Abundant Gifts

Did you know that the older a boy gets, the more he needs from those who love him?

If you have a boy in your life (son, grandson, nephew, student, someone you’re mentoring), find out why boys are the way they are and how you can come alongside them at any age to help them navigate the choppy waters of the journey to manhood.

Listen to the replay of the Virtual Book Tour with authors Stephen James and David Thomas as they answered questions submitted at www.answersforparentingboys.com. (You can also submit your question; authors will be answering them on their blog.) Find out:

• why it’s so hard for boys to “sit still and pay attention”–and how to help them learn anyway
• what the 5 stages of a boy’s development and what they need in each stage
• how do we deal with a boy’s emotions (anger, crying, etc.)?
• how do you get a boy to obey?
• what does a boy need most from his mom? his dad?
• what is THE most important thing to remember when nurturing a boy?

And much more! Listen and learn how to better nurture the boy in your life.

Please join me and my guests, Stephen James and David Thomas, authors of the new book, Wild Things: The Art of Nurturing Boys on tonight’s Virtual Book Tour at 5 pm Pacific/6 Mountain/7 Central/8 Eastern.

We will be answering questions submitted at http://www.answersforparentingboys.com. (You can go there even after the VBT to ask a question and listen to the replay. Authors will periodically be answering questions on their blog at http://www.stephenanddavid.com.)

This book is meaty! I have an 18-year-old son myself, and when I started the book, I thought, “Oh, it’s not going to help me, my son is too old.”

Wrong!

One of the key things they say that caught my attention is that, Continue Reading »

If you have a boy in your life that you care about (son, grandson, students, boys on a team you coach, etc.), you will want to listen in on a fascinating discussion I’m having next week with Stephen James and David Thomas about “Wild Things: The Art of Nurturing Boys.”

The best part is–you get to ask the questions!

If you go to http://www.answersforparentingboys.com you can ask the authors about your most challenging issue with raising boys.

After you ask your question (or if you just want to sign up, say “none,”), you’ll have access to a quick video of the authors sharing a bit about what prompted them to write this new, practical, and insightful book that will help you understand, appreciate, and better mentor the boys in your life. Continue Reading »

Rick Warren is the author of the wildly popular The Purpose-Driven Life and other books.

His books have brought his fame and fortune, what most people think they want.

But recently, he’s also had to deal with cancer.

Here’s how Rick Warren is dealing with all of his abundant gifts … including, the “gift” he never wanted.  (Excerpted from an interview Rick did with Paul Bradshaw.)

“People ask me, What is the purpose of life?”

And I respond: In a nutshell, life is

Continue Reading »

Happy New Year!

I’m about to go make one of my favorite recipes for our New Year’s meal, and I thought I might as well share it with you. These spiced sweet potatoes go well with ham, turkey, chicken, is relatively healthy, and gets rave reviews whenever I make it. Reheats well. Even my teenagers like it! Continue Reading »

I hope you enjoy this story from Abundant Gifts, appropriate for Christmas.

May the life-giving light of the Savior, Jesus, shine in all your darkness, and bring you the gifts only the Savior can give: love, joy, peace, hope and abundant life forever!икони

Today my family is rejoicing in good news:

1. My daughter had a parotid gland tumor removed last week, a very tricky surgery because the main facial nerve is right there. The surgery was successful–no nerve damage–and the tumor benign.

Many spiritual gifts came from that, including the witness to my children that people literally from all over the world, people they didn’t know but who knew Jesus and because of that, cared about her and me, prayed for her. Continue Reading »

Yesterday at my church, the Scripture reading was from Luke 1:5-17.

Something struck me in the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah that I never saw before.

Here’s part of the passage:

When Herod was king of Judea, there was a Jewish priest named Zechariah. He was a member of the priestly order of Abijah, and his wife, Elizabeth, was also from the priestly line of Aaron. Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous in God’s eyes, careful to obey all of the Lord’s commandments and regulations. They had no children because Elizabeth was unable to conceive, and they were both very old. While Zechariah was in the sanctuary, an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the incense altar. Zechariah was shaken and overwhelmed with fear when he saw him. But the angel said, “Don’t be afraid, Zechariah! God has heard your prayer. Your wife, Elizabeth, will give you a son, and you are to name him John. You will have great joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth,15 for he will be great in the eyes of the Lord.”

A few things struck me. Continue Reading »

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays.

Aside from the food, I love the idea of counting blessings explicitly–with other
people, no less, over a feast! What could be better than that?

To celebrate and spread the blessing, I thought I’d record one of my favorite stories
from Abundant Gifts.

Click here to listen to the “Audio Note” I created for you.

I hope you enjoy it!

Oh, and if you want to make things easier for yourself on “black Friday,” why not order copies of Abundant Gifts? Just a few clicks and you’re done.

I will even personalize, sign it, and wrap it! AND you’ll get a free bonus book along with it.икони

If you missed last night’s Virtual Book Tour with New York Times best-selling author Dinesh D’Souza on his book, What’s So Great about Christianity, you can listen to the replay at your convenience.

These are just some of the questions (gleaning the most-asked questions from the nearly 700 submitted by believers, atheists, and agnostics) that Dinesh answered:

• “Why is Christianity under such attack nowadays?”
• “Believing in God/Christianity requires a disconnect from science and reality. Science has all but proven that all of the theistic accounts for creation are in error. What is the best scientific proof for God?”
• “How is Christianity compatible with Western thought and Democracy, and how compatible is it with socialism?”
• “Though it’s true that Christianity has inspired great movements in the arts, writing and architecture fields, it has also inspired a lot of scorn the world over, in the shape of the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, the various wars in Ireland, The Balkans, Europe and the Middle East. So I ask you, how can you still endorse a faith that has inspired so much hatred, bigotry and murder in the history of humanity?”
• “Just what is it that seems to draw people toward unbelief, or away from belief?”
• “How do you account for evil in this world if God is good and all powerful?”

Dinesh, who regularly debates atheists such as Christopher Hitchens and (on December 3) Peter Singer from Princeton U, is not afraid to tackle the tough questions. Listen to the replay of our interview … and feel free to comment on this blog.