Daly Focus Blog
Years ago, back when video stores were still around, my wife and I went looking for a well-known film that told the story of Easter. We couldn’t find it on the shelf, so we asked the young lady behind the counter if they had it available. She pointed us to several kids’ videos that explained how to decorate eggs. We said, “No, we’re looking for a video about the real story of Easter.”
Judging by the confused look on her face, she had no idea what we were talking about.
Earlier this year, Focus on the Family officially re-launched Brio Magazine, our publication for teen girls. It’s a positive, godly alternative to most of the influences out there today for teenage girls.
Our “Brio girl” for the inaugural issue was Sadie Robertson. Many of you know her from the A&E reality show Duck Dynasty and from Dancing with the Stars a few seasons ago.
She’s just 20, but she’s an impressive young lady, and we’ve asked her to join us in the studio today to share how she is fearlessly living out her faith and using her public platform to be an excellent role model for girls.
Did your boss sneak anything into the fine print of your job description that warned you your work required suffering?
A college degree? Maybe.
Hard work? Sure.
Suffering? Probably not.
Church-planting hopefuls Peter and Carol Chin were told directly and openly by leaders overseeing their training to prepare for suffering.
God uses difficulty to purify our faith and to spur us toward stronger character. That’s often particularly the case for those serving in ministry. Peter and Carol expected a few speed bumps.
What’s your EQ?
Your IQ is a measure of your intelligence. Your EQ is a measure of your “emotional intelligence.”
The term was coined in 1995 by Daniel Goleman, who first applied the concept to businessmen and women. He described emotional intelligence as the degree to which you understand your own emotions, the emotions of others, and can make healthy relational choices as a result. The concept eventually spilled outside the business world into other arenas.
Do you ever feel like advertisers and commercialism have taken over Christmas? Does it seem like it’s gotten worse in the last 15 to 20 years? Well, if you answered yes, you might be as surprised as I was to hear that Christmas, as we celebrate it today, was almost single-handedly created by commercialism.
As recently as 150 years ago, Christmas wasn’t the most important holiday in our culture. That was Easter. The focus began to shift once department stores got involved.
I love Thanksgiving.
You get to eat great food – thank you, Jean – and you get to watch plenty of football. Of course, most important of all, Thanksgiving is a time to thank God for His incredible blessings.
I’m thankful for my wife and two boys and for the help we’re able to provide families through foster care. I’m also thankful for the Lord’s work through Focus on the Family. Marriages and preborn babies are being saved.
If I handed a baby to you, the infant would likely snuggle face first into your shoulder for comfort.
That’s not how it was with my colleague John Fuller’s youngest son. They adopted him when he was nine months old. Even as a baby, he would physically turn away when he was held. He’d accept chest-to-chest and back-to-chest snuggles, but never face-to-face.
That’s how deep attachment issues in adopted children can run. Many children who have lost their parents in some fashion suffer from a sense of rejection and lack of emotional connection that reaches to their soul.
Marital relationship studies generally examine the factors that contribute to the downfall of a marriage. One revolutionary study took an opposite approach. It followed 373 happy, successful couples for 22 years and looked at what went right.
One of the pivotal conclusions the study reached was that couples enjoyed higher marital satisfaction when wives affirmed their husbands. That’s a simple enough premise, but it can be surprisingly difficult for many women to do.
Christian women desire to be good wives and desire to connect with their husbands.
“Why should I focus on my past? It’s over. I can’t change anything about it.”
Answer: If your past still affects your present, it’s not really in the past.
Wounds from our past can imprison us within ourselves. Satan is a master at dredging up old hurts and using them against us. Sinful and dysfunctional behavior today is often in reaction to the pain that litters our yesterdays.
Guilt, shame, bitterness, resentment, and anger are a long, slow path to destruction.
What can you do tonight to deepen your relationship with your children and empower them to develop strong character?
Simply this: in a genuine way that fits you and your child, make an effort to connect. It doesn’t have to be expensive, complicated, or excessively time-consuming. Even the simplest gesture of love, affection, and physical touch can strengthen the relationship between a parent and a child.
That advice comes from clinical child psychologist, Dr. Todd Cartmell, my guest on our Focus on the Family Broadcast “Raising Kids of Character.” He’ll be providing equally helpful answers to questions that many parents ask:
How do I get my children to listen to me?
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.
