Daly Focus Blog
My dad left our family when I was five years old and died an alcoholic a few years later. My mom died when I was nine. Hank, my stepdad, walked out on my siblings and me the day of her funeral. After that, I lived with a foster family for a year, but they were so toxic that my life got worse, not better.
Given my broken childhood, hosting a nationally syndicated radio show about all things family has been an unexpected gift to me.
According to the National Association of Anorexia and Associated Disorders, someone will die from an eating disorder every 52 minutes.
One in five women experience an eating disorder by age 40, and 95% of eating disorders begin before age 25.
Those shocking number underscore the serious nature of this tragic problem. Eating disorders are complex issues with no quick solutions, affecting men, women, and children.
Author Krista Dunham developed an eating disorder after struggling with perfectionism for years.
Let me ask you three questions.
First, if God said to you, “I will answer every single prayer that you pray this week,” how many people in your life would you pray to receive Jesus?
Second question: Are you praying for them now?
Christians often grow weary of praying for someone – or give up entirely – because nothing seems to be happening.
Which leads me to my third question: What if, as we pray for others, God does something in us?
My childhood was tough. My mom died when I was nine years old. My stepdad walked out on my siblings and me the day of her funeral. After that, I spent almost two years in foster care. When I think back on those days now, I have to search through the darkness to find bright spots.
One of them was when I was 11 years old. My dad and I shared an afternoon I’ll never forget.
Modern Christians are, let’s say, comfortable. We like our comfort zones, our religious routines and our focus on “doing right.”
But what if God is calling us to something more meaningful and challenging, like living a life of service, sacrifice, and forgiveness in a way that transforms the world?
Jesus was a radical. We don’t often think of Him that way. Modern society portrays Him as respectable and polite. But Jesus not only touched lepers, but He also drove corrupted merchants out of the temple with a whip made of cords.
Here at Focus on the Family, we hear from parents who wonder how to guide their children through cultural messages about race and ethnicity that are often divisive and dehumanizing.
Author Trillia Newbell has a balanced, informed, and grace-filled approach. Despite the racism she’s experienced, she has learned to move through life with forgiveness, compassion, and understanding. But she also believes parents should prioritize teaching their kids proper views about race, saying, “Either we teach our children, or the culture will.”
Trillia is joining me on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly to help Christian parents teach their children a biblical perspective about racial unity.
Kristen Hatton – counselor, author, and mom of three children – says there are two types of parenting:
Reactive Parenting. Mom and Dad respond to situations as they come up, without forethought.
Proactive Parenting. Mom and Dad seek to identify and prevent potential issues before they happen.
Number two is the best approach.
But how can parents intentionally influence their teenagers with biblical wisdom in the face of a culture whose values contradict God’s word?
Kristen is joing me on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly to help parents better understand how to convey God’s truth through everyday encounters.
Everyday we’re encouraged to go out and change the world and make it a better place. But how can one person truly have a genuine impact?
I like the advice one woman gave to her six-year-old nephew when he asked her how to change the world. She told him to imagine a circle around him then said, “You change the world by doing what’s right in the three feet around you.”
That’s wisdom even a six-year-old can understand.
David Jones is living proof that you should never underestimate a father’s love.
For months, David looked forward to walking his daughter down the aisle. But then Hurricane Helene came along, causing catastrophic damage, knocking out power for millions, and shutting down hundreds of roads, including the ones David needed to get to his daughter’s wedding.
Under normal conditions, his drive from South Carolina to Tennessee takes two hours. After the hurricane, he spent seven hours in traffic that ended at a road block almost 20 miles from his destination.
Author Dave Willis witnessed the life-changing power of love on a visit to an orphanage in Guatemala called Casa Shalom, which means “house of peace.” The privately run Christian orphanage serves about a hundred kids at a time in a place where most orphanages are government-run and fraught with corruption. Some of the children served by Casa Shalom have been sex-trafficked, exploited by the very people who should have been protecting them.
On his first visit there, Dave was introduced to a young Guatemalan girl named Margarita.
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.
