Lasting Impact

Because Joseph had been a special son to Jacob, Joseph’s sons were special to their grandfather as well. The NIV study notes on this portion of the text state that Jacob, at his death, adopted Joseph’s first two children as his own.

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No Island of Second Chance

We cannot change the past . . . and that includes the way we reared our children. All of us—yes, every parent I have ever met—would love to step into the time tunnel and return to the Island of Second Chance. We would give anything to relive those years.

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Beyond Today

“If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow, and which will not, Speak then to me . . . ” Macbeth, act I, scene 1, line 58. Who wouldn’t want to hear from someone like that? Who hasn’t felt himself standing on tiptoe, straining to see what lies ahead? Even the writers of a weekly news magazine tried to look beyond today. They didn’t try many predictions but they did ask some tough, sweeping questions.

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Grandparenting, Part Two

Grandparents. What amazing gifts from God. Generation after generation He provides a fresh set of them . . . an ever-present counterculture in our busy world. Lest everyone else get so involved they no longer stop to smell the flowers or watch tiny ants hard at work, these special adults are deposited into our lifestyle account. They’ve made enough errors to understand that perfectionism is a harsh taskmaster and that self-imposed guilt is a hardened killer.

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Grandparenting, Part One

It’s bad enough that, until recently, Webster omitted “parenting” in his dictionary . . . but continuing to disregard “grandparenting” is somewhere between incompetent and inexcusable! Okay, okay, so it isn’t an official word. So it lacks sufficient roots in Anglo-Saxon linguistic lore to merit a position in the ranks of Webster’s major reference work.

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Someday

SOMEDAY WHEN THE KIDS ARE GROWN, things are going to be a lot different. The garage won’t be full of bikes, electric train tracks on plywood, sawhorses surrounded by chunks of two-by-fours, nails, a hammer and saw, unfinished “experimental projects,” and the rabbit cage. I’ll be able to park both cars neatly in just the right places, and never again stumble over skateboards,

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An Investment in the Future

Psalms 127 and 128, songs of family strength, conclude with a look into the distant future, painting a portrait of a healthy, mature family. Like a farmer imagines his crop while planting seeds, Solomon helps us envision the fruit of our labor in the home.

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The Value of God’s Creatures

All of us need to be needed. We want to be wanted. God created us with a desire to know we can contribute something valuable and to have a significant impact in the lives of others. In years past, great men and women longed to leave their marks on the world, to create a legacy that would continue after they had passed away.

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Mortality

Life is so short. We really don’t have many years. And to spend them doing dumb stuff seems like such a waste. I was intrigued several years ago when reading about some ghost towns littered across the plains of Nevada. The writer pointed out that there was every indication between the middle and the end of the 1800s that these towns would flourish forever. There were people by the thousands.

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For Becoming Better Parents

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4) Thank You, Father, for being the perfect Parent. Thank You for those times that You’ve taken us to task, though the reproof sometimes seemed more than we could bear. Encourage us with the truth that whoever the Lord loves He reproves, even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights.

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