Daly Focus Blog
Freedom comes at a high cost.
Today we want to pause and reflect with gratitude on all the brave servicemen and women who have died defending freedom. We honor those who have fallen and offer a humble and heartfelt “thank you” to every family who has lost a husband or a wife, a mom or a dad, a son or a daughter, or even a friend or a neighbor.
Thank you for your loved one’s sacrifice … and for yours.
We applaud today’s action by the President and the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) in keeping this Administration’s pledge to American taxpayers that no funds would go directly, or indirectly, to support abortion.
HHS’s announcement that it will be bringing back a Reagan-era regulation dealing with family planning funds and abortion responds to the cry of millions of Americans who want their government to support life, not death. Six in ten Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortion.
When’s the last time you read a news story with a happy ending?
After all, as a general rule of thumb, it’s the noise that makes news.
It’s human nature.
Maybe it’s because bad news makes us feel better about ourselves. Our lives could be worse – just look at that sad and sordid story.
But then there’s Heard County High School in Franklin, Georgia, population 993.
In a nod to tradition, seniors in the high school there regularly try and pull off a prank this time of year.
“Honey, does life get any better than this?”
That’s what Carol Kent asked her husband one October night as they strolled hand-in-hand along the St. Clair River, watching the beauty of the changing seasons. She believed they were entering a time of change themselves.
She was right about that … but not in the way she had hoped. Little did she know that they were about to face the darkest chapter their family had ever encountered.
Yesterday’s announcement that the Boy Scouts of America will drop “Boy” from the name of its signature program is yet another sad development for the once storied and celebrated organization.
You’ll recall that the Boy Scouts announced in 2013 that they would be allowing openly homosexual scouts to join local troops. In 2015, they began accepting openly homosexual leaders. Since these changes, scout membership has dropped approximately ten percent. Many churches have decided to cancel sponsorship of troops.
Are faith-based adoption agencies – those that believe foster children and newborns fare best when placed in a home with a mom and a dad – threatened with extinction?
The outlook is ominous.
But first, let’s establish some facts. At any given time, there are more than 100,000 foster children available for adoption in the United States, meaning that there are always many more children waiting for their forever home than there ought to be. I am personally aware of what it means to be one of those waiting children, since that was me at one point in my own childhood.
Just under a year since Brio relaunched, the magazine was honored with the Evangelical Press Association’s highest award in the “Youth” category. Focus on the Family’s publication for teen girls received an Award of Excellence at the EPA’s annual convention earlier this month.
I thought my friend and colleague, Bob DeMoss, summed it up well:
“We had high expectations for how well Brio would be received by teen girls, but the response in our first year far exceeded what we could have imagined.
According to Jesse Ball, a writer in the latest issue of GQ Magazine, the Bible is an overrated and boring book. In fact, the 39-year-old novelist and poet went on to characterize the Old and New Testaments as “foolish,” “repetitive” and “self-contradictory,” among other things.
Understandably, Jesse Ball’s assertions have stirred up significant controversy. But this isn’t the first time that the Chicago-based writer has made curious, perplexing and outlandish pronouncements. For example, just last year he suggested that every American should be put in a maximum security prison once every ten years – for up to ninety days at a time.
A little over three years ago, in February of 2015, 21 Christian men were martyred by ISIS on a beach in Libya. Their story captured the world’s attention for a brief time, but soon other stories, both important and trivial, stepped in to grab the spotlight. Such is the nature of the news cycle.
On occasion, I have used this blog to bring updates on what is happening in the area where those brave men sacrificed their lives in Christ’s name.
In a surprise move yesterday, the retail giant Walmart announced that it will stop selling the controversial magazine Cosmopolitan at the checkout shelves in over 5,000 of its stores.
The Bentonville, Arkansas-based company will still continue to carry the magazine, but it’ll be housed in a less prominent part of the store.
Meggan Kring, a spokesperson for Walmart, said, “While this was primarily a business decision, the concerns raised were heard.”
Over the years, those concerns came from plenty of frustrated parents and organizations like Focus on the Family, but most recently from the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE).
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.
