Category: Home and Family

by Marcia Alice Mitchell   Fierce wind bowed the tree tops and buffeted the vines that grew against our house. I snuggled in our warm living room and watched Hurricane Carol destroy the familiar and redesign our street to a new beauty. At age eleven I loved storms, but this was my first hurricane. Before…

A mother helps others by helping her son. by Laura Corby as told to Genetta Adair   I’m not the same person I was eight years ago. That’s when my son with autism, Chad, was born. Although my husband, Wayne, and I had already experienced an autism spectrum disorder with our firstborn, Lexi, we hadn’t…

by Terri White   In recent years, an “old original” has made a phenomenal comeback. Home schooling, an educational movement with roots that date to colonial times, remains legal in every state today. Many great leaders, such as John Quincy Adams, William Penn, Thomas Edison, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, General George Patton, and General…

Surrendering to divine priorities. by Crystal Kupper   Please be wrong, I begged the pregnancy test. It’s too early! It was my twenty-second birthday, and this was the last present I wanted. Panic flooded my mind: What about the graduate school application I had been completing minutes earlier? What would my husband think? Was I…

by Dale Lawson   “I don’t want to influence my children in religion. I want them to make up their own minds.” This philosophy prevails in our society — to our undoing. Families guided by it rapidly slip into dysfunction, because parental example greatly impacts children and their choices, whether intentionally or not. Negative attitudes,…

How to live in hope despite the discouragementof a wayward child. by Rita Platt   The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18). If you are embroiled in a heart-crushing storm with a prodigal child, you are not alone. The Lord is with you in the…

The hidden pitfalls in yours, mine, and ours. by Maxine Marsolini   Many might say Charlie and I were adventurous that wintry weekend, twenty-four years ago. Others might believe the snowstorm we braved was a precursor to the stormy life we would discover. But we had a goal: We were eloping — and not even…

by Judy Bettendorf as told to Brooke Keith   Ten fingers, ten toes. (My husband, Pete, knew; he counted five times.) Feathery soft fuzz atop her head. We’d never seen anything quite like her. Our daughter, born March 3, 2003, was beautiful — a perfect example of God‘s handiwork. Her name would be Lisa. That…

Divine power displayed in a father’s struggle. by Greg Lincoln as told to Sherri Langton   “I have some concerns.” The ultrasound technician finally spoke, breaking a long silence while studying the picture of my wife’s womb. Two heads, four arms – twins eleven weeks old. But only two legs were visible, perhaps a third,…

Only miles and bars separate a son from his father. by J. Grant Swank   I just got home from visiting my son — in prison. My wife and I drove the l000 miles one way, hitting the road last Tuesday morning. It was one interstate after another — not the easiest jaunt in the…