Your Relationships

Four Principles to Remember When Your Child is Far From Home - #7548

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

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Not many parents can sleep very soundly until they know their children are in for the night. My wife and I always asked our big, teenage guys to stop by our room no matter how late it was and let us know they were home. Some of the most beautiful words in the English language to us were: "Mom, Dad, I'm home." Isn't it natural to want a 'fix' on where your kids are? Maybe you know a child who is way overdue.

The Highest Title On Earth - #7543

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

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There have been a number of movies and television shows about angels taking human form."Touched By An Angel" was a television series that ran for nine seasons. You can still find it in "re-run." I remember this particular episode (for some reason, it really stuck with me) where a young angel was kneeling at the feet of a man who I think had been a homeless guy. I think maybe he had been in prison, and he just was pretty unkempt. Didn't look like much of a match for an angel. But the angel had this basin of water, and the man was telling her not to do what she was about to do. The angel was about to wash this old guy's feet. But she looked at him with tears in her eyes and she gave an answer that came from deep in her heart. She said, "I have to do this so I remember who I am." That stuck.

Shaping Them While They're Soft - #7541

Monday, December 7, 2015

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Like most families, our family looks forward to Christmas traditions. And several of those traditions have to do with calories. Maybe the best of those traditions would be Christmas cookies! One year when our kids were young, my wife broke her hand in a traffic accident. And she has been the baker of the cookies. So, the kids went into mild shock, "Oh no! Christmas without Mom's cookies?" So she attempted to explain what it took to make them. Friends of ours, who knew the tremendous trauma our kids were in, offered to bake some of her recipes.

When You Need to Know God's Will - #7507

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

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It's not uncommon for me to meet a truck driver who says, "Yeah, as I travel across the country I know what station you're on and we listen to that program. I listen to Christian radio across the country." Well, that's nice to hear. And so I've learned from truckers, of course, that CB radio is very important to them. Actually, a few years ago, there was a national craze of CB radio. And we actually picked up some words in our vocabulary from that time. The CB invasion left us with words like a policeman is called a "Smokey." Your name is your "handle." When everything's OK, you're supposed to say, "10/4 good buddy." I like the phrase that CB'ers use when they want to see if you're tuned in. They say something like this, "You got your ears on?"

Whose Hero - #7501

Monday, October 12, 2015

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My story! Yeah, that's what made kids want to play with me when I was little. Wait a minute! Is this how "A Word With You" got started? No, I love to make up stories. I don't make them all up, you know, I do tell you true stories too. But I was giving my friends parts in a story that I would make up and they would act out. But I always left it at an exciting part that was this cliff-hanger so they'd want to come back tomorrow and see how it turned out. I also had some time, then, to figure out how to get out of the predicament I had just created.

Someone Else's Treasure - #7498

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

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That night our car was totaled in an accident, and thank God, we weren't. We were hit by a drunk driver, and I had no car to get around in for the month of December, which was a very busy month for the youth ministry that I worked for at that time. I received a call from a friend one day. Much to my surprise, he said, "Ron, could we lend you a car for the next few weeks while we're in Florida." This was like a huge answer to prayer. I said, "Well, bring me the oldest one you have."

Fighting the Right Battles - #7472

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

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When our children were young, my wife and I toured the Civil War Battlefield at Gettysburg. And then, years later, we visited it again and Chad, one of our team members, was with us. My wife and Chad are both from "the South", so my wife enjoyed this trip to Gettysburg more than the previous one, because you've got two Confederates versus one Yank there. I was outnumbered. We had a pretty memorable time retracing the battle across those hills and those fields where a lot of our nation's future was decided.

Easy Come, Easy Go Friends - #7471

Monday, August 31, 2015

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I always think I look healthier with a suntan, which means I don't look very healthy most of the time. And most of the time my suntan turns out to be a sunburn anyway. Now, the doctors are telling us that all that exposure to the sun probably makes us less healthy, even if we look healthier, because it's increasing the risks of skin cancer. But even without those warnings, I think that hours of trying to get a tan - for me at least - are pretty much a waste of time. Oh, I change color, but I have I guess what you would call easy come, easy go skin. In other words, I pick up the sun very quickly, but the color also fades very quickly. And in no time, it's taking me back to my usual shade of office white. The color that I get so easily either fades away quickly or just falls off. Actually, there are people like that too.

Flowers Before the Funeral - #7444

Thursday, July 23, 2015

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When Princess Diana died no one could have ever predicted the massive public outpouring of love and grief that came from the British people in the week following her death. Maybe you remember that sea of flowers that enveloped the front of Buckingham Palace and Diana's personal residence at Kensington Palace. You couldn't get anywhere near the gates. The flowers seemed to stretch out endlessly! Someone who had been close to the Princess said, "Diana had no idea she was loved like this." That's sad but not unique.

The Power of a Father's Smile - #7420

Friday, June 19, 2015

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It's important for fathers and sons to do things together, right, like my son helping me with the yard work so we can bond, of course. I remember one day when my oldest son was probably just about five. It was a hot day. I was mowing and my son was following around after me clipping. I looked over to him and I smiled. About five minutes later he came over and yelled over the mower, "Daddy, could you please do that again?" I said, "Could I do what again, son?" He said, "Daddy, could you smile at me again? Your smile keeps me going."

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