This is so true concerning my kids. Jason Jaron and Jaylee all have different parenting styles shown to them growing up. Jason got the shortend of the stick.........We always had our things going on and I didn`t have time for "Jason" I am sure there where many things we or"i" could have done but didn`t. I`m so sorry Jase you didn`t feel loved and respected...........damages done......my age.....my inexperience......my way......things I wish I could change.......maybe if I had followed Jesus, I would have been better prepared for motherhood=[.........so many lost chances...................October 25, 2007    

TAKE IT EASY
by Charles R. Swindoll

Proverbs 22:6

Maybe it's because I just had another birthday. Maybe it's because I'm a granddad several times over. Or maybe it's because of a struggling young seminarian I met recently who wishes he had been higher on his parents' priority list than, say, fifth or sixth. He was hurried and ignored through childhood, then tolerated and misunderstood through adolescence, and finally expected to "be a man" without having been taught how.

My words are dedicated to all of you who have the opportunity to make an investment in a growing child so that he or she might someday be whole and healthy, secure and mature. Granted, yours is a tough job. Relentless and thankless . . . at least for now. But nobody is better qualified to shape the thinking, to answer the questions, to assist during the struggles, to calm the fears, to administer the discipline, to know the innermost heart, or to love and affirm the life of your offspring than you.

When it comes to "training up the child in the way he should go," you've got the inside lane, Mom and Dad. So—take it easy! Remember (as Anne Ortlund puts it) "children are wet cement." They take the shape of your mold. They're learning even when you don't think they're watching. And those little guys and gals are plenty smart. They hear tone as well as terms. They read looks as well as books. They figure out motives, even those you think you can hide. They are not fooled, not in the long haul.

The two most important tools of parenting are time and touch. Believe me, both are essential. If you and I hope to release from our nest fairly capable and relatively stable people who can soar and make it on their own, we'll need to pay the price of saying no to many of our own wants and needs in order to interact with our young . . . and we'll have to keep breaking down the distance that only naturally forms as our little people grow up.

Time and touch. Listen to your boys and girls, look them in the eye, put your arms around them, hug them close, tell them how valuable they are. Don't hold back. Take the time to do it. Reach. Touch.

When you are tempted to get involved in some energy-draining, time-consuming opportunity that will only increase the distance between you and yours, ask yourself hard questions like, "Could my time be better spent at home?" and "Won't there be similar opportunities in the years to come?" Then turn your attention to your boy or girl. Hold nothing back as you renew acquaintances.

Take it easy!

The two most important tools of parenting are time and touch

Mr Chuck Swindoll you did it again!
Current mood: awake

Just when my legs fail me and I am discouraged God comes in to guide me! Somedays disabilitys makes you feel struggling is all by yourself and then understanding comes , course for me I``m a big baby so I need alot more. Others in my circle of friends are struggling too  I asked one how do they do it without Jesus in there life! Jesus is my wheelchair now.......I can`t do without him........I keep praying for them..... my son ...how can I help.......=]           October 19, 2007    

"TODAY"
by Charles R. Swindoll

Isaiah 54:4-5

Those servants who refuse to get bogged down in and anchored to the past are those who pursue the objectives of the future. People who do this are seldom petty. They are too involved in getting a job done to be occupied with yesterday's hurts and concerns. Very near the end of his full and productive life, Paul wrote: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith" (2 Tim 4:7). What a grand epitaph! He seized every day by the throat. He relentlessly pursued life.

I know human nature well enough to realize that some people excuse their bitterness over past hurts by thinking: "It's too late to change. I've been injured and the wrong done against me is too great for me ever to forget it. Maybe Paul could press on, not me." A person with this mind-set is convinced that he or she is the exception to the command to forgive and is determined not to change.

But when God holds out hope, when God makes promises, there are no exceptions. With each new dawn there is delivered to your door a fresh, new package called "today." God has designed each of us in such a way that we can handle only one package at a time . . . and all the grace we need will be supplied by Him as we live out that day.

"I press on toward the goal."

when I get thru depressive days I read the Bible , get mad, compare my life, look back when I found Jesus, how I`m doing now, and then I finally get quiet and wait.......and then comes Jesus........his voice comes thru in a song sometimes peoples insights .....he is reminding me sshhh listen and wait...in my own time.....I will work things out........my way........... October 6, 2007    

HANDLING ADVERSITY
by Charles R. Swindoll

Job 1-2, 42

Step into the time tunnel with me, and let's travel together back to Uz (not the wizard of, but the land of). Wherever it was, Uz had a citizen who was respected by everyone. Why? Because he was blameless, upright, God-fearing, and clean living. He had ten children, thousands of head of livestock, acres and acres of land, a great many servants, and a substantial stack of cash. No one would deny that he was "the greatest of all the men of the East." His name was Job, a synonym for integrity and godliness.

Yet, within a matter of hours, adversity fell upon this fine man like an avalanche of jagged rocks. He lost his livestock, his crops, his land, his servants, and all ten children. Soon thereafter he also lost his health.

The book that bears his name records an entry he made into his journal soon after the rocks stopped falling: "The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD " (Job 1:21).

Following this incredible statement, God adds: "Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God" (1:22).

The logical questions are, Why didn't he? What kept him from bitterness or even thoughts of suicide?

At the risk of oversimplifying the situation, I suggest three basic answers that I have discovered from searching through this book.

First, Job claimed God's loving sovereignty. He believed that the Lord who gave had every right to take away (Job 1:21; 2:10). Job looked up claiming his Lord's right to rule over his life.

Second, he counted on God's promise of resurrection. "Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God" (Job 19:26). Job looked ahead, counting on his Lord's promise to make all things bright and beautiful in the life beyond.

Third, he confessed his own lack of understanding. What a relief this brings! He didn't feel obligated to explain why (Job 42:2-4). Job looked within, confessing his inability to put it all together.

He rested his adversity with God, not feeling forced to answer why.

When we're looking in all the right directions, we won't take the wrong turn.