Category: FAMILY
Making the Best of an Ugly Wife
James Fraser of the Scottish Highlands (1700-1769) was known for his ugly wife. I don’t know what she looked like physically, but as far as demeanor, she was as ugly a woman as could possibly be found. I hope her behavior changed after their marriage began....
Playing the Fool with Sexual Sin
I once heard about a man who spit himself to death. It might be an “urban legend,” but as the story goes, he died while competing in a distance-spitting contest. Being a bit drunk, and running toward the low railing of the bridge, he underestimated his...
Game Turned Shame: I Actually Bought It!
Many moons ago, when I was in college, I went with a few friends to the neighboring city of Hot Springs, Arkansas. At one time there were more millionaires in Hot Springs than anywhere in the country. I was not one of them. We ambled along...
The Two Men My Wife Married
It’s Valentine’s Day, and I’m thinking of the person my wife married in her youth. He was a young man. With a full head of dark hair, he was slim and trim and pretty strong for his size. With most of his life before him, he...
The Word Fathers Long To Hear
On Friday we made another expedition to Deal Cemetery in Ladelle to decorate Jenny’s grave. I miss Jenny and often feel sadness because I’ll never see her again in this life. She was, after all, one-third of my small flock, and I sometimes feel wronged over...
Fear and Fatherhood: A Godly Combination
It happened one evening during family worship, and my son has not been the same since. My three-year-old son David was standing and bouncing on the couch as he looked away from me and out the window. He was sidetracked by something outside, and his lack...
Fathers: The Original “Children’s Ministers”
“What do you have for my children?” As a pastor, I have been asked that question numerous times by well-meaning parents. Essentially, they want to know what ministries the church offers for children. Their desire for the spiritual good of their kids is commendable and some...
Fathering “by the Book”
Comedian Bill Cosby once said, If the new American father feels bewildered and even defeated, let him take comfort from the fact that whatever he does in any fathering situation has a fifty percent chance of being right. I’m sure (or at least I hope) Mr....
A Wake-up Call to Husbands in Hibernation
Does the following anonymous piece, titled “The Wall,” describe your marriage? Their wedding pictures mocked them from the table, these two, whose minds no longer touched each other. They lived with such a heavy barricade between them that neither battering ram of words nor artilleries of...
A Father’s Spiritual Advice
On his 20th birthday, I gave my son a copy of the letter I had written him when he was just one year old. The challenges I set out for him at age one are unchanged 19 years later. I’ve excerpted portions of that “spiritual yardstick”...
