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Online Dangers: Keep Kids Safe
My friend Linda Tomczak has worked on the front lines of fighting human trafficking for years. She acknowledges that good parents, grandparents, teachers, and others having close contact with kids are movitated to keep them safe from predators. But we must remain vigilant. Here’s why: • Every 9 minutes, government authorities respond to another report of child sexual abuse. • Of aggressive sexual solicitations of youth (when the solicitor attempted to establish an offline contact via in-person meeting or phone call), 73% of youth met the solicitor online. • Only 1 in 3 victims will report sexual crimes to a trusted adult (source: International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children)…
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Boundaries That Protect
A child doesn’t have to be burned to learn that fire is dangerous. It’s not necessary to be hit by a car to learn that a street is not a safe place to play. Children need consistent reinforcement of truth to learn it. For most children, this will be enough to shape their thinking and influence their actions. While they are very young, we take them by the hand moving them out of danger while reinforcing with our words, “It’s hot, don’t touch it or it will burn you. It is dangerous to go into the street. That is a no! This is a yes.” Our actions and words influence…
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But… God
Mental health has taken center stage because people still struggle in a “not normal” new normal. Our mental dialogue can actually drain us of positive outlook and both mental and physical strength. How do we disempower our insecurities?
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Certain Unalienable Rights
Piscine Molitor Patel got named after his father’s best friend who loved to swim. This friend enjoyed swimming at the Piscine Molitor, a luxury pool in Paris. Instead of giving their son their friend’s name, his parents named him after the swimming pool. But kids at school often teased him, calling him “Pissing Patel.” So he shortened his name to Pi. I loved this scene from the movie Life of Pi. Late in 2012, friends, family, and coworkers raved about this movie—how it was based on a novel, and starred Irrfan Khan. So my husband and I went to see this movie together in Dec 2012. After the…
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Choosing the Best BFF
The best BFF is one who will help you pick a life time of good ones! “A person who has friends may be harmed by them, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” Proverbs 18:24 (NET Bible) Many of the children grow up in the church only to leave it as adults. Those who are true believers will return but what set them up to leave in the first place. So much lost time in lives wasted on frivolous friendship with the world. Can it be prevented? I think so. God created us in His image and because of that great gift we have the need for…
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Teaching Children Safety in Relationships.
A child doesn’t have to be burned to learn that fire is dangerous. It’s not necessary to be hit by a car to learn that a street is not a safe place to play. Children need consistent reinforcement of truth to learn it. For most children, this will be enough to shape their thinking and influence their actions. While they are very young we take them by the hand moving them out of danger while reinforcing with our words, “It’s hot, don’t touch it or it will burn you. It is dangerous to go into the street. That is a no! This is a yes.” Our actions and words influence…
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ISIS: Where is a path to victory? Or even safety?
When bloody horror erupts on our TVs and phones we mourn with those who mourn. We pray for the gospel to “speed ahead and be honored” and for God to comfort all those who have suffered loss because of ISIS’s rampage through Paris. We are also hard-wired from the factory to grasp for the “Why?”. In the West’s war with ISIS this much is certain: Like the Republicans and Democrats, we don’t even agree on what the issues are. The secular West thinks ISIS is morally bankrupt because they subvert freedom. They murder and rape as an act of worship to Allah. They think the West is spiritually…
