Daly Focus Blog
This time of year, the world is alive with Christmas lights and decorations. But for people going through dark times, the Christmas season may not seem very merry or bright. If Christmas is hard for you this year, I want you to know that you’re not alone. The very first Christmas was also difficult for a lot of people.
Like Mary, Jesus’ mother. She’s often portrayed as an adult woman who was ready to begin a family.
A lot of women enter marriage expecting connection, conversation, and intimacy with their husbands. But when the intensity of that initial romance fades – as it always does – some wives begin to wonder, “Did I marry the wrong man?”
Dr. Juli Slattery’s answer to that question is: “The secret of intimacy in marriage is not finding a hero to be your husband but finding the hero in your husband.”
To achieve that, Dr. Slattery encourages women to understand a dynamic woven into every human relationship: relational power.
Opportunities to make a difference in people’s lives are all around you. All you need are an open heart and a willingness to act.
A person just like that rescued Shannon Jones after she got lost in a blizzard in the middle of Saskatchewan. Somewhere along her 25-mile drive to work Shannon became disoriented in whiteout conditions and got lost. She called 911 but was told no one could get to her. Shannon had no choice but to wait out the storm.
Imagine this: You’re the lead detective on an important case. Your job is to search for clues that reveal who, what, where, when, and why a crime has been committed. What evidence would you look for?
What if the case was finding proof for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Is there evidence for that?
On our Focus on the Family Broadcast “The Proof You Need to Believe in Jesus Christ,” we’re putting you in that lead detective scenario.
Despite what you see on commercials, Christmas isn’t about presents or a jolly old man in a red suit. It’s also not about food, festive decorations, or family get-togethers – even though those are all wonderful things. At its core, Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, the greatest man who ever lived.
His story is the greatest ever told because it empowers us to hold on to our faith in tough times, to believe that a light of hope can still burn bright even when our world seems dark.
What if you and your children each spoke different languages?
Imagine the challenges. How would you communicate? How would you express your love? Even if you repeatedly said the words, “I love you,” your child might never be able to fully receive your love on an emotional level. To communicate in a way that your child understands, you would need to learn to speak his or her language.
The truth is your child does speak his or her own language.
You’ve probably heard the mantra “no pain, no gain” before. People usually say it when they’re talking about exercise. But you can apply that phrase to other things, too. Like raising successful kids.
“No pain, no gain” refers to discipline, sticking with something even when it hurts, and success seems impossible. Kids need a lot of discipline in order to take risks and to keep going when things don’t work out very well.
The trouble is we Americans have become quite safety-conscious in recent years.
Have you ever felt like disagreements with your spouse end up covering the same ground over and over again?
The reason is that marital conflict is rarely only about the specific issue itself. There’s an iceberg of insecurity, negative assumptions, and hot buttons beneath the surface that are also at work. Hidden issues from your past can sabotage your marriage today.
Dr. Bob Paul and his wife, Jenni, are with us on our Focus on the Family Broadcast “Understanding the Hot Buttons in Your Marriage” to describe what they consider to be a married person’s guide to a “fair fight.”
Dr.
In part one, I shared four simple ideas to help you get organized for Christmas. In part two, I have another idea that can make your holiday season as stress-free as possible.
The mom who gave me this idea calls it her Christmas binder. It’s basically a notebook that keeps all of her Christmas needs in one place, so she doesn’t have to recreate her lists every single year. By the time the season gets underway, she already has a head start.
“Last week’s passage of the misnamed “Respect for Marriage Act” in the House of Representatives represents a tipping point in the American story, and a grave turn that should concern all those who cherish and value religious freedom.
“Enshrining into law a destructive definition of marriage that undermines and expresses hostility towards God’s sacred design of a multi-millennia old institution invites the inevitability of unintended consequences. It also threatens to criminalize people of faith and jeopardize organizations that have done so much good for so long.
“History has demonstrated that empires end when attributes like virtue, honor and honesty are no longer valued.
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.
