Daly Focus Blog
“I gave him everything I could physically and emotionally just to keep him around. He was a need, a necessity.”
Author Danna Gresh says that comment from a college-age young woman is reflective of the curse described in Genesis 3:16: “Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”
According to Dannah, the curse is like a “violent craving” for many women. It’s not that they want a man, they feel like they need one.
My wife, Jean, does a good job of organizing our household – more than she gives herself credit for, for sure. I’m pretty organized at work, but at home the garage is my main thing.
Where Jean and I both struggle is the closets. We’re both busy with our everyday responsibilities, so extra items get tossed into the closet to be dealt with later. And when we have free time, who wants to use it cleaning out closets?
Mom, God has wired you to love your son. Your soft, nurturing spirit is critical to his development. But as he grows into a young man, love will no longer be his primary emotional need from you.
Let my own high school football days open a window into your boy’s heart. I’ve had more than one coach grab me by the facemask and challenge my performance. Sometimes the whole locker room got it at once. “You guys are great athletes,” the coach would shout.
A few Focus colleagues and I spent some time in California last week at a conference put on by our friends at Alliance Defending Freedom, the religious liberty legal defense nonprofit organization that, just last month, won the most important religious liberty case at the Supreme Court in recent history.
You can imagine my surprise, then, when a couple of days later some news outlets were reporting that ADF is a “hate group.”
Here are the headlines of the articles I’m referring to:
ABC News: Jeff Sessions addresses ‘anti-LGBT hate group,’ but DOJ won’t release his remarks
NBC News: Jeff Sessions Tells ‘Hate Group’ DOJ Will Issue Religious Freedom Guidance
The Supreme Court’s 7-2 decision in the Trinity Lutheran case marked ADF’s seventh win in seven years at the nation’s highest court.
You don’t have to know Chonda Pierce for long to believe that humor is wired into her DNA.
Like the night the film about her life, Laughing in the Dark, premiered in theaters. Chonda asked her son to accompany her. Halfway through the movie, she leaned over and chuckled into her son’s ear, “This is the saddest movie I have ever seen.”
Humor has carried Chonda through a lot of heartache:
Her suicidal father, who stood in the pulpit every Sunday but touched her inappropriately at home.
Who we are often gets buried underneath a mountain of what we do.
There’s something much deeper to all of us that we’ll struggle to find until we get beneath the surface into the deeper question of “Who am I?” We were created for more than just working every day.
Ernie Johnson Jr. had that kind of an identity crisis. You’d never know it from the outside. He was an award-winning sportscaster for national television networks.
By now you’ve surely heard about Charlie Gard, the 11-month-old British baby boy. This little fellow is at the center of a controversial court struggle over who should make his medical decisions: his doctors, or his parents?
Charlie was born healthy to first-time parents Chris Gard and Connie Yates, but was soon diagnosed with mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome (MDDS) – an inherited disease that causes progressive muscle weakness and brain damage.
Charlie shares this condition with only 16 other people in the world.
When Kim Meeder was growing up, she adored her parents.
She thought her father was a superhero. He didn’t wear a cape, fly, or leap tall buildings, but there wasn’t much else he couldn’t do. Her mother was the most beautiful and loving woman in the world, and Kim wanted to grow up to be just like her.
But when she was just nine years old, Kim lost both of her parents in a horrific tragedy that shattered her heart and left her disillusioned with God.
When actor and comedian Patton Oswalt suddenly lost his wife, Michelle, in April 2016, he went public with his grief.
“She hasn’t left a void. She’s left a blast crater,” the heartbroken widower wrote in an open letter, where he also talked about the impact his wife’s death has had on their 7-year-old daughter, Alice.
And his public, palpable grief may be why some people have reacted with surprise – and even criticism – when news broke of Patton’s recent engagement last week.
Author Dannah Gresh says one of the most common fears mothers share with her is, “Am I messing up my kids?”
Her answer: Yes.
That may not seem like a very encouraging response, but if you’re struggling as a parent, you need peace. And to get peace, you need truth. And the truth is, every parent – myself included – is in the same boat.
We’re imperfect people raising imperfect people.
But if that’s true, how do moms learn to trust God with their parenting and with their children?
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.
