March 2012 Entries
If your team is in the Final Four, you might be happy. All my teams have lost! If your boss recently decided to give you a raise, that might make you happy. Maybe selling your house for a decent price brought a smile to your face. But, what is it that really makes people happy? Here is what researchers found, according to a report in USA Today.
Does anyone else find this passage incredibly difficult to live out? I do. My natural reaction is not to bless those who curse me or my family. But then I think of the story of Corrie ten Boom who after one of her lectures on grace, shook hands with a former prison guard from the Nazi concentration camps where her family was killed. What grace it took to shake the hand of the one who was her enemy and cursed her family.
I was shocked when I read these statistics. I know domestic violence is a big problem, but I had no idea the numbers were so high. One out of four women surveyed by the government (the CDC conducted a randomized phone survey of about 9,000 women and 7400 men) said that they have been violently attacked by their husbands or boyfriends.
Laura married off her last child at home. She is free to focus on this new stage of life—empty nesting. Laura figures she has another 20-30 years of vibrant living ahead but decided her life would be better off without her current husband. Laura, it turns out, is part of a growing trend of women and men who call it quits after raising the kids.
In light of another school shooting, I thought it would be good to review risk factors related to teen violence. There are things you can do to raise children who are peaceful, loving and kind. Take a moment and evaluate how well your family is doing in several significant areas.