Excellent or Praiseworthy is posted on Monday and Thursday nights. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. — Matthew 5:3,4 In just about every…
Excellent or Praiseworthy is posted on Monday and Thursday nights. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify…
Excellent or Praiseworthy is posted on Monday and Thursday nights. But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness" . . . That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight…
“Communication is a lot like tennis. One person begins the conversation by making a statement, and then perhaps asking a question—like serving the ball. The other person returns the ball by responding to the statement and/or question, and perhaps asks another question. And so the game continues.” This is an important paragraph from the HomeBuilders Bible study entitled Making Your Marriage Deployment Ready (p. 39), meant to help couples in their communication skills before they are geographically separated. But the truth is that communication skills are vital to the life of a marriage relationship—deployment or not.
“I’m not there! What can I do about it?” If you’ve ever heard those words from a deployed service member, you know the frustration they offer up to the one at home having to deal with the troubling situation. If the situation regards the rearing of children, then the frustration can reach epic proportions. None of us wants that, right? So here are some thoughts to help—they’re so simple we call them the "ABCs" of long-distance parenting.
A pastor wrote this list of forty reasons NOT to have an affair, NOT to commit adultery. But it applies to us all, not just pastors—without exception. It seems like Satan is winning more than his share of marital battles, and we’re all sick and tired of the damage he is causing. If rational thinking will help, this list should do more than its share of convincing a person “on the verge of infidelity” to re-think and flee temptation.
How Jesus healed me from PTSD is truly a powerful redemptive work of grace in my life, but the recovery did not happen overnight. On my second deployment to Iraq (from August 2006 to October 2007) I served with the 1-26 Infantry Battalion, which sustained more casualties than any other military unit since Vietnam. We lost 35 soldiers and over 130 were wounded. Many of the wounded ended up as amputees. I conducted 24 memorial ceremonies for our fallen soldiers, provided over 200 hours of grief counseling, and was also wounded due to an IED blast. Before returning home I began experiencing what behavioral health experts call “burn out” and “compassion fatigue.”
It was five years ago that my husband and I closely watched two weddings—one on TV and the other through photos on Facebook. One, a royal wedding, costing millions of dollars and the other probably less than $200. Both couples deeply in love and truly committed to each other; both weddings in churches; both military couples with obligations to duty; both brides beautiful and both grooms handsome; both families excited and happy for the couples.
Excellent or Praiseworthy is posted on Monday and Thursday nights. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. — Colossians 1:17 The story goes something like this: A military family has just arrived at their new…