A Happy Mother’s Day?

All the advertising and hype that surrounds Mother’s Day – well, it’s about soft fluffy slippers, pink dressing gowns, happy, well-adjusted children bouncing in on Mum’s bed on Sunday morning, with the very present that she’s been wanting. And that’s all great. But what if … your relationship with your mother ain’t all that the advertising industry tells you it should be?

Christmas – A Family Affair?

As we head to Christmas, New Year and for us in the Southern Hemisphere, summer holidays, our thoughts turn very much to spending time with our families. All the ads on the TV use happy, well-adjusted families as the backdrop – smiling kids and teenagers; happy mums and dads, silver-haired grandparents – as their backdrops to advertise everything from Christmas hampers, to BBQs to suntan lotion.

Three Steps to Getting the Important Things Done

There are two types of things that you have to get done today. The important things and the urgent things. The two are rarely the same.

What happens for most of us is that the urgent things crowd out the important ones. And our failure to address the important tasks in our lives invariably is what comes back to bite us down the track. Big time!!

So how do you make sure you don’t allow the urgent to crowd out the important? Here are three steps guaranteed to help you get the important things done in your life.

5 Essential Life Skills to Help You Thrive (Not Just Survive)

The other day, I met a young lady called Emily. She is 5 years old. The life skills that this child displayed impacted me profoundly. Not just because they came from one so young, but because they were, at the same time, extremely well developed.

So, here are the 5 essential life skills that she demonstrated, that will help any person of any age not just survive … but thrive:

So What Does the Bible Actually Say About Homosexuality?

In my last blog post, I shared some thoughts about why it is that Christians can’t seem to agree on what the Bible says on the subject of homosexuality.

In this post, we’re going to chat about what it actually does say.

4 Quick Tips for Dealing with Difficult People

The moment I mentioned those two words – “Difficult People” I know what’s happening in your head. You’re immediately picturing the face of the most difficult person in your life. Your pulse rate has just gone up and the emotions are racing. Why is that?

Teenagers, Facebook and Self-esteem

An article reporting some research on the impact of Facebook on teenagers’ self-esteem in my local newspaper caught my eye recently. And to be honest, it confirmed everything we old fogeys had suspected all along about the impact of social media. The question is, what do we as parents and grandparents, aunties, uncles and friends do to help our young folk?

Getting Your Anger Under Control

Anger in and of itself isn’t a sin. Even God gets angry sometimes. The difference is, that He’s “slow to anger”. In other words, He doesn’t just fly off the handle. Just as well!

But when we’re under pressure you and I, just the smallest thing can set us off, right?

So … how do we get our anger under control?