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Don’t Rush Into Marriage For Sex, But …

It was the comedian Jeff Foxworthy who once said that getting married for sex is like buying a 747 for the free peanuts.

He’s making a joke, of course, but he’s pointing to a serious issue.

Do you know many young people who rush into marriage in order to satisfy both a physical urge and a moral obligation?

It would be possible to identify such cases, but given, by some estimates, that over 80% of Christians who marry aren’t virgins, that’s certainly not the norm.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: intimacy, sex July 10, 2012 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

How One Girl Influenced Seventeen Magazine

Never let it be said that one teenager can’t make a difference in the lives of millions of other girls.This past spring, Julie Bluhm, 14, of Maine, began petitioning the editors of Seventeen to stop altering the images of the girls pictured in the magazine.

“Here’s what lots of girls don’t know,” Bluhm wrote. “Those ‘pretty women’ that we see in magazines are fake. They’re often photo shopped, air-brushed, edited to look thinner, and to appear like they have perfect skin.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: pop culture July 9, 2012 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Here’s a Good Daily Habit to Make

Be Still
One of the most difficult things in life is to be still. There is so much noise – the noises of the world, exaggerated by television, radio, and so on.

Noise!

But you have to be still, you must stop, you must be isolated, you must think.

You cannot meet with the Lord in the midst of the noise and the bustle and the fury of life. You may be a very busy person, but stillness is still possible.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: events July 5, 2012 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

7 Rules to Help You Stop Worrying

When the late Dale Carnegie released How to Win Friends and Influence People in October of 1936, the $2 book sold over 100,000 copies its first few months on store shelves. Seventy-three years and 15 million copies later, the title and its content remain timeless.

Why?

At the time of Mr. Carnegie’s death on November 1, 1955, the obituary writers of the The New York Times drew the following conclusion:
Mr. Carnegie’s advice for successful living might be summed up in two of his maxims: “Forget yourself; do things for others,” and “Cooperate with the inevitable.”

Isn’t that great?

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith July 4, 2012 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Tebow, Kardashian and Our Worship of Idols

All it takes is a 30-second perusal of the supermarket tabloids to confirm what you already know:

There is an excessive, if not obsessive, draw to celebrity in the culture. From Tim Tebow to Kate Middleton to Kim Kardashian, people are drawn to certain individuals, for any number of reasons.

But a fascination with the famous is by no means a new phenomenon. It manifests itself differently today than 50 years ago, but human nature is still the same.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: news, pop culture July 2, 2012 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Nine Ways To Growing Old More Happily

The wise person, as he grows older, must turn to the perfecting of his creative and appreciative abilities, which mellow and improve with age. He must take inventory of his personality, realizing that whatever it is now, so it will tend to be in later years, multiplied many times.

[If you want to grow older happily] Ask yourself these nine determinative questions:

Am I self-centered, or do I take other people’s needs and desires into account as well as my own?

Topics: Family and Home Tags: discipline, faith July 1, 2012 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Are You Ready for the Greatest Surprise of Your Life?

Possibly one of the most devastating things that can happen to us as Christians is that we cease to expect anything to happen. This may be one of our greatest troubles today.We come to our services, and they are orderly, they are nice – we come, we go – and sometimes they are timed almost to the minute. But that is not Christianity, my friend. Where is the Lord of glory?

Where is the One sitting by the well?

Topics: Family and Home Tags: church, faith, family June 28, 2012 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

When Fire Forces You from Home

If you had only a few minutes to gather up a few select treasures of your life before fleeing a raging inferno, what would you take – and what would you leave behind?

Families in Colorado Springs were faced with this very question this past Tuesday. In just a matter of minutes, a wildfire that had been contained in canyons bordering the city swept down through the hillsides. The sky, which had been sunny, turned red.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: family, news June 28, 2012 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura