broadcast Archives

In Dying, Kara Tippetts Shows Us God is Present in Pain

What does dying with dignity look like?

At 38, Kara Tippetts is answering that question as she faces her final days on earth.

In recent posts on her popular blog, “Mundane Faithfulness,” Kara shares how she now uses a wheelchair (which she named Norman), sleeps on a hospital bed at home, and is in hospice care.

These are harsh realities for a wife and mother of four young children to face. Yet she does it with God’s grace – a grace that has allowed her to give to others through her blog and book, even while she battles cancer.

Topics: Current Events Tags: broadcast, faith, news March 13, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Is It Ever Too Late to Save a Marriage?

Naturally, with a name like “Focus on the Family,” our organization places a strong emphasis on building thriving marriages. An “ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” as they say. The best course of action is always to take steps to head off problems before they start.

But for many couples, helpful suggestions and well-meaning nudges to “be proactive” are already too late. The relationship has dried up. One or both spouses feel like the love is gone.

Topics: Focus Events Tags: broadcast, marriage, promos March 6, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Technology Rewires Your Child’s Brain. Here’s How to Help Avoid That

Technology is a way of life for kids. They use it for everything from simple communication with family and friends to entertainment to school-related tasks.

And the numbers prove it. In the course of just one minute, YouTube users upload 48 hours of new video content. Facebook users share over 680,000 pieces of content. More than 2 million Google searches occur. And over 200 million email messages are sent. And did you know teenagers send on average over 3,000 texts every month?

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, kids, parenting, technology March 5, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Moms, You’re Doing Better Than You Think

Are you struggling with motherhood? Has your role as “mom” turned out to be more complicated than you expected?

Those are questions Lysa TerKeurst’s organization, Proverbs 31 Ministries, asked on their Facebook page. Within 24 hours, nearly 1,000 moms responded – almost all of them with a resounding “yes.”

If you’re a mom, that statistic might not surprise you. In fact, based on the results of that informal survey, there’s a good chance you feel the same way.

Topics: Focus Events Tags: broadcast, parenting February 26, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Learn the Fundamentals of Parenting

Vince Lombardi was the legendary football coach of the Green Bay Packers. Throughout the 1960s, his teams dominated the National Football League. But their astounding success was not the result of new and innovative ways to play the game. It was quite the opposite.

In fact, one notorious example demonstrates how adamant Coach Lombardi was that his players master the fundamentals. At the beginning of training camp the year after one of the team’s most successful seasons, Lombardi gathered his men for a pep talk.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, family, news, parenting February 19, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

God Meets Imperfect Families in Their Messiness

Maybe you know this feeling a little too well.

You see other families from the outside, and they look exactly like what you envision a good Christian home to be. Their children don’t squabble, and they obey their parents with almost gleeful enthusiasm. Life seems perfect.

But your reality seems a lot different. You break up two or three spats between the kids before you even leave for church. And once you get there, you paint a smile on your face and answer everybody’s, “How’re you doing?” with a robotic, “I’m great.”

But deep inside you know things aren’t great.

Topics: Focus Events Tags: broadcast, faith, family February 17, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

How to Take Your Marriage from Selfish to Magnificent

Do you think of your marriage as a “magnificent obsession”?

Hopefully, you’re on the journey toward seeing your relationship in that light. But each of us – at different times in different ways – allows self-interest to tarnish our marriage’s potential.

Selfishness can creep into a relationship from the moment a man and a woman meet, even when they don’t mean for it to. In the initial months of dating, couples pursue a relationship because they like the way they feel when they’re together.

Topics: Focus Events Tags: broadcast, faith, marriage February 12, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

It’s Good to (Literally) LOL

Who doesn’t enjoy a good laugh? I think we all do. As legendary comedian Bob Hope once said, laughter is an “instant vacation.”

My family can attest to that. We love to laugh together. It bonds us together and enables joy, love, and grace to flourish in our home.

Simply put, laughter helps make our house a pleasant place to be. The more we laugh the more we enjoy one another’s company, and that strengthens our relationships.

Topics: Focus Events Tags: broadcast, entertainment, family February 9, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Why Are These Christian Women Reading Porn?

One of our nation’s leading Christian publishers conducted a survey asking respondents to name the most influential book they had read in the past year. A startling number of women – Christian women – said “Fifty Shades of Grey” was their favorite book of the year.

Why is that so noteworthy?

Because the “Fifty Shades of Grey” books are a written form of pornography, plain and simple. It’s a book series that’s become nothing short of a cultural phenomenon, having sold more than 100 million copies in just a few short years.

Topics: Current Events Tags: broadcast, entertainment, intimacy, marriage, sex February 4, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

This Is the No. 1 Way to Improve Your Marriage

You’ve probably noticed that you and your spouse don’t always see eye-to-eye. Maybe he talks too much – or not enough. She feels hot while you’re shivering cold. Or maybe leaving early is rare because your spouse is always running late.

If you’re not careful, those differences can drive you apart. Petty disagreements can easily turn into full-grown battles that bleed a relationship dry.

Financial expert Dave Ramsey, our guest on today’s program, says the turmoil those differences cause are most apparent when it comes to finances.

Topics: Focus Events Tags: broadcast, marriage January 29, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura