Daly Focus Blog
Do you ever waste time with your spouse?
That may seem like an odd question. But your answer will get to the heart of what your relationship with your spouse is all about.
You see, some couples don’t do too well with “wasting” time with one another. Simply being together with no particular agenda and nothing to focus their attention on except their spouse is uncomfortable.
In other words, they have a hard time with intimacy.
Are you a fan of the predictably poignant but proudly and admittedly syrupy and sappy Hallmark Christmas movies?
The Hallmark Hall of Fame franchise, which dates back to 1951, is the longest running prime time series in television history. Although the specials have evolved over the years, the concept of using feel-good entertainment to market a company’s products has to go down as one of the most brilliant moves in the history of retail sales promotion.
When should parents say, “My child is old enough to be completely free as an adult”?
By the way, “Never!” is not a good answer.
It’s worth thinking through when your job is done as a parent. Your answers will guide you in how you approach raising your kids.
Children on their way to adulthood have always struggled against their parents. And parents have always wondered, “Have I done everything I could to prepare my child for adulthood?
It’s easy to forget the origins of the holidays we celebrate. For a lot of people, Thanksgiving is about family, football, and pumpkin pie.
That’s all good stuff. But it’s also good to remind ourselves of the true origin of Thanksgiving and to remember how grateful we should be to live in a nation that has been immeasurably blessed by God.
While you’re fixing your Thanksgiving feast today, or heading over to Grandma’s in the car, tune into our Focus on the Family Broadcast “Remembering the Pilgrims’ Journey.”
Professor Jay Milbrandt, a professor at Bethel University in Minnesota, is with us to peel back the layers of history and get us back to what the first Thanksgiving was all about.
The holiday season can be one of the most joyful times of the year. But it can also be one of the most stressful.
Spending time with family during Thanksgiving and Christmas sounds enjoyable in July and August. But once November and December arrive, you realize how much needs to get done, and you remember what’s it like to be in a house filled with people who have different interests, different traditions, even differing political and spiritual viewpoints.
Two days after Jocelyn Green and her husband married, the military relocated them from Washington, D.C. to Alaska. A few weeks later – on their one-month anniversary, in fact – her husband kissed her goodbye and left for deployment.
Military couples can relate to the uncertainty and stress deployment causes. They can also identify with the challenges the Greens faced once they reunited. Jocelyn and her husband expected their reunion to feel like a second honeymoon.
Can you open your heart to a child who needs a family?
If you answered no, you’re not alone. Many couples wrestle with whether or not they should adopt, or if there’s some other part they should play.
That was how Mike and Kristen Berry’s story began.
Kristen assumed she and Mike would adopt children when they married. Adoption was Kristen’s family legacy. Her grandfather and his brother grew up in the foster care system, but they were never adopted.
Brad Rhoads didn’t think he had a problem with his marriage. He was putting a lot of energy and creativity into building a law practice. His clients and colleagues all thought he was attentive and engaged.
Not his wife, Marilyn. She thought Brad invested so much of his energy into his work that he had nothing left to invest in his marriage.
There was no affair, no huge blow-up. But Brad had taken his eyes off the Lord and his wife, and their relationship was suffering a slow leak.
In our Welcome Center here at the Focus on the Family campus, children have the opportunity to leave their prayer requests with us.
One of my favorites is from a 9-year-old boy who wrote, “Please pray for my brother. He wets the bed. And pray for me. I share the bed with my brother.”
Some prayer requests are much more serious, like an 8-year-old boy who asked God to help his dad stop drinking, so he could be healthy again.
Does your family go trick-or-treating?
It’s one of those issues good Christians can (and sometimes do) disagree on. In previous years, I’ve written about how Christians tend to think about Halloween in one of three ways:
They enjoy it, focusing on the fun and candy part of it.
They amend it, so their children can enjoy activities like a “harvest festival” or “trunk or treating” at church.
They ignore it by not acknowledging the day in order to remain true to their convictions.
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.
