Afleveringen
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What are some of the practical life skills parents can help their teens develop as they anticipate leaving home for the first time? Dennis and Barbara Rainey answer that question in this podcast episode.
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How Empty is Your Nest? (Part 1) - Mixed Feelings Stirred Up by the Empty Nest
How Empty is Your Nest? (Part 2) - Changing RelationshipsFamilyLife TodayÂź Radio Transcript
References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete.
Mixed Feelings Stirred up by the Empty Nest
Guests: Barbara Rainey and Susan Yates
From the series: How Empty Is Your Nest? (Day 1 of 2)
Air date: August 1, 2016
Bob: There was a moment in Susan Yatesâ life when, as she looked at her empty nest, she started to think, âWhatâs my purpose anymore?â
Susan: I remember the day after Libbyâs weddingâshe was the last to marryâgoing up to the girlsâ room that theyâd grown up in / that they had shared their whole life. As I stood in the room, I looked around at the walls, and there were lines where the pictures had hung. There were pieces of little scraps of paper and, as I looked at these bare walls, I noticed that the closet door was ajar.
On the floor of the closet I saw a rumpled, old, blue prom dress. It seemed out of placeâit was all alone / it was not needed any more. It, in a way, was out of style. As I looked at that prom dress, I thought, âThatâs just how I feel.â
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Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, August 1st. Our host is the President of FamilyLifeÂź, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. Weâll look today at the realities that begin to set in as the nest starts to empty out. Stay tuned.
And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Monday edition. Iâm just sitting here, doing the math. Whatâs it been? Itâs been more than a decade, now, since you guys became empty nesters?
Barbara: Thatâs right. [Laughter] Are you going toâ
Bob: Are you still trying to figure it out? [Laughter] Youâre kind of silent there!
Dennis: I told youâ
Barbara: I guess Iâm a little slow on the math. [Laughter]
Dennis: No; thatâs not so. No; Iâm just trying to realize when it was when you and I finally determined we were empty nesters. [Laughter]
Bob: So there was this process, youâre saying?
Dennis: I think there was. I think it took us two or three years to come out ofâhow many years of childbearing and child rearing?
Barbara: I donât knowâa lot.
Dennis: Twenty-eight, I think.
Barbara: I think so.
Dennis: I think over twenty-eight years.
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Barbara: I think so. It doesnât happen automatically.
Dennis: No; I mean, it wasâ
Barbara: It was a transition.
Dennis: It was all âHands on deck!â raising children. It took us awhile to get out of the mindset and to finally realize: âYou know what? We can kind of enjoy each other now and focus on one another.â It hadnât been that we werenât doing that before; but when youâre tending to children, thereâs no questionâthey drain you.
Bob: Our listeners are obviously aware that your wife, Barbara Rainey, is joining us today. Good to have you here.
Barbara: Thank you, Bob.
Bob: We are going to be hearing a message that you and your friend, Susan Yates, did, talking about empty nest issues. But I need to start by saying we got a very nice note from one of our FamilyLife Today donors, who wrote to say: âIâve been reading Barbaraâs empty nest book. I was encouraged to hear about your daughter, who rebelled, to find out that we are not alone. Barbara is so rightâwe just need to choose our words carefully and to pray, pray, pray. God is faithful and He cares about our children more than we do. Thank you.â
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I imagine youâve heard from a lot of folks, who have read the book, who have written you personally to say, âThanks for capturing in this book what weâve been living through and couldnât put words to.â
Barbara: Yes; weâve had great feedback from women whoâve read the book because they understand, by reading it, that we get itâbecause weâve been there and weâve felt those thingsâand weâre trying to help them know that theyâre not alone.
Dennis: When Barbara and Susan wrote the book, they didnât offer a âpie in the skyâ type of picture of the empty nest. They painted itâflaws, blemishes, warts, and allâbecause itâs a process that isnât necessarily neat and tidy as you raise children who become adults.
What this lady is referring to there, Bob, isâshe just appreciates somebody being authentic and real. I just want to say to this donor / this partner in ministry:
âThank you for being a part of this ministry.â You know, I was thinking, when you read that Bobâthat David, when he went to war, had his mighty men.Bob: Right.
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Dennis: Well, we have a group that supports this broadcast and the ministries of FamilyLife. Theyâre not just mighty menâtheyâre mighty men and mighty women.
Barbara: Yes.
Dennis: And theyâre mighty because they care about, I believe, the oldest institution in the world / the most powerful institution in the world. Theyâre investing in a ministry thatâs bringing good to marriages and families and bringing hope to people in a culture that, frankly, is trying to undermine and do evil to families. I just want to say, âThanks,â to those of you who are donors to FamilyLifeâyouâre needed, youâre appreciated, and God bless you and your legacy.
Bob: Yes; I agreeââThanks.â
Barbara, you and your co-author, Susan Yates, had an opportunity to speak to a number of womenâI think it was in Dallas; right?
Barbara: Thatâs right.
Bob: You spoke on the subject of the empty nest. This was a number of months ago, but weâre going to give our listeners an opportunity to hear what you and Susan shared with those women.
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Weâll just dive right in. Here are Barbara Rainey and Susan Yates, talking about the issues women face as they face the empty nest.
[Recording]
&...
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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How Empty is Your Nest? (Part 1) - Mixed Feelings Stirred Up by the Empty Nest
How Empty is Your Nest? (Part 2) - Changing Relationships
FamilyLife TodayÂź Radio TranscriptReferences to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete.
Changing Relationships
Guests: Barbara Rainey and Susan Yates
From the series: How Empty Is Your Nest? (Day 2 of 2)
Air date: August 2, 2016
Bob: If you work for Hallmark, keep listening. Susan Yates may have a suggestion for you here on a whole new line of party invitations.
Susan: I would like to know, with a show of hands, how many of you have ever been to a party to celebrate the beginning of the empty nest? [Laughter] One, twoâ
Barbara: Three.
Susan: âfourâoh, yay! [Laughter] Good for you all! You may be on the cutting age of a new movement in America. [Laughter] We hope so because we feel like this is a season, not to be dreaded, but to be celebratedâand oh, how we need to celebrate in the seriousness of life today.
[Segment of I Just Want to Celebrate]
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Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, August 2nd. Our host is the President of FamilyLifeÂź, Dennis Rainey, and Iâm Bob Lepine. I donât know whoâs version of Celebrate that wasâwas that Rare Earth?âI think it was; yes. Celebrating the empty nest may sound like a paradox / a contradiction in terms, but itâs actually not. You can do it! Weâll talk more about that today. Stay with us.
And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Tuesday edition. You said it was a while before it dawned on you that the empty nest had finally arrived.
Dennis: Yes.
Bob: But I mean, you knewâ
Dennis: I really had all these grand plans of how I thought we wouldâ
Barbara: Yes; he did. [Laughter]
Dennis: âdisengage from being parents. We would flip a switchâin true male-styleâ
Bob: Yes.
Barbara: He did.
Dennis: âand weâd just be driving off into the sunset in a convertible, laughing and having fun.
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Bob: And the switch didnât flip? Is that what you are saying? [Laughter]
Dennis: Oh, my goodness! [Laughter] The switch may have ground its way to the other sideâit took a couple of years, Bob.
Bob: Barbara, let me ask youâand by the way, welcome back to FamilyLife Today.
Barbara: Thanks.
Bob: If you could have flipped the switch, do you think Dennis could have flipped the switch?
Barbara: Oh, yes.
Bob: So he was ready. He didnât have the emotional processing moving into the empty nest that you did?
Barbara: Well, he had more than I expected. I was kind of surprised because every once in a while he would walk through the house or walk around the backyard and go, âGosh, I really miss those years with the kids.â It would surprise me because I didnât really expect him to feel those things that I was feeling. I knew I would, but I didnât expect him to do so.
Dennis: Iâd come home from work and the car would be surrounded, like it was being invaded by a group ofâ
Barbara: Yes, all those years our kids were home.
Dennis: Yesâbandits. All of a sudden, you pull up in front of the house andâ
Barbara: Sometimes, nobody is there because I wasnât always there. [Laughter]
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Dennis: âthere is nothing happening!
Barbara: I didnât have to be homeâit was great!
Bob: I remember you talkingâyouâd come into the office. The way you described itâyou said, âThereâs no tension against the muscle,ââthis muscle youâve been working out with for 20-plus years.
Dennis: Oh, yes. Itâs called the Daddy Muscle. I mean, youâve had to be a daddyânow, Iâm still a dad / I have adult childrenâyou know, you go home, you leave work, you pull up in front of the house, and you get ready for your second jobâbeing a husband and being a father. Well, all of a sudden, the father-thing is out of thereâI mean no tension against the muscle.
Bob: You [Barbara] spent the first part of the empty nest years together with your friend, Susan Yates, who is a pastorâs wifeâlives in the Washington, DC, area.
The two of you collaborated on a book called Barbara and Susanâs Guide to the Empty Nest. Then, youâve had the opportunity, in a number of settings, to speak to women on this subject. You were at Park Cities Presbyterian Church in Dallas, a while back, and spoke to a group of women.
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You outlined the key questions that women ask themselves during the empty nest years. Already, this week, we have heard you address two of those. Refresh us on what those were.
Barbara: The first two questions are: âAm I the only one who feels this way?â The empty nest can be a very lonely time for women, and you are feeling things you didnât expect to feelâ and, maybe, some of them that you did. There is a real isolation factor in the empty nest. So I think most women are asking the question, âAm I the only one who feels this way?â
Dennis: It is back to what Susan said at the beginning of the broadcastâthere arenât celebration parties, announcing to the world: âIâm now transitioning into this new calling and season of life.â
Barbara: Exactly. The second question is: âWhat is happening to my relationships?â because you kind of look at each otherâthe kids are not thereâand you think: âOkay; who are you and who am I? What is our relationship like?â You realize that you need to, perhaps, do some renegotiating and...
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Three Essentials For Every Married Woman (Part 1) - Priorities of a Christian Woman
Three Essentials For Every Married Woman (Part 2) - Being a World-ChangerFamilyLife TodayÂź Radio Transcript
References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete.
Priorities of a Christian Woman
Guest: Barbara Rainey
From the series: Three Essentials for Every Married Woman (Day 1 of 2)
Air date: September 1, 2014
Bob: Want to do something that would really help your husband today? Hereâs counsel from Barbara Rainey.
Barbara: One of the great callings of wives is to intercede and pray for our husbands. When we pray for our husbands, and for all that theyâre facing and all that God has called them to do, we are imitating what the Holy Spirit does for us in our lives. Itâs how we can help our husbands. Itâs one of the greatest gifts we can give them in our role as helper.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, September 1st. Our host is the President of FamilyLifeÂź, Dennis Rainey, and Iâm Bob Lepine. Weâre going to hear today about a number of ways wives can lovingly support their husbands. Stay tuned.
And welcome to FamilyLife Today.
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Thanks for joining us on the Monday edition. Whenever we are with a group of couplesâin just about any setting weâve ever been inâthe women in that group are always wishing that they could get a little extra time with your wife.
Dennis: I do too! [Laughter]
Bob: Well, youâve got her all the time! But these women really look forwardâ
Dennis: Oh, yeah.
Bob: âto getting some mentoring / some coaching.
Dennis: My wife has good economy of words. You know, there are some people who talk a lot and donât say much.
Bob: And only say a little.
Dennis: She doesnât use a whole lot of words, and she gets a lot said. I think because of her stage in life and because of, frankly, some of the hardship weâve enduredâas a couple, as parents, and as a familyâI think sheâs got a lot to say. Itâs not all out of our success. Itâs not all out of some cookie-cutter perfect home.
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But itâs out of a biblical grid from a woman whoâs walked with Christ for, well, almost 40 years, and been obedient in following Himânot perfectly, againâbut she does have a lot to say.
Bob: And some of our listeners have had the opportunity to hear Barbara speak at one of our Weekend to RememberÂź marriage getaways. In fact, I wanted to mention, Dennisâthat this week and next weekâweâre kind of kicking off our fall season for the Weekend to Remember. We have 14 events coming up this fall. Weâd like to encourage our listeners to attend one of those eventsâin Florida, or in Texas, or in California, or in Missouri, or in Tennessee, or Colorado, South Dakota, Iowa, Idaho. You can go to FamilyLifeToday.com and click the link that says, âGO DEEPER.â Youâll find a list of dates and locations for the upcoming Weekend to Remember getaways this fall.
And this week and next week, weâre making a special offer to FamilyLife Today listeners.
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You can sign up for one of these events. When you pay the regular price for your admission, your spouse comes free. Itâs a buy one/get one free opportunity for the Weekend to Remember. And by the way, itâs good for events this fall; or if you want to go ahead and schedule your Weekend to Remember getaway for the spring, you can do that as well.
Go to FamilyLifeToday.com. Click the link that says, âGO DEEPER.â Find out more about the Weekend to Remember marriage getaways in the fall of 2014 and in the spring of 2015âplan to join us at a Weekend to Remember marriage getaway so that you can get a weekend of refreshment / some time together and some biblical coaching on how to have a strong, healthy marriage relationship.
And thatâs really part of what we are going to get today as we hear a message from Barbara Raineyâa message that she calls âThree Essentials for Every Married Woman.â And, quickly, hereâs the outline: A married woman needs to be a woman of the Word, she needs to be a husband-helper, and she needs to be a world-changer.
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[Recorded Message]
Barbara: Good morning! Iâve realized that one of the advantages of being in the season of life that Iâm in is I have a little more time to reflect, and to think, and to look back on my life and to just look at it from a big picture. I think when I was raising my kids I was so swamped in the daily-ness that I couldnât ever pull back enough to look at the big picture.
As Iâve done that, one of the things that I have realized that is true for meâand I think it is true for most womenâI think that there are three things that are just essential for every married woman, no matter what your age isâif youâre just starting out, if youâve got teenagers, or if youâre in the empty nest and youâve got grandkids all over the country, like we do.
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I just think there are some things that are universalâthat are common to all of us / that are needed by all of usâand those are the three things that I want to share with you this morning. Then, hopefully, weâll have some time for questions in the end. So, Iâm going to share three essentials / three prioritiesâwhatever you might want to call themâfor every married woman.
The first one is that Iâm really convincedâand more so with each yearâof the importance of us, as women, of being in Godâs Word. I rememberâwhen I was raising kids, how hard that was for me. It was one of those things that I felt a great sense of failure over, for many years, in my life because I had this ideal and I had this goal of spending time in Godâs Word on a regular basis. I felt very frustrated and very defeated much of the time because my kids interrupted me. Or Iâd get up early in the morning, and theyâd get up before I would. Or Iâd try to do it during naptime, and somebody wouldnât go to sleep like they were supposed to. Or somebody would be sick, or Iâd be so tired I couldnât focus and continue a train of thought in prayer.
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Three Essentials For Every Married Woman (Part 1) - Priorities of a Christian Woman
Three Essentials For Every Married Woman (Part 2) - Being a World-ChangerFamilyLife TodayÂź Radio Transcript
References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete
Being a World-Changer
Guest: Barbara Rainey
From the series: Three Essentials for Every Married Woman (Day 2 of 2)
Air date: September 2, 2014
Bob: The kind of woman God uses in her home and in her world is a woman who has dug down deep in His Word. Hereâs Barbara Rainey.
Barbara: âWimpy theology makes wimpy women.â [John Piper]âbecauseâif we really arenât in Godâs Word, then we just have second-hand information. Weâre living on somebody elseâs insight or somebody elseâs discovery. That makes for wimpy theology. It makes for a wimpy woman too.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Friday, November 20th. Our host is the President of FamilyLifeÂź, Dennis Rainey, and Iâm Bob Lepine. A wise woman knows that the foundation of her relationship with her husband is, first and foremost, found in a strong relationship with God. Stay tuned.
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And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Tuesday edition. You looked tired when you came in today. Was it because of dinner last night? [Laughter]
Dennis: You saying that dinner wore me out? What are you saying?
Bob: You were justâas you wereâ
Dennis: I slept well.
Bob: As you recounted to me, you said that you had a meal with your wife and that she wasâyou were pretty worn out by the time it was over.
Dennis: I did not sayâ [Laughter] Barbara, if youâre listening to this, I want you to know I did not say that!
Bob: Okay, thatâs true. You did not say that.
Dennis: Bob is construingâI actually said: âLast night, over dinner, Barbara was talking about all the stuff she wants to do and be a part of. She was dreaming and thinking and had a list of 12 projects she wanted to accomplishâ
Bob: Hereâs what you really said. You said she talked for an hour before you got a word in edgewise. [Laughter]
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Dennis: I did not!
Bob: Thatâs exactly what you said! [Laughter]
Dennis: I did not say that. [Laughter] I enjoy talking to her. In fact, I said this to her. I said, âYou know, in our relationship, you have become the extrovert; and I am becoming an introvert.â She said: âNo, no, no. Donât you give me that! You are not an introvert!â And sheâs right. Iâm not an introvert. But I do enjoy listening to her because sheâs energized, sheâs excited, sheâs got her head upâsheâs looking to the horizon with ideas for the future.
Bob: In fact, if folks are interested in looking at what Barbara has been working on in recent days, they can go to FamilyLife.com and click at the top of the page where it says, âGO DEEPER.â There is a link there for the Ever Thine HomeÂź resourcesâthe complete line of resources that Barbara Rainey has been working on over the last couple of years nowâgreat collection of discipleship resources that look beautiful in your home. Thatâs how I would describe Barbaraâs line. Again, find out moreâgo to FamilyLifeToday.com.
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Click the link that says, âGO DEEPER,â and then the link for Ever Thine Home. Take a look at what Barbara has been up to over the past couple of years.
Let me also mention, while you are on our websiteâthis week and next weekâweâre making a special offer available to FamilyLife Today listeners who would like to attend an upcoming Weekend to RememberÂź marriage getaway. Weâve got 14 getaways happening this fall in some pretty nice locationsâMonterey Bay, California; Estes Park, Colorado; San Diegoâthereâs going to be one in Fort Myers, Florida; and in Coeur dâAlene, Idahoâsome great locations for the upcoming Weekend to Remember season.
If you and your spouse would like to attend one of these upcoming getawaysâif you sign up this week or next weekâyou pay the regular rate for yourself, and your spouse comes free. Itâs a buy one/get one free opportunity for Weekend to Remember marriage getaways this fall or for next spring. Go to FamilyLifeToday.com. Click the link that says, âGO DEEPER.â
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The information about the Weekend to Remember is available thereâfind out dates and locations. Again, when you register online, you pay the regular rate for yourself and your spouse comes free. Take advantage of that opportunity. Plan to get away for a weekend together, as a couple, at one of our Weekend to Remember marriage getaways.
Alright, weâre going to listen to Part Two of a message now from Barbara Rainey about what she calls the essentialsâthe âThree Essentials for Every Married Woman.â She has already said, this week, that a woman needs to be a woman of the Word, and she needs to be a husband-helper. Today, weâre going to hear her thoughts on how a woman can become a world-changer.
[Recorded Message]
Barbara: And then the third thing I want to challenge you withâthat I think is, again, a truth for all women of all seasons / of all generationsâand that one is to be a world-changer. All of us, as women, need to see ourselves as being world-changers.
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No matter where you are / no matter what your age, the Christian life is permeated with purpose. Jesus rescued us from meaninglessness / from futility to give us a life of great purpose and great calling. He didnât just save us so we could be happy and have sweet little families with perfect little children. He saved us for a purpose, and for a calling, and for a mission, and for a ministry.
Ephesians 2:10 says, âWe are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which He prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.â That meansâfor every single woman in this room, God has works prepared beforehand for you to walk in just as He does for me. We need to find out what those are and walk in them.
There are two categories of women who are world-changers. The first one is for those of you who still have children at home and are still raising children.
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I want to say to you, who are still parenting, that: âMothers are the bigge...
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Click Here to Listen to the other parts in the series
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 1)
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 2) - Building Up Your Man
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 3) - Praising the Positive
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 4) - Embracing the Differences
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 5) - Leaning on God
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 6) - Being His Helper
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 7) - Facing the StormsFamilyLife TodayÂź Radio Transcript
References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete.
The Art of Being a Wife
Guest: Barbara Rainey
From the series: The Art of Being a Wife (Day 1 of 1)
Air date: October 20, 2016
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Bob: In the Book of James, the Bible says we are to be âquick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.â Barbara Rainey says she doesnât see that being lived out today in a lot of marriages.
Barbara: We are so quick, as women, to say exactly what we think / exactly how we feel without much regard for how that impacts himâor other people, for that matter. We have a really high value in our culture today on being truthful / on saying what we think; but we donât have an equally high value on saying it in love. It affects our marriages. We all say things in our marriages that we probably shouldnât say.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, October 20th. Our host is the President of FamilyLifeÂź, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. Would your marriage be different / be better if you slowed down and didnât speak as thoughtlessly as you sometimes do?
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Weâre going to hear from Barbara Rainey on that today. Stay with us.
And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. Most of the time, I am glad our program is radio and not television. That way I can wear pajamas to the studio if I want to and nobody knows what Iâmâ
Dennis: You have never done that. [Laughter]
Barbara: Except all of us in the studio would know! [Laughter]
Dennis: Twenty-four yearsâ
Barbara: You should try it sometime! [Laughter]
Bob: Well, Iâd have to go buy a pair of pajamas first before I did that.
Barbara: Oh! [Laughter]
Bob: But, there are days when you think the visual would be helpful. Actually, what weâre going to hear todayâ
Dennis: Of you and your pajamas? Iâm not getting beyond that.
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Bob: No, not that visual. Thereâs a different visual here. It involves your wife, who is joining us again. Welcome back to FamilyLife Today, Barbara.
Barbara: Thanks, Bob.
Bob: You had an opportunity, not long ago, to speak to a group of wives and moms. You were talking from the book youâve written, Letters to My Daughters. You did something unique as you began this message that we really canâtâwe canât show it on radio the way we wish we could.
Barbara: I wish we could show it. It actually was quite fun. What we did isâI set up an artist easel on the stage, with a large canvas. I had two wooden palettes. I invited a woman to help me do thisâsomeone whom I had never met before / someone who has an interest in art. So, I wasnât asking someone to do something that would be totally foreign to her. But nonetheless, we didnât really talk this through ahead of time. On this easelâI did tell her ahead of time, âHereâs what I want us to doâyou and I are going to paint something.â
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We had the easel turned away from the audience so they couldnât see it.
I told the audience that each of us had a palette in our hands, with different colors. She had five colors and I had five colors. We had two that were the same, but the other four were each different. That was to illustrate for the audience that a husband has responsibilities in marriage that are different than a wife, and a wife has responsibilities that are different than the husband. Both of us are commanded to loveâthat was the color we had in common. In that illustration, the love was the color whiteâwe both had the color white.
We went to work painting, much like you do in a marriage. I didnât know her very well, and she didnât know me. Thatâs very much like a marriage when it begins. We think we know each other, but we donât know each other at all.
Dennis: And so, Iâm wondering if you whispered to her what you were going to paint?
Barbara: Noâwell, I did tell her what shape I wanted us to paint, but I was not talking to her as we painted. I was talking to the audience, and I was explaining, âOne of the colors on my husbandâs palette is, âLive with your wife in an understanding way.â
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âHeâs been commanded to do that, but that doesnât mean that Iâm not supposed to be understanding of him.â
As this woman and I painted this image on this canvas, I was explaining that principle. I reached over and I got some of her yellow off of her palette, and I put some yellow on my half of the painting. For about ten minutes we worked on this painting. It was a painting of a heartâshe did one half and I did one halfâand they were very different. Yet, there were some similarities between them; because we were both painting the same picture. Then, when we finished, we turned it around and showed the audience.
The whole idea was to help create a visual so women could see that Godâs idea for marriage was to create a masterpieceâto create a painting that was unique from every other coupleâs painting on the planet. The painting that Dennis and I create in our marriage is going to very different than the painting you [Bob] and Mary Ann create.
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Bob: So that opening illustrationâquite literally an illustrationâset up the rest of what you wanted to talk about. Thatâs what our listeners are going to get a...
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Click Here to Listen to the other parts in the series
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 1)
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 2) - Building Up Your Man
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 3) - Praising the Positive
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 4) - Embracing the Differences
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 5) - Leaning on God
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 6) - Being His Helper
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 7) - Facing the StormsFamilyLife TodayÂź Radio Transcript
References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete.
Building up Your Man
Guest: Barbara Rainey
From the series: Letters to My Daughters (Day 1 of 2)
Air date: May 31, 2018
Bob: See if you can spot where the challenge is here. Youâre a wife and a mom who wants things to go right. Marriage and family is messy, and your husband isnât perfect. You see how that can be a problem? Hereâs Barbara Rainey.
Barbara: One of the things that is true about us, as womenâI had a conversation with my daughter just yesterday on the phone about thisâis that itâs so easy for us, because of our emotional makeup, to get very overwhelmed by the circumstances of life. A woman, who is married and is discouraged by her relationship with her husbandâshe can get so overwhelmed to the point where she just doesnât see clearly.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, May 31st. Our host is Dennis Rainey; Iâm Bob Lepine. What do you do, as a wife, when you get overwhelmed / when youâre discouraged by all thatâs going on? How do you deal with that? Weâre going to talk about that today with Barbara Rainey. Stay with us.
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And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Thursday edition. Weâre diving back into a rich field of ore today. I mean, there is some good stuff that weâre going to be digging into.
Dennis: We have some pretty fair guests on FamilyLife Today from time to time.
Bob: We do; yes.
Dennis: Max Lucado, Tony Evans, Crawford Loritts, Mary Kassian, Nancy Leigh DeMoss Wolgemuthâa lot of, really, pretty fair country guests.
Bob: Pretty good communicators with some pretty good biblical knowledge.
Dennis: Yes; this one is a cut above.
Bob: Somebody who isâ
Dennis: âjust a cut above.
Bob: âkind of your favorite?
Dennis: Definitely my favoriteâmy bride of 43 years. Sweetheart, welcome back.
Barbara: I donât know if I can live up to all of that! [Laughter]
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Dennis: Thatâs pretty strong; wasnât it?
Barbara: Very strong!
Dennis: Well, our listeners love you. We were with some friends, here this past weekend, and ran into a number of listeners. They came up and talked to Barbara about her books and Ever Thine HomeÂźâall the resources sheâs creating for wives, and moms, and women to be able to display their faith in their homes. It was kind of fun to watch them come out of the woodworkâout of a large gathering of peopleâcome by and say, âHi,â to Barbara and say, âI appreciate you.â
Bob: Well, and a lot of buzz around your new bookâitâs called Letters to My Daughters. This really didnât start as a book; did it?
Barbara: It absolutely didnât. When our oldest son was engaged to be married, his fiancĂ©e came to me and said, âYou know, I would really love to hear some encouragement from you about being a wife.â And I thought, âWow!â
Bob: She just opened the door; didnât she?
Barbara: I know. I thought: âWow. If she opened the door, then Iâm going to gently and cautiously walk through that door.â
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I wasnât sure exactly how to go about doing it, because we all lived in different places. It wasnât possible to take her out for coffee and have a conversation. I decided I would start writing some letters just to share some of the lessons that I had learned over the years in being a wifeâjust by way of encouragementâand âHere are some things that I learned, and maybe this will help you.â
Bob: Did you write them, one on one, to her; or did you copy everybody else when you started?
Barbara: I copied all three married girls: our oldest Ashley, who was already married; and then our son, Samuel, had married the same summer. It went to three married girls.
Bob: Then you expanded it out as this snowballed and continued?
Barbara: We traded aboutâI sentâIâll rephrase thatâI sent about a dozen emails total. You know, I donât know how much of it was that they didnât know me that well; so there wasnât a lot of response, which I understood.
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I mean, you know, weâre talking about subjects about marriage; and this is your mother-in-law. What do you say?
Bob: Yes.
Barbara: I didnât get much feedback, so they kind of dried up.
Then, when our daughter, Rebecca, got married in 2005, I went and dug them all out and sent them to her sort of as a batchâa couple of them at a timeâand then, that really was the end of it after thatâan email version.
Dennis: I think whatâs interesting about this is the whole idea came from a couple of sources. One was a book that was famous and very popular, back when Barbara and I were college students, by Charlie Shed.
Bob: Yes?
Dennis: It was called Letters to Karen. It wasnât Letters to My Daughter. It wasâalthoughâwas Karen his daughter?
Barbara: Karen was his daughter.
Bob:
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Click Here to Listen to the other parts in the series
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 1)
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 2) - Building Up Your Man
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 3) - Praising the Positive
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 4) - Embracing the Differences
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 5) - Leaning on God
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 6) - Being His Helper
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 7) - Facing the StormsFamilyLife TodayÂź Radio Transcript
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Praising the Positive
Guest: Barbara Rainey
From the series: Letters to My Daughters (Day 2 of 2)
Air date: June 1, 2018
Bob: Barbara Rainey has some advice for wives. She says, when youâre husband messes upâand by the way, he willâwhen it happens, how you respond may determine whether he learns anything from his mistake or not.
Barbara: If you rail on him, and if you criticize him, and you tell him how stupid it was that he made that decision, he may not learn the lesson that God wanted for him; and he may have to repeat it again. The best thing that a wife can do is trust God, even when itâs hard, and ask God to use it for good in their life and that God would use it to grow him in that area, where he just blew it royally.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Friday, June 1st. Our host is Dennis Rainey; Iâm Bob Lepine. The words you say, as a wife, have profound power in your marriage. Weâll examine that subject with Barbara Rainey today. Stay with us.
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And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Friday edition. Have you ever stopped to ponder who you would be: (A) if you had been single all your life or (B) if youâd married somebody other than Barbara?
Dennis: Yes; I guess I have because I tried to marry a young lady from SMU before Barbara and I started dating.
Bob: You proposed?
Dennis: She didnât want to marry me. No; noâit wasnât at that point.
Bob: It was clear enough that you didnâtâ
Dennis: But there was a DTRâa âdefine the relationship.â
Bob: Yes.
Dennis: How she defined it and how I defined it [Laughter]: âThumbs down, baby!â
Bob: Okay.
Dennis: âThumbs down!! Youâre out of here!â [Laughter]
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It was good becauseâyes; it was okay, because I wasnât in search of a myth. I wanted a real relationship with a real person.
Back to the previous part of the question, though, Bob: âHave I ever thought about who I would be if I hadnât married Barbara and was single?â I have. I donât visit that picture very often, because thatâs a horror film. [Laughter]
Bob: Pretty ugly? [Laughter]
Dennis: She laughedâsheâs laughing real hard, because she knows what happened behind the curtain. [Laughter]
Bob: Are you saying, âAmen,â to that? Is that what that laughterâ
Barbara: No; I just think thatâs funny that you said it would be a horror film, because I donât think it would be that bad.
Dennis: Well, I donât know what you would compare marriage toâthat teaches you how to love, that instructs you in how to sacrifice for another person, to care for, to cherish, to nourish, and to call you away from yourself, and forceâ
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âI mean, if youâre going to do marriage Godâs way, it is the greatest discipleship tool that has ever been created in the history of the universe!
Bob: Yes.
Dennis: It demands that both a husband and a wife pick up their cross, follow Christ, deny themselves, and ask God, âOkay; God, what do You want me to do in this set of circumstances?â
Bob: And thatâs true. It works both waysâfor husbands and wivesâbut our focus this week is on the responsibility a wife hasâthe privilege she has / the assignment she hasâfrom God to be the helper that Heâs created her to be.
Barbara, weâre talking about some of the themes that are found in your book, Letters to My Daughters. Some women recoil at the idea that theyâre called to be helpers. It sounds demeaning to them. Your book affirms that itâs a noble thing that God is calling wives to.
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Barbara: It is a very noble assignment that God has given us. Itâs equally noble, I think, to the calling that God has put on a manâs life too. What makes it even better is that, together, marriage is a high and holy callingâit says that in Scripture. It also says that itâs a mystery. I think thatâs the part that we wish God hadnât said about it, because it would be nice if it was a little bit more black and white / more obvious.
But God says it is a mystery. God is an artist / God is an authorâGod didnât make robots. So figuring this outâthis uniqueness / this relationship that Dennis and I have thatâs unlike anybody elseâs relationship on the planetâjust as your marriage with Mary Ann is unlike anybody elseâs on the planetâthe ingenuity of God to create these little duos all over the planet that represent Him / that are a picture of Christ and the Churchâall of that mystery is profound and baffling.
We wish sometimes that marriage was a whole lot easier, but it illustrates that it is a very high and noble calling.
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We think it is drudgery / we think itâs dispensableâand itâs not.
Dennis: Yes; in the book that Barbara has written, called Letters to My Daughters: The Art of Being a Wife, you quote Mike Mason. Speaking of mysteries, he wrote a book called The Mystery of Marriage. This comes from that bookâhe says...
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Click Here to Listen to the other parts in the series
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 1)
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 2) - Building Up Your Man
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 3) - Praising the Positive
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 4) - Embracing the Differences
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 5) - Leaning on God
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 6) - Being His Helper
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 7) - Facing the StormsFamilyLife TodayÂź Radio Transcript
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Embracing the Differences
Guest: Barbara Rainey
From the series: Letters to My Daughters (Day 1 of 3)
Air date: February 15, 2016
Bob: Engaged couples often look at one another and think, âWeâre so much alike!â Then, after they have been married for a little while, they look at each other and think, âWho are you?!â Hereâs Barbara Rainey.
Barbara: What happens when weâre engagedâwe tend to think: âOh, weâre so much alike. We love each other so muchâweâll never have clashes.â I think one of the first difficulties for most young couples is theyâre caught off guard by these differences. They donât know what to do with themâthey go from being cute and attractive to being downright ugly or frustrating. All of a sudden, what was cute isnât so cute anymore; and you think, âNow what do I do?â
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, February 15th. Our host is the President of FamilyLifeÂź, Dennis Rainey, and Iâm Bob Lepine. So what advice would you give to young wives and their husbands about the adjustments we make in marriage? Weâre going to hear what Barbara Rainey has to say about that today. Stay with us.
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And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. I am really enjoying learning lots of new things about you, Barbara.
Dennis: Youâre eavesdropping.
Bob: Well, itâs legitimate eavesdropping because of what your wifeâs been writing about. This has been so much fun to read. [Laughter]
Dennis: I think I want to welcome her to FamilyLife TodayâSweetheart.
Barbara: Maybe we donât; huh? [Laughter]
Dennis: This is my bride, and she has plenty of stories to tell.
Bob: And she has just recentlyâby the way, welcome, Barbaraânice to have you here.
Barbara: Thank you, Bob.
Bob: Youâve been collecting these stories, not to share with the world your stories, but really to mentorâyouâve become an e-mentor; havenât you?
Barbara: Yes. Iâm really writing this for six women / six young women, who happen to be my four daughters and two daughters-in-lawâto share with them the lessons that Iâve learned over all these years of marriage in hopes that it will encourage them, and give them hope, and help themâhelp them persevere for the long haul.
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Dennis: But it actually startedâback to Bobâs point aboutâfrom an e-mentoring standpointâreally started on the internetâ
Barbara: It did. Thatâs right; I had forgotten.
Dennis: âas you were writing emails to your daughters and daughters-in-law so that youâd be able to coach them / encourage them in the process.
Bob: Did you start doing this right after Ashley got married?
Barbara: No; actually, it was after our two boys got married. They got married the same summerâthe summer of 2001. One of those two girls asked me if I would give her some advice on being a wife. I thought: âWow! She really wants my advice?â I thought, âIf she cracked the door open a little bit, Iâm going to just walk right on through while the doorâs open!â I said, âSure, Iâd love to!â
I began writing a series of letters in the fall of 2001 to my two brand-new daughters-in-law and to my daughter, Ashley, who, by then, had been married four years.
Bob: A lot ofâa wife will hear you say that and theyâll think, ââBoy, if somebody asked me, I wouldnât know where to start or what to say.â
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But it sounds like you were ready to dive right in with wisdom.
Barbara: Well, I donât know that I would say it that way, but I was ready to dive inâin the sense that I felt like, âNow was the time,â because all new brides are extremely teachableâtheyâre eager, they want to learn, they want to do it right, they donât want to make mistakesâthey really love this guy they just married. Theyâre most teachable and most coachable in those early years. I wanted to begin by sort of exploiting thatâin a sense, in a good wayâby saying: âHere are some things that I learned / here are some lessons I learned along the way. Here are some stories of what we went through / what Iâve learned from it. Perhaps, it will be helpful.â
Dennis: Over the years, weâveâwho knows how many hundreds of Weekend to RememberÂź marriage getaways have been held by FamilyLifeâweâve looked into the eyes of those in attendance.
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It does seem that the engaged couples and the newly-marrieds are, not only on a steep learning curve, but theyâre much more teachable and kind of spongy in terms of soaking in the truth.
What we wanted to doâand what I encouraged Barbara to do with this bookâis take advantage of a window into the soul to speak a lot of relevant truth that sheâs learned, as a woman from the Scriptures and from other older women who have coached her, and really help these young wives get started on the right trajectory.
Bob: They didnât ask you about a specific subject. They just said, âHelp me be a wife.â How did you know, âOkay; Iâll start hereâ?
Barbara: Well, what I did isâI just thought back to those early days in our marriage and tried to remember: âWhat were the lessons that I learned? What did I do r...
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Click Here to Listen to the other parts in the series
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 1)
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 2) - Building Up Your Man
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 3) - Praising the Positive
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 4) - Embracing the Differences
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 5) - Leaning on God
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 6) - Being His Helper
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 7) - Facing the StormsFamilyLife TodayÂź Radio Transcript
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Leaning on God
Guest: Barbara Rainey
From the series: Letters to My Daughters (Day 2 of 3)
Air date: February 16, 2016
Bob: Barbara Rainey says thereâs a lesson that every couple needs to learn really early in their marriage. The lesson is this: âYou canât do this on your own.â
Barbara: The bottom line is going to be the same for the rest of your life; and that is, when God brings you to a place that you realize you cannot do this thing called marriage, you canât do this thing called mothering, you canât even do the Christian life on your ownâthat you come to Him and you say: âI give up. I surrenderâYour will, not mine.â
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, February 16th. Our host is the President of FamilyLifeÂź, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. Weâll find out today just how important it is to have a spiritual foundation poured in your marriage if youâre going to try to build a home on top of it. Stay tuned.
And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. Iâm curiousâdid you think, when you and Barbara, in the summer of 1972âI guess September of â72 / late summer; right?
Dennis: Right; right.
Bob: Thatâs when the two of you stood and faced one another and said your vows.
Dennis: It was still summer in Houston.
Bob: Did you think, âThis is going to be a breeze,â or did you think, âI know there will be some challengesâ?
Dennis: I just didnât think. [Laughter] Honestly! I was in love. I was committed. I was ready to get on with life with my new bride and my new love. Honestly, I didnât do a lot of cost-counting; but I did make a commitment.
Bob: We heard your wife laugh as you said, âI wasnât really thinking.â Barbara, welcome to FamilyLife Today.
Barbara: Thank you.
Dennis: Were you thinking, Barbara?
Barbara: Not much more than you were.
Bob: But were you confident?
Barbara: Yes, I really was.
Bob: Did you start marriage, thinking, âI can do thisâ?
Barbara: Yes; I really did because I had grown up in a good home. My parents were not divorced. I had seen them work out their marriage andâthough there were things I wanted to do differentlyâI felt like I could do this. Added to that, I was doubly confident because I was a Christian and my husband was. We were not just pew-warmers / we were committed Christ followers. I thought: âThis is guaranteed to work because weâve got the right ingredients: We love each other. We love the Lord. We are going to do this the right way. Weâre going to follow the instructions in the BibleâA+B=C. Itâs going to work out great!â
Bob: The reason weâre exploring this is because youâve been spending a lot of time, recently, working on editing a series of lettersâactually, emails that grew into letters.
Barbara: Yes.
Bob: Letters that youâve written over the years to your daughters and your daughters-in-law, where youâve just offered counsel from your own life and experience about getting married.
Barbara: Yes. I started writing this series of letters the summer that both of our sons got married. It wasnât so much that I wanted to teach themâand I was invited to do so by the wayâI didnât do this without an invitation. It was that I wanted to encourage them by sharing some of the stories of things that I had learned so that they would know that: âOh, itâs normal to have disagreements. Oh, itâs normal for this to happen or that to happen,â so that they would understand the long view of marriage and the big picture of marriage.
Dennis: One of the things that had occurred in our marriage that I think really pointed out the importance of perhaps Barbara doing thisâearly in our marriage, she had kind of run into the differences between us and how that was impacting her. Someone told usâand I donât remember whoâbut said, âYou really ought to go spend some time with an older woman who has experienced more of life and been around the barn a few more times than you have.â Just to spend some time and to know that what youâre going through is normal.
Bob: Yes.
Dennis: I think couples start out their marriage together and they get isolated. They donât realize that what theyâre going through is what everybody else is dealing with. But if they have someone who is seasoned / whoâs authenticâand not going to create some kind of pie-in-the-sky approach thatâs: âA+B=C, and youâre going to have all your problems solved by sundown tonight,ââif youâve got somebody whoâs real and helps you understand that it takes a lifetime to work out this thing called marriage. Thatâs what really fueled Barbara in writing our daughters and our daughters-in-law to be able to enter in to these first months and years of their marriage.
Bob: Barbara, one of the issues you felt like you needed to mentor your daughters and daughters-in-law in was this issue that we talked aboutâyour confidence that you could be the wife and mom that God called you to beâthat, at some point along the way, you kind of woke up and went, âThis is harder than I thought it was going to be.â
Barbara: Yes. I think that realization was an on-going realization. What Iâve realized, as I...
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Click Here to Listen to the other parts in the series
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 1)
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 2) - Building Up Your Man
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 3) - Praising the Positive
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 4) - Embracing the Differences
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 5) - Leaning on God
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 6) - Being His Helper
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 7) - Facing the StormsFamilyLife TodayÂź Radio Transcript
References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete.
Being His Helper
Guest: Barbara Rainey
From the series: Letters to My Daughters (Day 3 of 3)
Air date: February 17, 2016
Bob: The Bible calls women to be helpers to their husbands; but as Barbara Rainey points outâsometimes, when youâre trying to help, youâre not helping.
Barbara: I think, in most womenâs hearts, we do start outâin the early years, especiallyâgenuinely wanting to help. It switches somewhere, along the lineâto becoming a control issue, to becoming a management issue, to becoming a critical issueâwhere I am being his mother and not his helper. Iâm being his parent and not his partner.
I think that is the lessonâitâs that we, as women / we, as wives, need to be aware and to recognize when it does and to say: âOh yeah! I need to be his friend. Weâre peers, weâre equals, weâre teammates; and we can work this out together,â rather than itâletting it become this great obstacle.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, February 17th. Our host is the President of FamilyLifeÂź, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. How can a wife be a helper to her husband?
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Weâre going to explore that today with Barbara Rainey. Stay tuned.
And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. I had somebody share something with me a long time ago. I always thought this was interestingâthey were talking about the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our life. They were saying that the word for the Holy Spirit in the Bible is the word, Paraclete.
Dennis: Right.
Bob: What they said was: âThereâs a difference between a paraclete and a parasite. A parasite is something that attaches itself to you and just sucks the life out of you.â
Dennis: Right.
Bob: âA paraclete is something that attaches itself to you and pours life into you.â I mean, thatâs always stuck with me. Iâve thought, âThatâs not only true of our relationship with the Holy SpiritâHe does attach Himself to us and pours life into usâbut all of our relationships tend to be parasite or paraclete relationshipsâ; donât you think?
Dennis: They do. Itâs interestingâ
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âthat in the Scripture, God refers to Himself as our Helper. I think the Holy Spirit is our Helper.
Bob: Yes.
Dennis: He comforts us / He gives us the power to live the Christian life.
Bob: Jesus said, âI will send another Helper,ââindicating that He had been the Helper. So Helper reallyâGod the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spiritâare all identified as âHelper.â
Dennis: Thatâs right; but if you go all the way back to the beginning of the Bible, the first use of the word, âhelper,â is not referring to God but referring to the woman that God made for man.
Bob: Yes.
Dennis: I know, for Barbara, who joins us again on FamilyLife TodayâBarbara, welcome back.
Barbara: Thank you.
Dennis: Sheâs written a book that isâwas first written for our daughters, as they married, and our daughters-in-law as they married our sons. One of the first sections of the book talks about the role of being a helper. You believe thatâs important; donât you?
Barbara: I do. I think that we have come to think of helper in a more negative senseââmore as a servant.
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Yet, when you go back to the very beginningâas you were just talking about a minute agoâand realize that God used that term to describe the woman / to describe Eve when He made her. He called her helper before the whole thing broke down and fell apart in the Garden. It wasnât Plan Bâit wasnât: âOh, well; now, that youâve made mistakes, and Iâm kicking you out of the Garden, and youâre going to have to start living in a different placeânow, you have to be the helper,ââit was helper from the very beginning.
If we really focus on that, and think about that, it means that I was made, as a female, to be a helperâI was built for that, I was fashioned for that, I was designed for that. Itâs not a second thought / itâs not Plan Bâitâs not an afterthought. Itâs intuitive in who I am, as a female, to be helper in the same way that God is helper to us.
Bob: You say, in the bookâwhen you got married, you say, âI was eager to begin being my husbandâs helper; but beyond cooking for him and doing our laundry, I honestly had no idea what the concept / the assignment really meant.â
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Barbara: Yes.
Bob: I think there are a lot of women who, when they hear the term, âhelper,ââthey think, âWhat is it if itâs not cooking, cleaning, and laundry?â
Barbara: Those things are a part of what each individual couple works outâwho does the cooking / who does the laundry. All of that is a creative blend of the two that are in the marriage unit. And oftenâ
Bob: Who does the cooking at your house? Iâm just curiousâ
Barbara: Well, you know, right now, he do...
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Click Here to Listen to the other parts in the series
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 1)
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 2) - Building Up Your Man
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 3) - Praising the Positive
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 4) - Embracing the Differences
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 5) - Leaning on God
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 6) - Being His Helper
The Art of Being a Wife (Part 7) - Facing the StormsFamilyLife TodayÂź Radio Transcript
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Facing the Storms
Guest: Barbara Rainey
From the series: Letters to My Daughters (Day 1 of 1)
Air date: December 26, 2018
Bob: To be the woman and the wife that God created you to be, you have to know how to walk by faith on the good days and on the dark days. Hereâs Barbara Rainey.
Barbara: Most people who have been through sufferingâwhether itâs shallow, small things or really deep, tragic thingsâcan say, on the other side, âI didnât enjoy it; I didnât like it, but I knew God better as a result.â Iâve heard so many people say that. I would say itâs true about us too. Weâve learned more about God in the valleys than we have on the high places and hills in the sunshine.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, December 26th. Our host is Dennis Rainey; I'm Bob Lepine. Weâll spend time today exploring how a husband and wife can draw closer together and become one as they walk in the valley and in the path of suffering.
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Stay with us.
Welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Wednesday edition. Anybody who has ever been to one of our Weekend to RememberÂź marriage getaways knows thatâon Friday night, as we are getting underwayâwe spend some time talking about the common potholes that can derail or destabilize a marriage relationship. I think there are some things that are pretty standard/pretty common that can cause a marriage to wobble at high speeds.
Dennis: We begin the conference with a message that is really about five threats to your onenessâfive threats to your marriageâfive threats to your marriage going the distance over your lifetime.
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Bob: One of those threats is a failure to anticipate the unexpected trials that come into a marriage. Itâs not a question of whether unexpected trials will come into a marriageâbut âHow do you respond when they do?ââbecause all of us are going to hit them; arenât we?
Dennis: Well, if you think about itâthe vows are builtâthe traditional vows, ââŠin sickness and in healthââin financial success and in also being poor. I mean, the basis of what we promise, when we establish the marriage covenant, is that weâre going to take the storm, head-on. We donât know what it will be; but weâre pledging to one another to not quit but to keep on loving/keep on believing and make our marriage go the distance.
Bob: And we are taking some time this week to talk with your wife, Barbara. Welcome back to FamilyLife Today.
Barbara: Thank you, Bob.
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Bob: Weâre going to talk about some of those valleys and dark places that the two of you have walked together in 40-plus years of marriage and how youâve not quit in the midst of that.
Dennis: What Barbara has done isâshe has taken the past, almost ten years, to complete a book to wives called Letters to My Daughters: The Art of Being a Wife that is designed to be what it is. Itâs an older woman stepping into the life of a younger woman with sage advice/with seasoned adviceâwith the advice that comes after four decades of marriage. The way this book is constructed isâyou end it with this subject that Bobâs talking about hereâthe subject of suffering.
I guess Iâd have to ask you, âIs that because of what you and I have been through?ââbecause we have been through some dark valleys together.
Barbara: Well, thatâs why itâs in there; because it has been an integral part of our marriage relationship. Itâs in there because I think most brides/most young women get married with someâ
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âwhat I call âfairytale theology.â They get married, thinking that: âEverything is going to be great for us. Weâre not going to have difficulties. Yes; there will be some uncomfortable moments, but weâre not going to really have hard stuff. Weâre going toâweâre going to be great. We love each other, and everythingâs going to be great.â
For those, who are Christiansâlike you and I were when we got marriedâwe also start our marriages out, thinking: âYou know, we believe in God. If we do it Godâs way, itâs going to all be good. Weâre not going to have any hard things.â That was how I started our marriageâthinking: âA plus B equals C. If I obey God and I do these things that are in the Bible, then God, therefore, will give us an easy, nice life.â
Bob: So do you have a new equation, now, if itâs not âA plus B equals Câ? What would you say to a young wife, who says, âIf itâs not that, what is it?â
Barbara: Thereâs a lot of algebra. [Laughter]
Bob: Some calculusâ[Laughter]âa little geometry.
Barbara: And I donât know algebra very well, so I canât even give you the formula! [Laughter]
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Dennis: Weâre laughing, but itâs the hard stuff of life. This is a broken world. There is a heaven, and itâs not hereâitâs not now.
Barbara: Yes.
Dennis: God came, in the person of Jesus Christ, to give us an abundant life now and help us face these hardshipsâbut itâs like the funeral you and I participated in earlier this yearâa dear couple that we love greatly, who buried the body of their 15-year-old son. Itâs unthinkable!
Barbara: Yes.
De...
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He is the Stability of Our Times (Part 1) - Keeping Your Focus
He is the Stability of Our Times (Part 2) - Teaching Your Kids to Handle Loss
He is the Stability of Our Times (Part 3) - The Unchanging ChristFamilyLife TodayÂź Radio Transcript
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Keeping Your Focus
Guests: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
From the series: Unshaken: He Is the Stability of Our Times (Day 1 of 3)
Air date: October 17, 2016
Bob: Do you ever find yourself being anxious or troubled by the events that are taking place in our culture? Youâre not alone. Barbara Rainey has the same feelings.
Barbara: I mean, there are plenty of times that Iâve listened to the news, or read an article, or listened to someone and Iâveâmy response has been fear. I have felt fearful in my heart, and thatâs not what God wants me to do. He doesnât want me to respond in fear / He wants me to respond in faith. So, my responsibility is to create a balance between the messages that Iâm allowing to speak to my heart; and I want to grow the messages that are going to grow my faith.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, October 17th. Our host is the President of FamilyLifeÂź, Dennis Rainey, and Iâm Bob Lepine. How do we foster faith in our own heart, and how do we help our children feel secure in times of instability? Weâll talk about that today. Stay with us.
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And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Monday edition. You grew up in the Ozarks in southeast Missouri; right?âsouthwest Missouri.
Dennis: Right.
Bob: At that time, when you were growing up, was there a Silver Dollar City? Did it exist?
Dennis: No; there was a cave. [Laughter]
Bob: Iâve been to the cave.
Dennis: There was a cave, and there were two shows in Branson.
Bob: Yes; but Silver Dollar City came along years later.
Dennis: The Presley Brothers andâwhat was the other one?
Barbara: The Baldknobbers.
Dennis: Baldknobbersâthat was it. [Laughter] Branson, Missouri, was not the hotspot that it is today; but there was no Silver Dollar City.
Bob: Your wife, who is joining us todayâyou obviously know the history of Branson a little bit.
Barbara: Well, I just remember Dennisâs mother talking about that. I think they went a few timesâdid you?âwhen you were growing up? I remember her talking about the Baldknobbers; because itâs such an odd, strangeâ
Dennis: No.
Barbara: âweird term.
Dennis: We never.
Bob: You didnât go?
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Dennis: We never.
Barbara: Well, maybe, she used to goâI donât know! [Laughter]
Dennis: I donât know that my mother ever went.
Barbara: Okay; well, she knew about them. [Laughter]
Dennis: It was great, great cultural music; but maybe, a cut above where we were. [Laughter]
Bob: I rememberâbecause I grew up in Missouri as wellâand I remember vacationing in Branson, as a child, and going to Silver Dollar City. Here is my distinct memoryâthere was an attraction in the middle of Silver Dollar City called Slantinâ Samâs Cabin. Do you remember Slantinâ Samâs Cabin? Does this ring a bell to you?
Barbara: No. We took our kids there, too; but I donât remember it.
Dennis: It must have been a real high point. [Laughter]
Bob: This was a cabin youâd go into where the walls all leaned one way and the floor tilted way up. In fact, I rememberâin one room, youâd go in and water ran uphill because of how they had it all arranged.
Dennis: Oh, yes.Bob: And I loved going to Slantinâ Samâs Cabin and just walking through it. You came out feeling disoriented. In fact, years later, when I took Mary Ann there, we walked through itâ
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âshe said, âI donât want to go to Slantinâ Samâs Cabin.â
Barbara: âI donât like this.â
Bob: âIt just gives me a headache.â
There is something about the amusementsâlike those mirrors in the old amusement parks, where you looked everywhereâthat can be fun for a day; but if the world youâre living in starts to feel like Slantinâ Samâs Cabin, all of a sudden, it goes from being a fun attraction to being something thatâs very disorienting.
Dennis: You know, what you are describing, Bob, is what we want to talk about. Barbara has a passionâand I do tooâfor equipping families to know how to live in a culture that seems to be more disorienting today than it ever has been. I mean, think about whatâs taking place politically, whatâs taking place from a societal standpoint / the redefinitions that now have become the new norm, whatâs taking place morally in our country, and then, how Christians feel / those who are followers of Christâ
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âhow they feelâbecause theyâre no longer welcome, in many regards, in our own country. Weâre now getting blamed for things that are being brought to our country by outsiders.
Bob: Yes; we had a guest earlier this year who talked aboutâhe used the metaphorâhe said, âWeâre no longer the home team.â There was a day, when we were growing upâto be a Christian and to live out Christian values in this cultureâpeople generally supported that and thought that was good thing.
Dennis: I no longer sit down in an airplane, when Iâm travelling to speak at a conferenceâI no lo...
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He is the Stability of Our Times (Part 1) - Keeping Your Focus
He is the Stability of Our Times (Part 2) - Teaching Your Kids to Handle Loss
He is the Stability of Our Times (Part 3) - The Unchanging ChristFamilyLife TodayÂź Radio Transcript
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Teaching Your Kids to Handle Loss
Guests: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
From the series: Unshaken: He Is the Stability of Our Times (Day 2 of 3)
Air date: October 18, 2016
Bob: As a parent, do you want your children to grow up full of faith and courage? Then, your children need to see a mom and a dad who are full of faith and are courageous. Hereâs Barbara Rainey.
Barbara: I think that thatâs our call as parentsâis to model a relationship with Jesus Christ thatâs authentic, and strong, and rooted in the Rock. Thatâs what our kids will notice, and they will follow that. Thatâs what we wantâwe want our children to grow a faith too, but we have to remember that we are modeling that in what we say and in what we do because our kids are paying attention.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, October 18th. Our host is the President of FamilyLifeÂź, Dennis Rainey, and Iâm Bob Lepine. In times of instability, are you modeling for your children what it looks like to walk by faith and be full of courage? Weâll talk more about that today. Stay with us.
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And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Tuesday edition. I have some counsel for those who might be trying to decide on a church home. If you should show up at a local church and the worship pastor says, âLetâs sing the great hymn, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, and letâs sing verses one, two, and four,â you should leave that church immediately; and you should never consider joining that church.
Now, there are some hymnsâfirst of all, I justâDennis: The one, two, and fourâcounsel of Bob Lepine. [Laughter] You heard it first here on FamilyLife Today.
Bob: There are some hymns where itâs fine to skip a verse if you want to; okay? I donât prefer itâI like to sing all of the verses of all of the hymnsâ
Barbara: I do too. I agree
Bob: âbut Iâm also aware that Charles Wesley did write some hymns that had 20 verses to them. So, I get narrowing it down to the best ones. But when it comes to Martin Lutherâs A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, this is based on Psalm 46.
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You canât go from verse two to verse four without skipping a big, important part in the middle.
Barbara: A big chunk of Psalm 46.
Bob: Exactly right. And Psalm 46 is that Psalm that says, âGod is our Rock, our fortress, our ever present help in time of need.â I was thinking about the hymn and thinking about that Psalmâwith what weâve been talking about this weekâbecause a fortress is a place that you go into to feel safe from an enemy that might be attacking you. And there are times in our culture today, where we look around and go, âIt feels like I need a fortress just to rest for a little bit.â
Dennis: And fortunately, Iâm married to a great woman who recognizes that, not only do we need a fortressâand reminds me of that in our marriage / in our familyâ
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âbut also pinned both Bob and me underneath her foot and said, âIâve got to go into the studio and share with our listeners the need for stability today.â [Laughter]
Bob: Let me just sayâit was not a hostile takeover.Dennis: It wasnât.
Barbara: Thank you.
Bob: We were very happy.
Barbara: Thank you.
Dennis: Semiâsemi-hostile. [Laughter] But she is all about a new plaque that she has developed. Interestingly, when she created it, she said, âYou know, we havenât even talked about it on FamilyLife Today, and these things are flying out of the warehouse,â âit is Isaiah 33:6: âAnd He shall be the stability of your times.â Share why you have created this, Sweetheart.
Barbara: Well, I think everyone is aware that we live in a very uncertain world, and itâs not just in America; but itâs all around the world. People are feeling the sand underneath their feet shifting, and people donât know quite what to do with economic changes. They donât know what to do with political changes. They donât know how to respond to changes in their family.
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Life is an uncertain adventure. And when uncertainty comes or when instability is felt, we need to know what to doâwe need to know how to respond and what to do next.
The idea of putting this verse on a plaqueâin a really pretty frame tooâis so that we can be reminded every day in our homes that Jesus is our stability: He is the One who never changes; He is the One who is the Rock; He is the One who is our fortress. So, no matter whatâs happening personally or no matter whatâs happening in our world around us, He will never change; and thatâs what gives me my security.
Dennis: Uncertain adventures demand leadership. What Barbaraâs talking about demands leadership of men and women in all walks of lifeâwhether you live in an apartment, inner city, suburban America, smaller towns across the country. These are days when individual followers of Christ need to know who they are and why they are here.
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Barbara and I were talking about just the whole need for leadership in the family in the midst of uncertain times. I was reminded of a story that I told in my book, Stepping Up. Itâs a story about Sir Ernest Shackleton who, at the age of 40, recruited men to go with him to the South Pole, the Antarctic. He took 27 men on December 5, 1914. After 45 days at sea, ran into what was called heavy pack ice that trapped his ship in the pack ice and they couldnât get loose. They tried for three weeksâcouldnât get out of the pack ice. I want to read you what leadership sounds like in uncertain times.
This was written by the ship surgeon, Alexander Macklin, in h...
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He is the Stability of Our Times (Part 1) - Keeping Your Focus
He is the Stability of Our Times (Part 2) - Teaching Your Kids to Handle Loss
He is the Stability of Our Times (Part 3) - The Unchanging ChristFamilyLife TodayÂź Radio Transcript
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The Unchanging Christ
Guests: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
From the series: Unshaken: He Is the Stability of Our Times (Day 3 of 3)
Air date: October 19, 2016
Bob: Do you look at what's happening in our world and in our culture and lose heart?
Barbara Rainey says there's reason for optimism.
Barbara: I think, in the long run, this is going to be very good for the people of God. It's going to be very good for the church, because it will prove who really belongs to Christ. It will prove what we're really made of and where our loyalties lie; because if our loyalties are in the governmentâand whoâs in power / who the President isâthat's going to go away / that's going to fade.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday October 19th. Our host is the President of FamilyLifeÂź, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. Could it be that God is actually causing all things to work together for good for those who love Him and who are called according to His purpose, even in a political election year? We'll discuss that today. Stay with us.
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And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Wednesday edition. So here's the question: âOptimist or pessimistâwhich are you?â And your wife is here. [Laughter] So whatever you say, I am going to get a fact-checker, right here, to determine whether what you say is true.
Dennis: I'm a realistic optimist.
Bob: A realistic optimist. [Laughter] That sounds like you're hedging your bets onâ
Dennis: No; no. I just take a real clear look at what's taking place. These are troubling days/challenging daysâwe don't know what the future holds.
But that's how I describe myself. I think I want to respond in faith. I think we are put here for good works. In fact, I was just thinking about this broadcastâI quoted this earlier on the broadcastâPsalm 37, verse 3:
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âTrust in the Lord and do good.â You can't be a pessimist and do nothingâyou have to trust in the Lord, and I think, be an optimist. An optimist says, âGod is at work.â
I just walked into a meeting a few minutes ago and was just talking about the days in which we are alive. The gentleman who was there said, "Do you think maybe God's got a message for us?" And I said, "Do you think?!" [Laughter] I mean, these are fascinating days: âWhat is He up to? Why would you want to be up to anything else other than what God's doing?â
Bob: Okay; let me see if your wife would agree with your characterization. Is he a realistic optimist? Is that a good characterization?
Barbara: I do think that's a good description, and I was trying to decide what I would say. I would say heâs definitely not a pessimist.
Bob: Okay.
Dennis: But what about you, Bob?
Barbara: He's by far more optimistic than pessimistic.
Bob: I want to know about Barbara first.
Dennis: Okay.
Bob: Are you an optimist?âor a pessimist?
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Barbara: Well, honestly, I think I'd have to say the same answer that Dennis gave; because I can see the negative in things, but I think my faith calls me back to believe God. I think were it not for my faith, I think I would probably be a pessimistâ
Bob: Yes.
Barbara: âbecause I tend toward depression. I tend toward realism and practicality; so I tend to see the reasons why things won't work sometimes. Butâ
Bob: So how hard was it for you to create a plaque that says, "He shall be the stability of our timesâ?âIsaiah 33:6.
Barbara: Well, actually, this one was pretty easy. There have been some other things that weren't so easy, but this one was pretty easy.
Bob: A lot of people have seen this and said: âI need thatâ
Barbara: Yes.
Bob: ââin my home. I need something that reminds meâin a time, where we start to lose faith / where we start to lose hopeâ
Barbara: Yes.
Bob: ââI need something to remind me that there is still a reason for hopeâ; right?
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Barbara: Well, the purpose of this plaque is to help us remember that there is Someone who never changes. I may change, my circumstances may change, my family may change, the country may changeâI mean, everything is up for grabs except Jesus. The plaque we designed so that it will remind us every day, if you hang it in your house, He shall be the stability of your times. And why? Because Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. He won't change. He's never going anywhere.
No matter how unstable the world feels at any given moment, He's never changing. That reminder, I think, is really important for us, as Christians, in this era in which we live; because we are surrounded by so much that is creating uncertainly, and creating fear, and creating anxiety in our hearts. Jesus wants us to not be afraid but to trust in Him.
Bob: So let me ask the realistic optimistâ
Barbara: Optimist
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Bob: âover here: âAs you look at the world that we are in todayâyou look at the economic condition, you look at the political scene / we've got an election coming up. We're going to have a new President, and we don't know which direction we're going to be headed. Are you hopeful about where we will be, as a church ...
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Click Here to Listen to the other parts in the series
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 1) - A Call to Advent
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 2) - Being Still
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 3) - Introducing Your Kids to the Savior
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 4) - His Savior Names
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 5) - Remembering Christ at ChristmasFamilyLife TodayÂź Radio Transcript
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A Call to Advent
Guests: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
From the series: Celebrating Advent (Day 1 of 5)
Air date: November 28, 2016
Bob: Does your church or does your family do anything to celebrate the Advent season? Are you even familiar with what Advent is? Hereâs Barbara Rainey.
Barbara: The term, âadvent,â just means Jesusâ comingâit means the time when He came to earth / He left heaven. The Book of John tells us He was sent by GodâHe left heaven, and He came to earth. He became a baby, as we all know in the story, and was born and lived and gave His life for us. But the timeâthose weeks leading up to Christmasâyears ago, in the Middle Ages or somewhere in there, the church fathers met and decided that this would be a good time to help people prepare their hearts to celebrate and to worship when Christmas Day actually came.I think itâs a great concept because, in our culture today, we donât wait very well, we do not celebrate very well, and we donât mark the days very well.
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I think there is some benefitâespecially for familiesâto mark those Sundays of Advent with, even, a ten-minute gathering. Get together before bed time, if you have toâor after breakfast or whenever it worksâand just think together about what this season is all about. The whole idea of Advent is preparing your heart to worship and to appropriately celebrate the gift of Christ.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, November 28th. Our host is the President of FamilyLifeÂź, Dennis Rainey. Iâm Bob Lepine. We have a great opportunity, over the next four weeks, to prepare our hearts and minds for the celebration of Jesusâ coming. Weâll talk about that today. Stay with us.
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And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Monday edition. I justâIâm wondering: âDo you guys have, at your house, somebody who comes throughâlike at the end of the weekend after Thanksgivingâand says: âOkay; weâve got to do a major shift here! Weâve got to take all the Thanksgiving stuff downâ?â
Dennis: Youâre looking at him. [Laughter] My martyr meter is going off right now. [Laughter]
Barbara: Thereâs not that much Thanksgiving stuff to take down; mind you.
Dennis: There really isnât; but Iâm going to tell youâthe Christmasâwe have it out in a little storage shed. Iâm not saying itâs a lot, but we hire an 18-wheeler to move the 200 feet from our storage shed up to our back door. [Laughter]Bob: You had to put an addition on the storage shedâdidnât you?âjust to handle more Christmas stuff over the years? [Laughter]
Barbara: You guys are terrible!
Dennis: We are terrible.
Barbara: You are, because itâs so not true.
Bob: But the truth is thatâDennis: Barbaraâyou know, here is the thing, Bobâthis is a paradox of life.
Bob: Yes?3:00
Dennis: Barbara says her favorite holiday is Thanksgiving.Bob: And by the way, Barbara is joining us again today. Welcome back to FamilyLife Today.
Dennis: Welcome back, Sweetheart.
Barbara: Thank you.
Bob: So, Thanksgiving, which weâve just completedâyour favorite holiday; right?
Barbara: Yes; and the rest of the sentence is?
Dennis: Why are there boxes of Christmas gear that we bring in?
Barbara: Because there is so much more available to purchase, and to display, and to decorate with for Christmas than there is for Thanksgiving.
Dennis: Especially since you created Ever Thine HomeÂź.
Barbara: Thatâs part of it too.
Dennis: You have declared the reason for the season, both at Thanksgiving and at Christmasâ
Barbara: So, part ofâ
Dennis: âand at Valentineâs, and at Easter.
Barbara: âand Easter. Part of the reasonâ
Dennis: âand the Fourth of July! [Laughter]
Barbara: Part of the reason we have more at Christmas now is because we have all the old stuffâall the old Santa, snowmen / things have nothing to do with Jesusâstuff that I havenât gotten rid of yet.
Dennis: You know what I think?â[whispering]âthey could disappear.
Barbara: They could.
Dennis: [Whispering] They mightâthey might vanish.Barbara: But weâve replaced them with all the new things about Jesus.
Bob: If you see an extra trash can out at the curb tonight when you go homeâ[Laughter]
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Barbara: Iâll know what it is; yes! [Laughter]
Bob: âyou will knowâ
Dennis: It may be my body! [Laughter]
Bob:
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Click Here to Listen to the other parts in the series
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 1) - A Call to Advent
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 2) - Being Still
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 3) - Introducing Your Kids to the Savior
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 4) - His Savior Names
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 5) - Remembering Christ at ChristmasFamilyLife TodayÂź Radio Transcript
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Being Still
Guests: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
From the series: Celebrating Advent (Day 2 of 5)
Air date: November 29, 2016
Bob: Taking time during the weeks leading up to Christmas to prepare our hearts for the celebration of His coming, thatâs what Advent is all about. And Barbara Rainey says, âIt helps us cultivate faith.â
Barbara: The whole purpose for Adventâthe reason that the church fathers came up with this idea, back in the Middle Agesâwas to encourage people, who were believers in Christ, to prepare their hearts for Christmas Day. Itâs a way to anticipate His coming / itâs a way to look forward to celebrating the birth of Christ on Christmas Day. When we practice Advent today, itâs essentially the same thingâitâs a way to mark the time, but itâs also a way to build anticipation.One of my favorite writers has written: âThat loss of expectation is loss of faith. What else is faith but expectation?â I love that quoteâthat when we expect, we believe / when we are anticipating, we believe.
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I think thatâs really, really good for us.
I think there are some real benefits for families. The first one isâit teaches us to be patient. We are not a patient people in this cultureâour children arenât patient / weâre not patient. Weâre so used to everything being readily available whenever we want it. But if you mark Adventâand you can only open one lunch sack, for instance, or one little box; and you have to wait a whole week for the next oneâit teaches us, as people, to be patientâthatâs a good quality / itâs a good attribute.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, November 29th. Our host is the President of FamilyLifeÂź, Dennis Rainey, and Iâm Bob Lepine. There are lots of people wanting you to be thinking about lots of different things during these weeks before Christmas. We think itâs good for all of us to be thinking about the celebration of Jesusâ coming. Weâll talk more about that today. Stay with us.
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And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Tuesday edition. I just need to make sure our listeners understand you prepare for FamilyLife Today very differently than your wife prepares for this program, when she is joining us on FamilyLife Todayâas she is todayâBarbara, welcome back to FamilyLife Today.
Barbara: Thank you, Bob.
Bob: And here is what I mean by thatâ
Dennis: Yes; why donât you tell me what you mean by that? [Laughter]
Bob: We have been doing this program for 24-plus years now.
Dennis: Over 5,000 broadcasts.
Bob: In those 24-plus years, there has never been a day that youâve come in to the studio with four brown paper bags that have glitter, and glue, and numbers on them. Youâve never come up with a little craft like this for our program. You just come in with some notes, and âHereâs what I want to talk about,â and âLetâs go. Câmon! Câmon!â And your wife comes inâthis is beautiful / she brought in some bags with glitter and glue on them.
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Dennis: And sheâs appealing to something that you and I, bothâwhen we were little boys and, even today, as adultsâsheâs appealing to our curiosity: âWhatâs in bag number 1?â and âWhatâs in number 2?â ââ3?â and ââ4?â
I remember where my mom used to stash all the Christmas presents before she would put them underâ
Bob: You knew where they were hidden?
Dennis: Oh, yes. Are you kidding? I mean, I was a super-sleuth around the house.Bob: Snoop is what you wereânot sleuthâsnoop.
Dennis: Oh, well, thatâs true too. I would sniff them out. And I admitâone time, I found the closet upstairsâour house was a small, small house. It was kind of dark up there, but there was no one watching. So, I kind of unwrappedâ
Bob: âa couple of the presents?
Dennis: âa couple of the presents.
Bob: Yes.
Dennis: And my mom was a better sleuth than me. [Laughter] But here is the thingâthe anticipation of leading up to Christmas is something that every child / every adult enjoys.
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I think what Barbara is doing here, around Advent and Christmas, is appealing to that curiosity and trying to get us to think about, âWhatâs in bag number 1?â I think sheâs going to let you do it, in a second, after we talk about what Advent is.
Bob: You brought these in as object lessons for us on todayâs program; right?
Barbara: Well, they are object lessons; but itâs also a way for listeners to hear us do this and go: âOh, thatâs not so hard. I could do that. I could even do that this year.â Practicing Advent is not that difficult. Here is an easy way that you can practice Advent with your family, even this year. Even though the first Sunday of Advent was last Sunday, there are still four Sundays left. You could still do it this year if you wanted to.
Bob: There are four lunch sacks here on the table.
Barbara: Just plain old, brown lunch sacksânothing fancy.Bob: And with glitter and glue, youâve got numbers 1,...
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Click Here to Listen to the other parts in the series
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 1) - A Call to Advent
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 2) - Being Still
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 3) - Introducing Your Kids to the Savior
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 4) - His Savior Names
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 5) - Remembering Christ at ChristmasFamilyLife TodayÂź Radio Transcript
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Introduce Your Kids to the Savior
Guests: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
From the series: Celebrating Advent (Day 3 of 5)
Air date: November 30, 2016
______________________________________________________________________________
Bob: Many parents would love for their family to have a more spiritual / a more Christ-centered focus during the Christmas season. But thereâs not a lot that points us in that direction. Hereâs Barbara Rainey.
Barbara: As we were raising our children, I noticed that there was very little available, even thenâand that was 20 years agoâthat helped us, as a family / helped Dennis and me turn our kidsâ attention to Jesus at the Christmas holiday. I wanted to do thatâI wanted to help my kids appreciate Christmas for what it was really all about. And yet, I couldnât find things that helped me engage my kids in conversations about it. I couldnât find things, other than a Nativity scene or two, that we had that would help us turn our attention, and help us turn our kidsâ attention, to the meaning of Christmas.
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Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, November 30th. Our host is the President of FamilyLifeÂź, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. What can we be doing, as moms and dads, to be pointing our children in a more Christ-centered direction as we get ready to celebrate Christmas? Weâre going to explore that today. Stay with us.
And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Wednesday edition. Iâm going to have to get a new mailbox I think. I meanâ
Dennis: Too many catalogues?
Bob: Yes; stop and think: âHow much meaningful mail do you get in a year these days? I go out to the mailbox every day to see whatâs in the mailbox. How many days is it just junk?â
Barbara: Most of the days.
Bob: Most days itâs just junk mail. Every once in a while, thereâs a lovely letter from FamilyLifeâso we have that / we always get thatâand open that first thing; but most of the time, itâs just junk.
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Well, you get to Christmastimeâ
Dennis: I just wrote you a note, BobâI just thanked you. You should be getting it here pretty soon.
Bob: Well, Iâll keep my eyes open for it. Thank you. [Laughter]
Barbara: Yes; thank you notes are nice to get.
Dennis: A handwritten note is really valuable today.
Bob: Those are nice and rare.
So, now, at Christmastime, there is not enough room in the mailbox for all of the catalogues / for all of theâjust all of the stuff / all of the junk that everybody wants us to buy. Iâm just telling them, âDonât send them to me anymore, because Iâm not buying your stuff; okay?â Iâm just trying to tell themâ
Barbara: They donât believe it, though.
Bob: I guess they donât; no.
Dennis: Barbara joins us on FamilyLife Today. Welcome back, Sweetheart.
Barbara: Thank you.
Dennis: She had me actually go to the garbage the other day, Bob, and fish out of the garbage a magazine that she said captured really what is the message / what has become the message of Christmas this season.
Barbara: I did; because I didnât want the magazine / didnât need itâ
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âso I pitched it. Then I started thinking about the messages that that magazine was communicating to me at Christmas. This one came in the mail the other day. On the cover, it says, â385 Ways to Dazzle Family and Friends.â [Laughter] I thought, âWell, first of all, who has time for 385 ways, number one; and secondly, is it really about dazzling your family and friends?â I just thought: âOh my gosh! We have reallyâwe have really changed.â
Bob: This is all about Christmasâyouâre supposed to do all of thisâ
Barbara: This whole catalogueâ
Dennis: Itâs a new adventâ385 steps / 385 waysâ[Laughter]
Bob: So, did you read any of them?
Barbara: Well, I flipped through it; and of course, itâs multiple choiceâyou donât have to do all 385. They want you to have lots of options.
Bob: Thatâs a good thing; yes.
Barbara: One of them said, âTake a bow as you reveal the spectacular cake.â Another one said, âShow them you love them by giving one of these handmade gifts to everyone on your list.â [Laughter] Iâm thinking, âEven if you just chose one of those, itâs overwhelming, all by itself.â
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Bob: I can do the bow; but Iâm just thinking, âMy friends and family are not going to be dazzled when I take a bow.â
Barbara: No; no. [Laughter]
Dennis: It is all the wrong message, though.
Barbara: Yes; it is.
Dennis: What we want to do isâI donât know that we want to dazzle. I think we want to refocusâa little bit like a cameraâbring back the focus to Christmas and what itâs all about and help families celebrate Jesus Christ.
Barbara: Actually, I think dazzle might be a good word. I think what we want isâwe want to be dazzled by the incarnationâthe fact that Jesus actually came to the planet to rescue us when we didnât des...
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Click Here to Listen to the other parts in the series
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 1) - A Call to Advent
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 2) - Being Still
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 3) - Introducing Your Kids to the Savior
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 4) - His Savior Names
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 5) - Remembering Christ at ChristmasFamilyLife TodayÂź Radio Transcript
References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete.
His Savior Names
Guests: Dennis and Barbara Rainey and Laura Rainey Dries
From the series: Celebrating Advent (Day 4 of 5)
Air date: December 1, 2016
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Bob: The Christmas season gives all of us the opportunity to be talking more easily and more comfortably with friends or family members about who Jesus is. Hereâs Barbara Rainey.
Barbara: This good friend of ours had the great privilege of leading his son to Christ as a result of focusing on the names of Christ at Christmas. I think thatâs what God is calling all of us to do. Heâs calling all of us to settle things and make things right with Him. Christmas is a wonderful time to do that, because weâre naturally thinking about Jesus being born in Bethlehem. Itâs a perfect opportunity for moms and dads to help your kids understand what a decision for Christ looks like and why thatâs the most important decision theyâll ever make.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, December 1st. Our host is the President of FamilyLifeÂź, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.
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Are you thinking, and planning, and strategizing about ways you could take advantage of spiritual opportunities in your family or among your friends during the holiday season? Weâll talk more about that today. Stay with us.
And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Thursday edition. Itâs actually the first day of December. This is the first day of the last month of the year, and the last month weâll be celebrating our 40th anniversary as a ministry.
Dennis: Youâre exactly right. Itâs been a great year to celebrate 40 years. FamilyLife has been, for 40 years, the Proud Sponsor of Anniversariesâąânot oursâyours. I read a great letter recently, Bob, from a couple, whom you mentioned, congratulating them on their 70th.
Bob: That was greatâback in August; yes.
Dennis: Seventy years of marriageâjust a great letter of how their friends at church heard it and they thought: âYou guys are famous! Youâre on FamilyLife Today!â [Laughter]
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Well, 70 years deserves a celebration; and you know what? Thereâs another season that demands celebration as wellâthatâs Christmas. We want to help you do a better job of doing that.
Before we talk about how weâre going to help you celebrate ChristmasâBob, in our family, when I was growing up, we had a time when the family would come together around the dinner table and weâd say, âThereâs something important we need to talk about.â It didnât happen many times but enough times that I knew, as a young lad, this was important.
You know what? Weâre at a table hereâkind of a dinner table of sorts. Iâm asking the listener to scoot up a chair and just listen as I invite you to become a part of FamilyLifeâs mission. We need you. We need you to stand with us as we stand alongside youâas a single person, married, parent, grandparentâwith Godâs blueprints for marriage and family.
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This ministryâs made possibleâour mission of supporting familiesâis made possible by folks like you. As you slide the chair up to the table, maybe you can slide your checkbook out on the table and write a check; because thatâs what makes this broadcast possible. I just want folks to know we believe this is the mission of the hour for our country, and we need you to stand with us if you believe that as well.
Bob: And there is a significant incentive right now. If youâre able to help with a donation, thereâs a matching gift that has been made available to us, here at FamilyLife. Weâve asked our friend, Michelle Hill, to be our matching-gift monitor throughout the month of December. Can you give us the details on how the matching gift is working?
Michelle: Sure, Bob. Hereâs how it worksâfirst of all, the matching fund is $1.25 million. When listeners make a donation in December, their donation is actually going to be tripled by money drawn from this matching-gift fund.
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Letâs say somebody gives $50. Well, weâre able to draw $100 from the matching fund so that the total gift becomes $150. Iâll keep tabs on how things are going throughout the month; and of course, keep you up to date!
Bob: Well, we will check in with you regularly throughout the month. Weâd love to have you join us in the work of FamilyLife. Go to FamilyLifeToday.comâmake a donation online; or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to make a yearend donation. Or you can mail your donation to FamilyLife Today at PO Box 7111, Little Rock, AR; our zip code is 72223. We hope to hear from you, here, between now and the end of the year.
Dennis: We sure do. I just want to remind you: âChristmas is about family. Itâs about love; and itâs about giving, because âFor God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.ââ
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Early in our marriageâIâll never forgetâBarbara came to me and she said: âYou know, I am just kind of sick and tired of the messages of the culture. How can we train our children to be more about gift giving than gift receiving?â We put our heads togetherâwe started asking people. I donât know who shared it with us, but somebodyâit wasnât usâoriginated the idea that, instead of lining up all your presents that youâre going to open for yourself / instead, line up all your presents that you want to give to others.
In fact, Iâm looking out to the audience thatâs out there listening to us tape this pr...
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Click Here to Listen to the other parts in the series
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 1) - A Call to Advent
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 2) - Being Still
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 3) - Introducing Your Kids to the Savior
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 4) - His Savior Names
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 5) - Remembering Christ at ChristmasFamilyLife TodayÂź Radio Transcript
References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete.
Remembering Christ at Christmas
Guests: Dennis and Barbara Rainey and Laura Rainey Dries
From the series: Celebrating Advent (Day 5 of 5)
Air date: December 2, 2016
Bob: The season of Advent is a time for us to be thinking about when Jesus came and about the fact that He is coming again. Hereâs Barbara Rainey.
Barbara: We know that when He cameâHis first adventâwhen He came and was born as a baby in a manger, He came to serve us, He came to redeem us, and He came to deliver us. He was still King in all eternity, but He didnât walk on earth as the King. He walked on earth as a Servant and as a Savior; but someday, He will come back. There will be a second advent of Jesus Christ. And when He comes back again, He will come back as King of kings and Lord of lords.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Friday, December 2nd. Our host is the President of FamilyLifeÂź, Dennis Rainey. Iâm Bob Lepine. In the songs we sing during this part of the year, in our traditions, and even in how we decorate our homes, thereâs an opportunity for us to be making spiritual statements and reminding ourselves and others of the reason for this season. Weâll explore that more today. Stay with us.
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And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Friday edition. Here it is December. I always think of December as a good time just for reflectionâalthough, typically, not the first part of December. Usually, itâs the end of December when you have a few minutes to catch your breath and kind of reflect on what the year has been. Usually, the first part of the month, youâve gotâ
Dennis: Itâs a sprint.
Bob: âyouâve just got so much going on. But this has been a great year for us, at FamilyLife. Weâve been celebrating our 40th anniversary as a ministry this year. It has been fun for us to take some time and just look back on how weâve seen God at work in this ministry for four decades.
Dennis: And I was recently looking back on how God worked in the past 12 months.2.00
Bob, you know, we impacted a record number of peopleâ18.8 million visited our website; listened to FamilyLife Today / Real FamilyLifeÂź; have been to an Art of MarriageÂź / a Weekend to RememberÂź event; bought Passport2PurityÂź. Weâre making an impact in the most important institution in our country. I believe that mission is the mission of the hour.
If you believe it as well, could I challenge you, here at yearend, to stand with us with a generous gift to keep FamilyLife Today coming on strong on this station to make a difference in the marriages and families in your community? You may be investing in another family who is raising the son or daughter who marries your son or daughter. So, why donât you participate with us in this mission of strengthening the most basic unit of our nation, the family?âand doing itâlisten to meâ
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âdoing it around the person of Jesus Christ and the truth of the Bible. I believe this is needed, now, as never before.
Bob: You can make a donation by going, online, at FamilyLifeToday.com; or call us to make a donation at 1-800-FL-TODAY; or you can mail your donation to FamilyLife Today. Our address is PO Box 7111, Little Rock, AR; and our zip code is 72223.
Now, this Sunday is going to beâactually, itâs going to be the first Sunday in December, but itâs the second Sunday in the Advent season. You know, Christmas is on a Sunday this year.
Dennis: Thatâs right.Bob: Will your church cancel, or will they have services? Do you know?
Dennis: Thatâs a good question!
Barbara: I donât know.Bob: Itâs always hard to know what to do, because Christmas morning is such a family time. There are so many traditions that to try to say, âOkay; we want to go to church too,â just feels out of the normal rhythmâI mean, I get that.
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Dennis: Yes; and Iâm thinking of one child in our family whoâif I would have said, âYou know, weâre all just going to get cleaned up and go to church first before we get about celebrating Christmas,ââ
Bob: Yes?
Dennis: âI think this childâshe might have completely split in half. [Laughter]
Bob: Disinherited herself from the familyâBarbara: Yes; she would have.
Bob: âand said, âIâm joining somebody elseâs family for this Christmas.â
Dennis: In fact, sheâs out in the production area of our studio hereâLaura. Weâve asked Laura to come in here, recently, a couple of times. So, Laura, would you come into the studio and just explain how difficult it was for you to waitâthe concept of waiting?
Bob: And while youâre coming inâand Laura, welcome, by the wayâwelcome back into the studio. While you are coming in, can we just acknowledge that there might be a heredity link to Lauraâs impatience that, maybe, somebodyâ[Laughter]
Dennis: Now, why would we want to meddle in that stuff?
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Bob: Barbara, would you like to explain why there might have been a heredity link to this? [Laughter] Do you know anybody else who might h...
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