While animals get the human treatment, humans are increasingly denigrated as animals—especially those humans that choose to have more than one or two kids.
There is growing vocal contempt of parenthood in cities, where mothers are pejoratively referred to by some as “breeders.” I always thought we called them by the more affectionate title “moms,” but I guess the world has really changed, and it’s time to start buying my mom a “Happy Breeder’s Day” card.
Read the rest of Who’s Afraid of Pregnant Women?
It’s easy to think that blessing is all butterflies and sunsets. Children are blessings when they keep their outfits clean, obey cheerfully, and say cute things. But blessing isn’t a simple, paint-by-numbers kit. Without challenges, life would leave all of us (our kids included) a bunch of stunted, simplistic fools. So God in his great love sends us problems, trials, afflictions, and a pack of wild monkeys affectionately known as our children.
Read the rest of Blessings Too Big by Toby Sumpter.
I have sinned against you. I have apologized. But how do you know if I mean it? How do you know when someone is repentant?
Read 12 signs of a genuinely repentant heart HERE.
The Bible tells that we already have designer babies, children custom-crafted by an all-good and all-knowing God. This is true if our babies are exactly the way we had wished and imagined and it is true if our babies are the very opposite of what we had wished and imagined. It is true if our babies are healthy and “normal” and it is true if our babies are unhealthy and severely disabled. They are all designer children.
Read the rest of The Dawn of Designer Babies by Tim Challies.
Marriage is good. Marriage is a gift. Marriage makes us grow up, gives us a companion to weather the stuff of life. Announce you’re getting married before the “acceptable” age, and you’ll mostly be met with pleads of “live some life first.” And while the single state has its unique opportunities, marriage certainly doesn’t detract from the joys of life, but rather doubles them.
Read the rest of Why We Should Encourage Our Kids to Marry Young by Kelly Crawford.
Before I click through to the one about a repentant heart, I have to say, I don’t think Jesus ever intended for us to try to discern our brother’s heart motives by examining them by any criteria. He said 70×7, and I suspect he knew that by, oh, infraction #33 or so, we might start to get the idea that our brother isn’t *strictly* sincere when he asks for our forgiveness. Just an off-the-top-of-my-head thought. 😉
I’m not sure your comment is applicable to the article. If a church is going to exercise any biblical church discipline, they need to be able to discern whether or not there is real repentance. Forgiveness is not dependent on whether or not a person is repentant – but restoration is.
The repentance article actually is for us to examine our own lives to see if we are repentant. And many of those 12 indicators can be visibly seen or heard by the repentant person and those around them. This is a great list of articles, Natalie! Thanks for sharing!
I love that article on repentance. Clearly we all need a smashing dose of God’s spirit to do that supernatural thing. I remember asking forgiveness AGAIN of one of our children for a besetting sin and realizing they were not convinced. It needed to cost me something. And so I was able to find some token, (my memory is not entirely clear) — I think financial — to show my sincerity. The bonus is that when it costs us something we are less prone to repeat the sin.