Daly Focus Blog
Every guy knows what to do with a hole in the wall. You patch it, right? But what do you do with a hole that’s a dad-shaped wound in your soul?
When I was eleven, I moved back in with my dad. It had been six years since his arrest for threatening to kill my mom in a drunken rage. “Maybe he’s changed,” I hoped. But he hadn’t. His drinking was as bad as ever, and when he became suicidal, I bailed out.
One of the hardest conversations I’ve ever had is with a physician friend of mine whose son had just taken his life. I know how hard it can be to live through a tragedy like that. After my wife’s brother died by suicide, the family suffered tremendous guilt because they hadn’t recognized the signs that he was in trouble.
Suicide is a growing problem among young people. Approximately 30 million people between the ages of 18 and 24 are at an elevated risk of self-harm.
Before Kyle Poulson’s adoptive mother passed away in 2016, she encouraged him to find his birth mother. He began that process in February of 2017 but because his adoption records were closed, Kyle ran into dead end after dead end. He thought he might never find his birth mother.
Nina Hendee, his birth mother, believed the same thing about Kyle decades earlier. She was 16 years old in 1971 when she became pregnant. Reared in a strong Christian family, her parents encouraged her “not to cover a mistake with a tragedy” by having an abortion.
What does it mean for a man to follow the biblical admonition to nurture and cherish his wife, despite differences in the relationship?
Maybe you can relate to this exchange between author and speaker, Dan Seaborn, and his wife Jane:
Jane: I like hot tea.Dan:I like sweetened iced tea.
Jane:I don’t like to be sweaty.Dan: I love to sweat.
Jane: Yellow lights mean stop.Dan: Yellow lights mean floor it, baby!
Jane: He drives way too fast.Dan: She drives way too slowly.
When married couples decide to divorce, they often defend their decision by saying, “The children will be fine. Kids are resilient.”
The truth is losing a parent to divorce can be more difficult for a child to overcome than losing a parent to death. When a parent dies, family, friends, and the broader community surround children with love and support. But when parents divorce, people avoid talking about it, which leaves children to recover on their own.
In recent years, voices within the culture have argued that men and women are identical. One toy company decided to capitalize on that idea by designing a doll house that could be used by either gender. The company didn’t expect the results they got. In tests, girls acted like girls, and the boys acted like boys. The girls had tea parties, pretend marriages, and kids playing in the yard. The boys created war scenes or drove the baby carriage off the roof in a fiery crash.
Imagine you’re sailing on the open sea. You’re out on the deck soaking up the sun, listening to the waves, and enjoying the ocean breeze. Everything around you is peaceful and wonderfully tranquil.
Suddenly, without warning, your peace is shattered by chaos. Your ship comes under attack by pirates.
Moms often feel like a similar scenario happens to them every day. They begin each morning with an expectation for how to make their day go peacefully.
Treasure hunter Jennifer Docker has recovered a lot of expensive artifacts over the years. But the most valuable thing she’s found wasn’t worth a dime.
Jennifer was diving at the bottom of a river scouring for treasure when she found a bottle buried in mud. The cork had partially rotted away, but inside, still mostly intact, was a handwritten message. Back on the boat, Jennifer retrieved the note and unrolled it. It was dated November 1926 and read: “Will the person who finds this bottle return the paper to George Morrow in Cheboygan, Michigan and tell him where it was found?”
Jennifer posted a photo of her discovery on social media.
We can’t change our past. But we can learn how to transform yesterday’s pain into something positive for today.
I can still feel the embarrassment. Each football season my high school held an event called “Dad’s Night.” I dreaded it all year. The whole team lined up on the field as the announcer called out names, and dads ran out to stand by their son. All too soon, it was my turn.
“Jim Daly,” said the voice over the loudspeaker.
A common mistake in marriage is to marry who you hope your spouse will become instead of who they already are.
When a couple is dating, they tend to overlook each other’s bad habits. They get so caught up in the euphoria of the relationship that they ignore how they feel about their mate’s poor behavior. Or they minimize the problem thinking, “Once we get married things will change.” That’s a dangerous game to play.
It’s not unusual for conflict to erupt between a new husband and wife over behaviors that were present all throughout the dating season.
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.
