Through the curtains my husband handed me a towel.  As I wrapped the fresh white towel around my shivering shoulders, deep warmth wrapped itself all around my thawing frame.  My husband had warmed the towel in the dryer!  I cannot describe how magical it felt.

The warmth of the towel seeped into my skin as my husband’s thoughtfulness saturated my soul.  I felt loved.  What a gift! It was a simple act of kindness that warmed my body and heart.

Now… before you start thinking that this kind of romance naturally occurs within the Born household, can I set the record straight?  This wasn’t my hubby’s own idea.  Nope.  He didn’t come up with this on his own. He got it from a book.  But… who cares? As I enshrouded my body with that warm towel, I didn’t give a hoot where the idea came from.  I was relishing in his implementation of the idea. That was the gift.

Have you got a Christmas gift for your spouse yet?  According to the guy on the radio, if you don’t have your gifts by now… it’s too late.  But I don’t believe him.  Come on, they’ve been playing Christmas music for months already.  The pressure tactics of consumerism are little over the top.

For Christmas this year, my husband and I are giving each other the gift of attending a marriage conference together.  Now, marriage conferences aren’t cheap, so we’ll be saving up for it. But I’m thinking it’ll be more like an investment. One of the greatest gifts you can give your spouse is the desire to learn new ways of saying “I love you” – whether the ideas come from a book, a marriage seminar or from your own creativity.  No matter what stage a marriage is at (and we’ve been through ebbs and flows of our own) there is always hope for a deeper and more meaningful relationship.

So with the warm towel in mind, think about giving a gift that will change your relationship.  Find out new ways to say I love you.  Pick up a marriage book.  Plan to attend a marriage seminar.  Go for coffee with a friend and share some ideas.  Choosing to learn new ways to love your spouse is a life-changing gift. Now that’s a real gift.

Take the next step:

Find a marriage conference near you: US schedule Canadian schedule
Do you have questions about marriage? Come talk to a mentor

Originally posted on dorisdoumaborn.wordpress.com . Used with permission.

Every now and then, an idea explodes through our collective consciences,

Take the frantic morning routine that sends many parents careening for the Tim Horton’s drive-through in desperation before it’s done. You yell and plead for the kids to get up, to no avail. So you yank off covers, rifle through drawers to find clothes, and hunt for the glasses Sally can’t locate, all while stuffing lunches into backpacks.

Sometimes helping doesn’t actually help

No one else seems to be able to hear that bus countdown that is ticking loudly in your own mind. Just when you’ve finally finished ensuring all your offspring is properly attired, one announces that he forgot to do his math homework. So you hunt for a piece of paper and a pencil and start multiplying, while you shove a cereal bowl towards him. By the time the children mount the bus stairs you’re exhausted, and it’s not even nine o’clock yet.

Unfortunately, most parents focus on helping their children complete tasks, instead of helping their children own those tasks. What kids really need is not a mom or a dad who runs around afterwards picking up all the pieces. Kids need to learn to be responsible for themselves, or they’ll wind up moving back in when they’re 23, hoping you’re still around to get them off to their dead-end job. We are accepting too much responsibility.

I read of one mother who was so frustrated by her typical morning that she warned the children that if they missed the bus, and made her drive them to school, then they would have to clean up the kitchen that night in exchange. She explained the new arrangement, and then she shut her trap. She didn’t nag them about homework, or backpacks, or lunches, or breakfasts. She let them figure it out. They soon learned that they didn’t really enjoy cleaning out dirty pots and pans. And lo and behold, she got her mornings back.

Their problem, not yours

Our society seems to believe that children’s behavior reflects completely upon parents, and so parents tend to do too much to cover up for kids’ failures. All we’re doing, though, is encouraging irresponsibility. Why not make children responsible for the things that are rightly theirs? If they don’t get their homework done, they fail the test. If they fail the test, they lose TV and video game privileges. No more griping over homework. If teens want a car, they have to pay for the insurance, which means they have to get a job. And if they’re late for that job, they lose it. Their problem, not yours.

If your three-year-old can’t behave on a play date, you leave. You don’t coax them or bribe them or flatter them. If your eight-year-old can’t find his hockey equipment, he misses the game. End of story.

Allowing children to fail teaches children what real life is all about. Turning ourselves into pretzels to help them get through that play date, finish that homework, make that bus, or afford that cell phone doesn’t teach them anything except that irresponsibility doesn’t matter.

If you’re running ragged trying to fix your children’s lives, quit it. The world isn’t going to stop spinning if they miss that bus. Galileo figured that out six hundred years ago. Maybe it’s time we caught up.  For a great book on this topic read Have a New Kid by Friday by Kevin Lehman.

This blog was originally posted on tolovehonorandvacuum.blogspot.com . Used with permission.

Need more parenting resources? Check out FamilyLife Canada

There was a video on CNN yesterday that stopped me in my tracks.

The children are all wearing the same dress and the same expression, only the color of their skin is different.  An interviewer asks the little girl “who is the smart child?” “who is the mean child?” Over and over the little girl assigns all of the positive characteristics to the white children and all of the negative characteristics to the darkest skinned child.

I sat and watched, saddened and a little heartbroken until the interviewer asked the girl “Why is she the good child” and the little girl says “Because I think she looks like me.”

That really got my attention.

I’ve always thought of racism as a great evil that is taught, that somehow, for some reason we teach children to hate.  But I found her answer very illuminating.  Don’t we, as adults, assume the best of the people are who are most like us? Could the roots of racism really be that simple?

Just because it’s a natural response certainly doesn’t mean it’s acceptable or good and it doesn’t excuse us from taking active steps to combat our own wrong thinking. Later on in the clip, the girl’s mother fights back tears as she whispers “I guess she just hasn’t been exposed.”   I wonder about my own childhood – were the children in my story books the same color as I am? Were the dolls I played with?

I know that part of what made Star Wars such a game changer is that Lucas intentionally played with this thinking.  In the movies the Jedis, the good guys, all wear dark colors while the Storm Troopers, the harbingers of evil, are clad in sparkling white.

It’s easy to watch this little girl and think “wow, that’s sad” but what do I see when I look at my own thinking? What do you see when you look at yours?

How do you combat the mistaken thought that “people who look like me are better”?

More:
Searching for a beautiful woman
Beauty at what price?

As I write this post, nearly half of the trapped Chilean miners have been rescued.

CNN showed live video of the rescue and a live tracker on their front page displaying the number of people rescued so far. Similarly, in Canada the CBC has the rescue as their #1 story, with live video and over 300 visitor comments on the story. In Britain, the BBC lists information about each of the miners rescued so far, including:

Mario Sepulveda, who brought a bag of stones from the mine as souvenirs; he ran towards a group of rescuers and led them in song

Osman Araya, who had a hugely emotional reunion with his wife

Jose Ojeda, whose scribbled note – which read “All 33 of us are safe in the shelter” – informed the world the miners were still alive, 17 days after the rockfall that trapped them

Victor Segovia who was welcomed “back to life” by President Pinera

Daniel Herrera, who was embraced by his crying mother as he freed himself from the safety harness

Already an inspiring story of triumph over adversity, these brief glimpses into the personal lives of the men who were trapped, and are now being set free, give us an additional emotional connection to them. It helps us to understand how the hope that they were able to hold on to has now been realized.

Hope is I think the reason that this story has captured the hearts and imaginations of people all over the world. It’s a story that seems far too rare to hear in the news: One of victory instead of tragedy where hope triumphs over disaster.

Has this story inspired you? Where do you find hope in difficult circumstances?

If you are going through tough times, you may be surprised at some of the places that people have found hope. Finding Hope in a Chat Room explores one way that people have connected to others online to help one another through tough times. If you’d like to speak with someone privately, contact a mentor today to talk about what’s bothering you.

Related reading:
Hope and a Future – She was abandoned at age four with five siblings in a hotel. This is her story of hope.
When your World is Not like it’s Supposed to Be – Something about the world isn’t right. That’s a pointer towards a much greater truth.

I turned on CNN this morning and there was more news of bullying and suicide and it broke my heart. In the past couple of weeks we’ve lost Tyler Clementi, Seth Walsh, Asher Brown, Billy Lucas and earlier this year Phoebe Prince.  I wish that was an exhaustive list but there are others.  Bullying sometimes gets passed off as just a part of growing up.  But for these five and untold numbers of others like them, they won’t get the chance to grow up.  For them, bullying cost them everything.  I know how they feel – I was almost one of them.

A friend on Facebook linked me to a video of Ellen DeGeneres addressing the bullying on her show.  Just a few seconds into watching it I started to cry. This could have been me. I got bullied for a different reason, but I’m pretty sure the pain feels the same. I came to the same conclusion these kids came to. The bullies made me hate myself and that is a terrifying place to be.

The tears came as a surprise, I didn’t realize that the pain was still so raw so many years later. I read somewhere that the damage of bullying never goes away and I wonder if that’s true.  Ellen said, “This needs to be a wakeup call to everyone that teenage bullying and teasing is an epidemic in this country and death rate is climbing.  One life lost in this senseless way is tragic.  Four lives lost is a crisis.”  It’s not overstating the point.  Bullying is a crisis and it’s one that is often suffered in silence.

If you or someone you know is being bullied talk to someone. I didn’t and my silence almost cost me everything. Years later I found out that help was right there I just didn’t know it. All I had to do was open my mouth. I know it’s not easy, but it’s easier than this.  I didn’t tell my parents because I figured that you had to go to school.  I didn’t realize that if they’d known my parents would have home schooled me, or looked into private school or sent me to school in another district.  I had options I just couldn’t see them.

Eventually I did transfer to another high school and everything changed.  I came home that first day and when my Mom asked how it went I told her “no one was mean to me today” with a surprised look on my face.  I had no idea school could be like that.  I remember talking to my older brother about the possibility of switching schools.  I was afraid and when he asked why I said, “what if I get there and it’s worse?” I remember him looking over at me and asking, “Claire, how could it possibly be worse?”

Reading the reports on the news today, I see how it could have been worse. We didn’t have Facebook when I was in high school.  Thank God for that.  I’m not sure I would have survived that.  At the end of her video Ellen gives some of the best advice I’ve heard since this debate hit the news cycle.  She said, “Things will get better . . .and you should be alive to see it.”

I shudder to think of all I would have missed out on if I had carried through with my plans. You can read my story and see what it was that quite literally saved my life.   If you are being bullied or if you just need someone to talk to we have mentors available 24/7.  Just use this form to send in a request and your mentor will contact you, usually in a few days.  If you need to talk to someone right now and feel that you might be a danger to yourself call 1 800 SUICIDE to get help immediately.  Suicide is a permanent reaction to what is often a temporary situation.  I know it hurts, and I know it’s not easy but if you can just survive high school it gets so much better.  I promise.

If you want to understand yourself better try our free Life Lesson: Defining Yourself: What’s in Your Bag? You’ll be matched with a study coach who will walk with you as you learn.

Would you let go of your child if it meant giving them a better life?

These kids come from neighborhoods where guns and drugs, gangs and violence are the norm.  They move into a group home with a focus on academics, healthy living and community service.  For boys and girls who complete the program 100% of them go on to college.

It is an incredible opportunity, but as I watched the show I couldn’t help but think of what it costs these parents to let their children go. Boys and girls can enter the program as young as 12 years old.  How do you let your 12 year old go and live with someone else? What depth of selfless love does it take to help them pack, to let them move into a world that you yourself do not live in?

I was in awe of these parents.

Every parent wants the very best for their child but not every parent has the same resources to make it happen. There are good schools and bad schools, families with plenty and families that struggle to put food on the table.   What these parents had in spades is love and also hope.  They believed that their kids could have a better life and they were willing to break their own hearts to give it to them.  You can’t eat hope, but you can live off it, for a little while at least.

I remember hearing in biology class years ago that hope can, literally save your life.  There was an experiment done years ago involving rats and buckets of water.  The first group of rats were left to swim in the water until they died of exhaustion.  The second group was left to swim, then taken out and allowed to rest and then put back in the water.  The second group swam hours longer than the first and scientists concluded that it was because they had hope that they would be allowed to rest again.

For these parents, they have hope that their daughters will grow up to be strong women, that they will go to college and become anything they want to be.  That hope is so strong that they wipe away their own tears and let their children go.  That’s a powerful hope.  What do you hope for?

Read Sandra’s story of finding hope and a future and the day that changed everything.

Which question would you most like to find an answer to?

1. What is the meaning of life?
2. Is there a God?
3. Do blondes have more fun?
4. What is the best diet?
5. Is there anybody out there?
6. Who is the most famous person in the world?
7. What is love?
8. What is the secret to happiness?
9. Did Tony Soprano die?
10. How long will I live?

The BBC reports that the list is based on approximately 1.1 billion searches made since the site opened in 2000.

Were there any questions on the list that surprised you?

I was surprised to see that “Do blondes have more fun?” was number three on the list. I wasn’t aware that it was such a contentious issue! A brief search revealed a 2003 ABC News report on this momentous (*cough*) question. It mentions that “a user survey of both sexes late last year confirmed that 55 percent agree with the old adage that blondes have more fun.” Good to know …

Not all the questions are so trivial though. Many speak to our soul cravings, the innate desires that we all share. “What is love?” and “What is the secret to happiness?” fall into this category, as well as “What is the meaning of life?”. We all crave meaning in life, so it’s not surprising that meaning tops the list of supposed unanswerable questions.

But what makes a question truly unanswerable? When are answers unknowable? Is it when something cannot be proven with 100% certainty? Then most of what we believe is unknowable. Take number 5 for example: “Is there anybody out there?” Restated slightly, this question could be asked in this way: “Do other minds exist?” Now, everyone believes that other minds exist. In theory you could be “in the Matrix” but no one actually believes that or lives their life that way. Even though it’s ultimately unprovable, we are right to believe that other minds actually do exist and we are not alone.

Question number 2 is a contentious one for sure: “Is there a God?” Recent books like “The God Delusion” and “God is not Great” have brought the issue to the foreground in contemporary society, causing others to respond with works like “The Dawkins Delusion?” and “The Dawkins Letters“.

Do these disagreements mean the question of God is unanswerable? I don’t think so, because we all have an answer to the God question. Your answer may be “yes” or “no” or “I’m not sure” or “I don’t care” but everyone has an answer. The question is, which answer is correct? There are in fact reasons to believe God exists, what will your answer be?

Another question that is tough to answer is number 6: “Who is the most famous person in the world?” It may be contentious to say, but I think the answer is Jesus. The Bible which tells Jesus’ story has been translated into 5000 or more languages (more than any other book) and the Bible Society in the UK estimates six billion copies had been printed by 1992. He has arguably had more impact on world history than any other person.

What makes Jesus so compelling? Jesus was unique in many ways, but the easiest way to explain his compelling nature is his identity. He claimed something amazing: To be God in the flesh. But Jesus didn’t just make the claim to be God: He backed it up. He proved his claim with a flawless life, amazing miracles, and stunning preaching. The crowds who gathered to see him cried out “Nothing like this has ever been seen!” and even the guards who were told to seize him exclaimed “No one ever spoke the way this man does.”

One of his claims was to forgive other peoples’ sins. This would be the height of arrogance for most people, but if Jesus was who he said he was, it would not only be entirely appropriate, it would be very good news for us. If we are honest with ourselves, we know that we do things that are wrong. There is no amount of good works that can cancel these things out; we can’t pull ourselves out of the quicksand by our own power. We need someone with a rope to pull us out. Jesus did that and more: He also took the punishment that we deserve on the cross, so that we can be forgiven. The only thing that can prevent us starting a renewed relationship with God through Jesus is our refusal. (Explore more about who Jesus is here.)

You can begin a personal relationship with Jesus right now by faith through prayer.

Praying is simply talking to God. God knows your heart and is not so concerned with your words as He is with the attitude of your heart. Here’s a suggested prayer:

Lord Jesus, I want to know you personally. I want to make you the “most important thing” in my life. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life to you and ask you to come in as my Savior and Lord. Take control of my life. Thank you for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Make me the kind of person you want me to be.

Does this prayer express the desire of your heart? You can pray it right now, and Jesus Christ will come into your life, just as He promised.

Is this the life for you?

If you invited Christ into your life, thank God often that He is in your life, that He will never leave you and that you have eternal life. As you learn more about your relationship with God, and how much He loves you, you’ll experience life to the fullest.

Watch The Other Six Days video. Explore what this video means to you through “The Other Six Days” interactive online study.

When both US president Barack Obama and Catholic Pope Benedict XVI advise you that your plans are a bad idea

Terry Jones would be well advised to listen to their advice. His tiny 30 member group, ironically named the “Dove World Outreach Church” in Gainesville, Florida, plans to burn copies of the Qur’an on the anniversary of September 11:

Jones has said he sees Koran-burning as a way of confronting Islamist terrorism. But his plans have been widely condemned by U.S. religious, political and military leaders, who say it is jeopardizing the security of U.S. military personnel abroad.

“I just want him to understand that this stunt that he is talking about pulling could greatly endanger our young men and women in uniform who are in Iraq, who are in Afghanistan,” Obama said on “Good Morning America.” (Reuters Canada)

In addition to president Obama and the Pope, condemnations of the actions have rained down worldwide. Interpol warned of “tragic consequences” that “may well claim the lives of many innocent people.” The World Council of Churches, which represents 349 Christian denominations, stated that the call to burn Qur’ans “has been firmly rejected and condemned by the WCC and its member churches.” France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that France condemns “in the strongest terms the vicious and irresponsible statements of Pastor Terry Jones.” Former presidential and vice-presidential candidates John McCain and Sarah Palin also condemned the planned action.

His actions, if they do decide to carry through as planned, will endanger American troops abroad as well as Christians living in predominantly Muslim countries. It’s sad that this pastor cannot see the pervasive negative impact of his actions. On the eve of the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the last thing the world needs is more insensitivity … and literally fanning the flames of hatred.

As we remember the events of that infamous day, nine years ago, we would do well to reflect on our own reactions to it. The article “9/11 and You” was written by a man whose sister had a 9:00am appointment at the World Trade Center … on September 12. He struggled with anger regarding the attacks and how his sister would likely have been killed if her appointment was one day earlier, and explains what he learned from his meditations. It’s worthwhile reading for us all.

Other stories for reflection stemming from 9/11:
Remembering September 11th – On September 11, 2001 I said my first prayer. My son was a police officer with the New York Police Department.
The Call That Shook My World – The sense of loss that morning was overwhelming, both the shared loss and my personal loss.

Upcoming online chats: Join us for daily online chats! One of our features will be “Pattern for Restoration” on September 12 at 9:00 pm EDT Please join us to discuss how you can change patterns in your life from destructive to restortive.

It’s hard to resist the siren call of a friend request on Facebook.

The easiest way to avoid uncomfortable unfriending situations is to be a little more choosy about who you friend in the first place.  An ounce of prevention is still worth a pound of cure.  Think about the kind of things you post on your Facebook account.  Are these things you would talk to this person about over coffee? If not, you might want to decline that request.

It’s also important to think about the other people on your list. My 19 year old niece and her 15 year old sister are friends of mine on Facebook.  They’re going to assume that anyone on their Aunt’s list is a safe person, so that guy from way back who’s great but tells off color jokes sometimes? I declined his request.   It’s turned out to be a really great filter.  Anyone I wouldn’t feel comfortable talking to my nieces is probably not someone I need in my life either.

So what happens once the damage has been done and you need to unfriend? Go ahead and hit the button, guilt free.  As Brenna Ehrlich and Andrea Bartz, columnists for CNN.com wrote in a recent post, unfriending is healthy:

According to Christopher Sibona, who penned Unfriending on Facebook: Friend Request and Online/Offline Behavior Analysis, a paper he’ll be presenting at the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 50 percent of people who have unfriended someone saw the person in question zero times in the past year.

If your former friend has no impact on your current life, and you don’t foresee yourself getting the band back together, why keep him in your cyber stable?

If they’re not in your life, they don’t need to be in your online life either. Think of it like cleaning out your closet.  You’re never going to wear that sweater again, so why are you letting it take up space?

If the person is someone you have almost no contact with they probably won’t even notice that they’ve dropped off your list.  If you do have someone who used to be close that you no longer want in your life, be a grown-up.  Hit the button, or if that feels too harsh, send them a private message on Facebook and then hit the button.  I’ve had to do that once and yes, it felt like breaking up, but it really was for the best.

Social networking sites are supposed to be fun. Keep your list pared down to the people you actually want to talk to and you’ll find it’s less stressful and a lot more enjoyable.

Looking to add some three dimensional friends to your life? Try our free life lesson Finding Mentors, Making Friends for great practical advice on how to meet like minded people no matter which phase of life you find yourself in.

How do you deal with breaking ties online?