• It is now believed that birth order traits can influence your child’s personality. Personality is affected by various influences throughout childhood. Different interaction techniques used by parents can influence each child’s personality traits. Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he grows older he will not abandon it.  –  Proverbs 22:6, NASB What is birth order? Birth order refers to the child’s position in the sibling hierarchy. In the simplest form, it is determined [...]

  • We all face different seasons and choices in life. Even in these, we have the opportunity to set aside in times of plenty to prepare for needs sure to come (Proverbs 6:6-8). Placing boundaries around how we prioritize and expend our resources has the potential to sustain us when life brings challenges or when we find ourselves victims of codependency. Our Faithful Father furnishes us with aptitudes, abilities, and unlimited access to His Presence and wisdom concerning how to [...]

  • As your child grows up, he or she faces many challenges. What starts as learning rules and social norms in the early years shifts into opportunities to implement those things during the teen years. From ages 13-19, your child will navigate a variety of situations while balancing his or her responsibilities, managing relationships, and handling hormones. It may be inevitable, but it is far from simple and supporting your teen becomes all the more important. You have a role [...]

  • More couples are seeking premarital counseling. According to Health Research Funding, couples who choose premarital counseling have a higher success rate than those who do not. You cannot guarantee that you will have a happy, joyful, loving marriage for the rest of your life as factors outside of your control are at play, but what if you could be more prepared before you say, “I do?” Premarital counseling opens doors. Premarital counseling aims to get to the foundation of [...]

  • Have you ever felt as though your grief was dismissed or minimized, or had people question the importance of your loss? If so, you may have experienced disenfranchised grief, a term coined by bereavement expert Kenneth Doka in 1989, to describe a loss that does not align with society’s norms and that is therefore not recognized as legitimate. Disenfranchised grief can make you feel as though you are not entitled to your grief and that no one understands. It [...]

  • We can all use extra help from time to time in our relationships. Here are a few pieces of relationship advice for men. If you need more help, don’t hesitate to speak with a Christian counselor about your unique relationship challenges. Relationship Advice for Men Communication is key. The first bit of relationship advice for men revolves around communication. Effective communication is an important aspect of any relationship. Here are a few tips for improving communication as a man. [...]

  • The people you call friends are those you’ve built rapport with; you get each other, and you’ve gone through enough things together to build trust. Implied in all this is that a solid friendship takes time to build, and it’s not always a smooth road getting there. Friends, like other people, have fights, and hopefully, they resolve those conflicts well. One positive outcome of well-resolved conflict is that you know one another as well as how to love each [...]

  • Scripture’s earliest images reveal the spectrum of challenges that all of humanity encounters. In family relationships, God set the blueprint at creation in a perfect environment. God created a world for His people to live in harmonious fellowship with Him and one another free from trauma. Despite this, a real enemy threatened what God had envisioned. He sought to destroy the Father’s Image by persuading Adam and Eve to not only doubt God, but themselves, and one another. Although [...]

  • Stress has often been labeled as a silent killer. Its effects don’t only undermine physical health, but also impact our emotional and mental wellness. When we place too much expectation or activity on ourselves, the results of an overload will show. Instead of savoring the gifts that life has to offer, we find ourselves in survival mode, trying to subsist on the fumes of leftover energy from one day to the next. We may not realize it, but the [...]

  • Everybody has bad days where they are worn out, agitated, and depressed. Although it’s common to experience grief in response to unpleasant life events, loss, or changes, these feelings can occasionally persist for a while if unresolved and make it challenging for you to get through each day. You can’t just will yourself to “snap out of it” when you’re depressed. What distinguishes sadness from being depressed? Many stressful and traumatic occurrences might bring you down, whether you’ve lost [...]

  • Are you struggling to know how to find hope in a difficult situation? Consider these scenarios: Nancy is a twenty-something who grew up in a home where her parents always struggled. Their power and gas were cut off frequently, sometimes dinners consisted of stale bread and a dollop of off-brand peanut butter, and she was often made fun of for her raggedy clothes and stained shoes. Tom is a career firefighter who commits his life and safety to the [...]

  • Ecclesiastes informs us that God has set eternity in the heart of humanity (Ecclesiastes 3:11). For all of our quests for understanding, significance, and self-esteem beyond the routines of daily life, we will never unravel it apart from the Everlasting Father. Yet, God reserves some eternal mysteries for Himself such that what we seek can only be found in our Creator. There is a certain fulfillment that He reveals as we delve deeper into the unique purpose He’s assigned [...]