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Pointers for Parents

Filed Under Children, Faith and Values, Resources, Success
Posted on August 12, 2010 @ 5:30 pm by admin 

My blog friend Courtney posted these notes from a talk by Sally Clarkson, a Christian author and speaker who homeschools her children. I loved some of her insightful comments about parenting:
1. Read great books to your children and introduce them to the best minds in the world.
2. Satan hates children. They are the next generation and he’ll do anything to distract them with television, video games etc. Remember to continually prepare your children to serve God.
3. Create a foundation of love in your home. Teach them to obey the greatest commands, to love God and love others. Just as Jesus spent time with the disciples eating, laughing and doing life with them, as parents we must build bridges of love to our children’s hearts. Live, laugh and do life together.
4. Establish a foundation of grace in your home. From Genesis to Revelation we see the grace of God revealed. Teach your children to offer God’s grace to others - many times this is displayed through good manners.
5. Inspire your children. They were created to do good works. Find their talents and let them be who they are. Fill their hearts and minds with heroes and those who made a mark on this world for Jesus. Stand with your children through trials knowing that this is making them a stronger man or woman of God. Don’t always protect them; let God build their character and grow them through their trials.

6. Teach your children scripture and live out a faithful story before them. They will have to be warriors for God one day and they are watching us. What are we role modeling? They need to see our passion for the Lord which gives them a foundation for their faith.

7. Train your children to be self-controlled, to work hard and long hours, to be creative and grow them into maturity. Be intentional about your training. This is a long process. Proverbs 22:6 says “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.” “When he is old” means when he grows a beard. This is a process. And remember - at what age did we become perfect? We are working towards maturity not perfection. Filter television. Be sure to fill their minds with truth.
8. Teach your children to serve others. Train them to take initiative in relationships. If you want to see them as a servant of God, you must incorporate it into their lives. Show them the needs of the world through missions, homeless shelters, serving your neighbors and opening your home. Do not let your children become the future Pharisees of America; teach them to serve.

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Women Living Well

Filed Under Children, Communication, Faith and Values, Family and Friends, God\'s Plan for Marriage, Intercultural Marriage, Resources, Stress and Conflict, Success, Time
Posted on May 15, 2010 @ 8:38 am by admin 

Today, I’d love to recommmend that you visit the website Women Living Well at http://www.womenlivingwell-courtney.blogspot.com/. I’m inspired by Courtney’s energy as she invests her heart and her time into caring for her family and herself. She is one of the few people I’ve seen who really considers homemaking and caring for her family to be a high calling and an art. It’s refreshing to read about her passion and her commitment to God and to her family.

On Courtney’s site, you can watch lots of video clips from her appearances on TV shows like Rachael Ray in which she presents her meal tips, health strategies, and marriage advice. She also presents tons of other helpful articles and quick, fun ideas, including:

-Menus and recipes that both adults and kids will like

-Easy, inexpensive gifts to make for teachers

-Devotional prompts for moms

-Great organizing and cleaning tips

And more! Courtney says that her favorite Scripture verse is Galatians 6:9, “Do not grow weary in doing good, for in due season you will reap a harvest if you do not give up.” Check out her site; I think you’ll be inspired by her. For me as a writer with a 10-month old son and another baby on the way in September, I always enjoy a bit of motivation and encouragement from someone as “with it” as Courtney!   
  

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Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire…

Filed Under Children, Communication, Faith and Values, Family and Friends, Food, God\'s Plan for Marriage, Intercultural Marriage, Resources, Stress and Conflict, Success, Time, Writing Inspiration
Posted on November 20, 2009 @ 2:55 pm by admin 

Is this your vision of Christmas? If you live in England, it might be, along with lighting a Yule log and gathering with your extended family to eat a traditional pudding. Or maybe you’re from Australia and your family always goes to the beach on Christmas. For those in intercultural marriages, expectations and culture clashes can cause conflict around the holidays.

For example, what if you expect turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving, but your wife wants to make lamb, rice and baklava? What if your husband always put the Christmas tree up on Christmas Eve, but you want to put up the tree and decorate it the day after Thanksgiving, because that’s how your family always did it? What if one spouse wants the kids to believe in Santa Claus, but the other one doesn’t? What if your in-laws expect you to drive 8 hours to visit them and a huge mish-mash of siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles (including that person no one really seems to know…), but you were hoping for a quiet holiday at home?

Issues like these can wreak havoc in a marriage unless couples discuss their holiday expectations with each other. In my book, Your Intercultural Marriage: A Guide to a Healthy, Happy Relationship, I offer an in-depth discussion of the holidays and how intercultural couples can graciously create a holiday season that is enjoyable for their families. Here are few questions to help couples sort out their values, customs, traditions and preferences with regard to celebrating the holidays:    

 

  • What traditional holidays do you celebrate in your culture? Which are the “biggest” or most important to you?
  • How did/does your family of origin celebrate these holidays? What do you like specifically about their traditions?
  • Which of your family’s traditions would you like to incorporate into our own family? Which do you NOT want to incorporate?
  • Which foods do you eat on each holiday? Which traditional foods are your favorite? (For instance, my grandma’s turkey dressing, my aunt Jana’s cheesy mashed potatoes, and my mom’s applesauce cake are out of this world!!! I eat them every Thanksgiving.)
  • What are your thoughts about Santa Claus/St. Nick? Do you want to tell our kids that they bring gifts on Christmas, or not? 
  • Did your family tend to spend a lot of money on holiday gifts? Do they expect to receive expensive gifts or money from us for the holidays? If so, what kind, and how much?
  • What religious or spiritual traditions do you follow on the holidays? Why are these important to you? Do you plan to keep these after marriage?
  • Describe a typical Thanksgiving/Christmas/Easter with your family.
  • What values and traditions do we want to teach our children during the holidays? 
  • What are your expectations regarding us visiting your parents or family for the holidays? Are you open to us alternating between visiting my family and your family?

I hope these are helpful to you! If you have additional suggestions, please post a comment here! Thanks so much. Happy Thanskgiving and Merry Christmas to you!

 

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Louisiana Official Denies Marriage Certs to Interracial Couples

Filed Under Children, Communication, Faith and Values, Family and Friends, God\'s Plan for Marriage, Intercultural Marriage, Resources, Stress and Conflict, Success, Time, Writing Inspiration
Posted on October 16, 2009 @ 2:25 pm by admin 

Keith Bardwell, a justice of the peace in Louisiana, refuses to issue marriage licenses to interracial couples. He says, ”It is my experience that most interracial marriages do not last long… I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way.”

Bardwell said he asks everyone who calls about marriage if they are a mixed race couple. If they are, he does not marry them. 

Bardwell said he has discussed the topic with blacks and whites, along with witnessing some interracial marriages. He came to the conclusion that most of black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society, he said.

“There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage,” Bardwell said. “I think those children suffer, and I won’t help put them through it.”

If he did an interracial marriage for one couple, he must do the same for all, he said. “I try to treat everyone equally.” 

American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana attorney Katie Schwartzmann said, “It is really astonishing and disappointing to see this come up in 2009.” She said the Supreme Court ruled in 1967 “that the government cannot tell people who they can and cannot marry.”

The ACLU sent a letter to the Louisiana Judiciary Committee, which oversees the state justices of the peace, asking them to investigate Bardwell and recommending “the most severe sanctions available, because such blatant bigotry poses a substantial threat of serious harm to the administration of justice.”

To read the full Associated Press story, please see http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091016/ap_on_re_us/us_interracial_rebuff.

Comments? Thoughts?

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Ah… The Joys of Waiting on the Lord

Filed Under Children, Communication, Faith and Values, Family and Friends, God\'s Plan for Marriage, Intercultural Marriage, Resources, Stress and Conflict, Success, Time, Writing Inspiration
Posted on September 30, 2009 @ 10:14 am by admin 

A friend of mine told me recently, “God is rarely early, but HE’S NEVER LATE!”

I thanked her for that remarkable reminder. The seasons of my life when I was waiting on the Lord to move and to work have been some of my darkest seasons… and, in hindsight, my brightest. There’s no doubt about it - waiting can be painful. It’s an art, a science, and a spiritual discipline. It’s a time when we feel like God is at the Potter’s wheel, crushing us, smoothing us out, and making something new out of us. But we don’t know yet what.

When we see God working in others’ lives, blessing them with a burgeoning ministry, a wonderful mate, gifted children, great success in their work, a promotion, a new home, and incredible talents and abilities - and it seems like they didn’t have to wait for those things from the hand of the Lord - we may feel slighted in comparison. While we are deeply entrenched in a season of waiting, we can’t see the light at the end of our tunnel. But I promise, it’s there!

In my recent seasons of waiting, the Lord has used several people in my life to remind me of this passage: “Wait for the Lord. Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord” (Psalm 27:14). The preceding verse is one of my favorites in Scripture, reminding us of where to place our trust: “I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (27:13).

Waiting forces us to depend wholly, desperately, upon the Lord. It causes a crisis of faith when we must fall before the Lord in prayer and decide with our minds and hearts to trust in His love and His goodness, even if our emotions are telling us that we’ve been forsaken. Psalm 138:8 reminds us: “The Lord will accomplish what concerns me; Your lovingkindness, O Lord, is everlasting; Do not forsake the works of Your hands.”

The Lord WILL ACCOMPLISH His good and loving plan for you. You can’t outwait God - His lovingkindness is EVERLASTING!!! He will be faithful to move in your life. He will not forsake you. And you’ll be blessed and transformed by the lessons you have learned through your seasons of waiting on Him. 

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Now Available for Pre-Order… Your Intercultural Marriage!

Filed Under Articles for Caregivers, Children, Communication, Faith and Values, Family and Friends, Food, God\'s Plan for Marriage, Illness and Grief, Intercultural Marriage, Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference, Resources, Stress and Conflict, Success, Time, Writing Inspiration
Posted on April 27, 2009 @ 5:26 pm by admin 

I’m pleased to announce that you can now pre-order my new book, Your Intercultural Marriage: A Guide to a Healthy, Happy Relationship, for a great discount on Amazon.com! Click here to order and to read more about the book: http://www.amazon.com/Your-Intercultural-Marriage-Healthy-Relationship/dp/0802418546/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240867234&sr=8-2

Moody Publishers is releasing the book, and I’m thrilled to be working with them! It’s so exciting to have this, my “heart book,” finally come to fruition. Here’s a sneak peek at some of the highlights:

-Personal stories, insights, and advice from hundreds of intercultural couples

-Tips for anticipating and working through conflict in a healthy way

-Relevant and vital questions to ask your fiance or spouse on a variety of topics, including food, finances, intimacy, family, child rearing, and more

-A close-up and intriguing look at the intercultural marriages in the Bible 

-A list of fun intercultural movies to watch at the end of each chapter

-Practical resources and websites for further information, advice, and research

Now, you can download chapter one of the book for FREE on this website, Leap of Faith! Simply click on the box on the right on my home page. Enjoy! 

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The Mom I Want to Be

Filed Under Children, Communication, Faith and Values, Family and Friends, Resources, Success, Writing Inspiration
Posted on April 11, 2009 @ 10:12 am by admin 

At the Book Expo, I enjoyed talking with Suzie Eller, the author of the book The Mom I Want to Be (Harvest House). Her life stories, as shared through her book, had a powerful impact on me as my husband and I prepare to welcome our first baby into the world. Suzie was able to turn her abusive past into a blessing and to learn from her parents’ mistakes so that she would not repeat them with her own children. A gifted author, speaker and mentor to young people, Suzie writes in a fresh, compelling style that I really enjoy. One of her most powerful points is that we must discover and rest in our own identity in Christ (as daughters of the Most High God) before we will be able to teach our sons and daughters to have a strong, positive self-identity.

Thanks, Suzie, for sharing your insights! To buy Suzie’s book, see http://www.amazon.com/Mom-Want-Be-Rising-Future/dp/0736917551/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239459124&sr=8-1. Enjoy!

   

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What a Mission Statement IS… and What it’s NOT

Filed Under Articles for Caregivers, Children, Communication, Faith and Values, Family and Friends, Food, Generation Hex, God\'s Plan for Marriage, Illness and Grief, Intercultural Marriage, Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference, Parenting Your Parents with Grace, Poetry, Resources, Stress and Conflict, Success, Time, Writing Inspiration, flow
Posted on November 15, 2008 @ 2:47 pm by admin 

Your mission statement should be a simple summary of who you are and where you’re going in life. It reminds you and others of what your call is.  

Here is a helpful list of what your mission is NOT.

Your mission is NOT: your JOB. Your current JOB is not the same as your mission. Your job will change several times during your lifetime; your mission most likely won’t.

It is NOT: your ROLE. First, you were a baby, then a child, then a teen, then a college student, then a “real” adult, then an employee, then possibly a husband or wife, then maybe a mom or dad, a businessperson, an artist, a writer, and so on. But your role is not the same as your mission. Don’t let your current role overshadow your mission.

It is NOT: your TO-DO LIST. I don’t know about you, but I sure do have the tendency to let my to-do list take over my day sometimes. And when I do, I notice the empty feeling I have when I realize that my relationships with God and others have taken the backseat to “urgent” tasks that are really unimportant in the grand scheme of things.    

Other truths from The Path:

You probably are already living your mission in some form or fashion. You just need to think about it, define it, limit it enough that it can be helpful, and then use it.

You are important enough to have a mission. Everyone needs one.

Your mission doesn’t have to be grandiose. You can change the world one life at a time, even if your job or ministry is behind the scenes or seemingly not that important.

Your mission doesn’t have to be full of suffering to be valuable.

Your geography is not your destiny. If you’re not living in a place or situation where you can fulfill your mission, move on!

If you’re not married and you are involved in a dead-end relationship that is keeping you from fulfilling your mission in life, ditch it. Life’s too short! Focus on what God has gifted you to do.    

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What’s Your Mission?

Filed Under Articles for Caregivers, Children, Communication, Faith and Values, Family and Friends, Generation Hex, God\'s Plan for Marriage, Illness and Grief, Intercultural Marriage, Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference, Parenting Your Parents with Grace, Poetry, Resources, Stress and Conflict, Success, Time, Writing Inspiration, flow
Posted on November 14, 2008 @ 10:08 am by admin 

Author Karen Dinesen wrote in Out of Africa, “My biggest fear was that I would come to the end of my life and discover that I had lived someone else’s dream.”

We were put on this earth for a reason. As Christians, artists, writers, or people from any walk of life, we sometimes wonder if we’ve arrived at that mission or if we’re just wandering through life without any real sense of purpose. Creating a personal mission statement can help you get in touch with God’s call on your life and keep you from “living someone else’s dream.”

In her book The Path, Laurie Beth Jones writes, “My uncle once told me that during World War II if an unidentified soldier appeared suddenly in the dark and could not state his mission, he was automatically shot without question. I wonder what would happen if we reinstituted that policy today…A mission statement is, in essence, a written-down reason for being-whether for a person, or for a company. It is the key to finding your path in life and identifying the mission you choose to follow.”

Jesus’ mission statement was, “I came that they might have life, and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). He also said, “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).
 

Laurie Beth Jones continues, “There are three simple elements to a good mission statement.

1. A mission statement should be no more than a single sentence long.

2. It should be easily understood by a twelve-year-old.

3. It should be able to be recited by memory at gunpoint.”

Now, hopefully, you’ll never be called on to recite it at gunpoint, but her point is that you need to be able to remember and recite your mission statement in order for it to really work for you and change your life.

Tomorrow, I’ll blog about some of the false assumptions that people make about their mission statements. Please stop by Leap of Faith!  

 

Blessings-

 

Marla

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Wake Up, O Sleeper!

Filed Under Children, Communication, Faith and Values, Family and Friends, Generation Hex, Resources, Success, Time, Writing Inspiration
Posted on October 27, 2008 @ 8:04 pm by admin 

       Wow! This Halloween, stores are decked out like never before. Have you noticed that Halloween is now a SEASON, not just a DAY like it used to be?
       This year, for the first time, I saw that some stores have “Countdown to Halloween” calendars that look just like Christmas advent calendars. Also, today at Target, I decided to roam through the Halloween aisles to try to find a candy dish that wasn’t too creepy looking. I started down one aisle and saw some of the scariest display stuff ever. An array of gargoyles and freaky skulls stared me down. I also saw for sale a “coffin sofa cover” that you can put on your couch to make it look like a coffin. And then, next to one of the gargoyles, was…
       A SATAN HEAD. 
       Yes, a Satan head that would have given me nightmares as a child. It looked like the picture of Satan that was in the children’s Bible that my mom used to read to us. It had horns and lightbulbs in the eyes that lit up red.
       I felt torn. On the one hand, I didn’t want to even look at it. I felt sick inside. Then I thought, I should buy it and get rid of it so no one else has to see it. But of course, I couldn’t justify purchasing such a hideous item. Then I thought, I really should write a letter to Target and tell the management that I’m disappointed that they would carry such a thing.
       All this to say, folks, that if you are still in the dark about the fact that witchcraft and darkness are taking over our culture, please WAKE UP!!!!!! 
       Our book Generation Hex shares the truth about our culture’s spiritual trend toward witchcraft. Most Wiccans and witches are NOT Satan worshipers in a literal sense, but he still is leading many away from God’s truth. In Generation Hex, we interacted with Wiccans and pagans in a way that creates open dialogue and seeks to build bridges of understanding from Christians to those of pagans faiths. I hope each of you reading this post will choose to read the book and be informed about the influence of Wicca and witchcraft in our culture, especially among young people.  
       The Bible says that Satan masquerades as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). As Christians, we need to be able to recognize and counteract his evil and destructive work in the world.  
       Blessings-
       Marla

 

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