Jim Daly

How to Make Someone Smile this Weekend

I wanted to share with you a heartwarming news story this Friday in hopes that it would inspire you to think creatively in how you can bless others.

Just reading the article’s headline, “Superhero Window Washers Assemble at Children’s Hospital” is enough to make you smile. A hospital staffer at Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital, where the event took place, described the reactions of the young patients to the sight of Superman, Spiderman, Batman and Captain America outside their hospital rooms’ windows: “It was incredible… There were screams of joy and amazement.

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: kids

It Starts and Stops with Me

Here in Colorado, we’re looking forward to the promise of fall – yet I’m still thinking back on our family’s vacation this past summer to South Dakota. Our trips to the Black Hills have become an annual tradition.

Just a few miles south of Mount Rushmore is another memorial. It’s not as well-known or as acclaimed as the four presidents carved in stone, but it has a similarly fascinating history.

About 65 years ago, sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski accepted Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear’s proposal to build a monument honoring the heritage of Native Americans.

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: faith

“We Serve a Remarkable God”

I want to share a personal email I received last week from Tim Goeglein, our vice president of external relations. Tim helps spread the word about what Focus does in and around our nation’s capital. I’ll share some thoughts after the email.

When you were last in Washington, I took you to Anacostia — the most disadvantaged part of our city.

I wanted you to go there because, so often, the image projected to our nation and the world about Washington is the power, glitz, schmooze part of it.

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: adoption, faith

New Mexico, the Media, Religious Liberty – and You

Last week, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that a husband and wife who own a photography business illegally discriminated against a homosexual couple for refusing to shoot their same-sex “commitment ceremony.”

Back in 2006, Elaine and Jon Huguenin, co-owners of Elane Photography in Albuquerque, politely declined to accept the job, citing their Christian faith. The homosexual couple filed a complaint with the New Mexico Human Rights Commission. A one-day trial ensued, and in 2008 the commission issued a report claiming the Huguenins had committed “sexual orientation discrimination.” They were ordered to pay nearly $7,000 in fines.

Continue ReadingTopics: Current Events Tags: news, religious liberty

What We Can Do to Make Dr. King’s “Dream” Come True

As you know, yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous speech, “I Have a Dream.” You might have heard him deliver the familiar lines last night on the news or online – “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

It’s always moving to listen to the passionate conviction with which King delivered those words.

Continue ReadingTopics: Current Events Tags: church, pastors

What Every Marriage Needs

We’re rolling out a new marriage program here at Focus on the Family designed to help newlyweds as well as couples married for years. It’ll speak to new moms and dads just starting their family, as well as seasoned parents preparing to send their kids off to college. It has the potential to give hope and help to husbands and wives facing bankruptcy, infertility or even adultery.

Does this sound too good to be true? How can one program do so much?

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: husband, marriage, wife

Subscribe to Thriving Family Magazine — for Free!

Did you know that you can subscribe to Thriving Family, Focus on the Family’s marriage and parenting publication, for free?

This magazine is perfect for today’s busy families – it offers great, practical advice and Bible-based insights to help you carry out the toughest (but most important) jobs on earth. With timely content on everything from meal prep to family devotionals, I am confident that Thriving Family will be a blessing.

You can check Thriving Family out online or sign up for your free subscription here.

Continue ReadingTopics: Focus Events Tags: promos

How to Answer the Tough Questions Kids Have About Christianity

A recent study found that children ask about 300 questions a day. Often they’re easy ones. But as our children grow and mature, the questions often get tougher.

And then there are times when the questions our kids ask have eternal significance.

“Are there other ways to get to heaven?”

“How can Jesus be God?”

“If God loves us, why are some people going to bed hungry tonight?”

Have you ever had your child ask one of those questions?

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: faith, kids, parenting

Let Churches Burn in Egypt?

The terrible violence besieging Egypt and the attacks on the nation’s Christian minority are heartbreaking. And in fact, for many of us here at Focus, we’ve been receiving daily updates about the bloody unrest from our friend, Sami Yacoub, who is the regional director of Focus on the Family Middle East, which is actually headquartered in Cairo.

Sami is a godly man whose spiritual maturity has been shaped in part by the hardships of living in a country undergoing sociopolitical turmoil.

Continue ReadingTopics: Current Events Tags: church, news, religious liberty

School’s Back in Session, and Values are Put to the Test

It’s back-to-school time. Kids are filling their backpacks with their new supplies. Parents are taking pictures of smiling children before waving goodbye. Teachers are welcoming their new students. It’s time for these youngsters to learn reading, ’riting and … sexually explicit lessons? The promotion of same-sex relationships and gender confusion? Negative portrayals of some religious beliefs?

Sound a bit too alarmist?

Sadly, that’s what is going to be the case for students in too many classrooms across the nation.

Continue ReadingTopics: Current Events Tags: homosexuality, kids, news, parenting, pop culture