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December 30, 2011

Random Ramblings #28: The Blogs in My Own Eye

joe 2

Every Friday we’ll take a break from topical posts and will post some random personal thoughts.  --- A Cuppa Joe - Random Ramblings from a Fellow Struggler  The Blogs in My Own Eye You’ll see plenty of Top Ten lists this weekend, usually centered around news stories or entertainment. But since this blogging thing is still relatively new to me, I’ve got a fresh appreciation for women and men who take time, sometimes daily, to crank out thoughts and commentary over the web. So today, let me salute the blogs I click onto regularly by listing Continue Reading

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December 29, 2011

Left Behind: The Problem

wifeboat

For the next three weeks, my lovely wife Renee will be guest blogging about the problem of abandonment. Renee heads up the WifeBoat ministry, which offers support to wives of men caught up in sexual sin. Her blog can be found at wifeboat.com.  Read Part 2: Left Behind: The Emotional Aftermath and Part 3: Hope Floats. --- Left Behind: The Problem by Renee Dallas Can you imagine a little girl raised in poverty because her father squandered the family income on alcohol and gambling? You can just see her growing up determined to never Continue Reading

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December 28, 2011

Starting Over

new growth

Every Wednesday we’ll post something to do with doctrine and recovery. Hope it helps. — Starting Over The battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself - the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us - that's where it's at.  - Olympic Gold Medalist Jesse Owens In 1984 I stepped into a professional counselor’s office for the first time, frightened at the prospect of discussing things I’d never spoken to anyone about, and vulnerable beyond words.  I was twenty nine years old, and had just made a Continue Reading

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December 27, 2011

Rebuilding Her Shattered Trust

rebuilding-her-shattered-trust-marriage-matters

Every Tuesday we’ll post something to do with restoring marriages. Hope it helps. — Rebuilding Her Shattered Trust  When Nehemiah set out to rebuild Jerusalem, he began by taking a close look at the damage done to her walls. (Nehemiah 2: 11-16) It couldn’t have been easy. Knowing the walls were decayed was one thing; closely inspecting them to see just how decayed was another. But how else could he rebuild? To make things right, he had to first see how wrong they really were. If you’re a married man who’s sexually sinned, then someone Continue Reading

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December 27, 2011

The Default Principle

casual Christians guy with open bible

This post is on the Tuesday after Christmas break. That said, the usual is that every Monday we’ll post something to do with maintaining sexual purity. Hope it helps. — The Default Principle When you discover behavior that delivers pleasurable impact, your brain will crave a repetition of the impact. Accept this fact and prepare for it, and you’ll go far towards maintaining integrity over the years. I used to think that if the urge to look at porn re-emerged, it meant I was in some sort of weakened state, emotionally or spiritually. Continue Reading

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December 23, 2011

And the Soul Felt Its Worth

Christmas Scriptures

If I tell myself I’m wonderful, I’m deluded. If I tell myself I’m valuable, I’m spot on, and attuned to one of the most important aspects of what we’ll celebrate this Sunday: the immeasurable worth God places on us, expressed that first Christmas. Christmas is about Christ, of course, but it’s not about Christ in a vacuum, since He existed long before the nativity. (John 1:1-2) It’s about Christ in relationship to the people He came for, and their value in His sight. Angels said as much when they heralded the shepherds with “Peace on Continue Reading

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December 22, 2011

My Glorious Thorn

Photo Credit: McCarter Theatre Center

(This week, in honor of the season, I’ll be posting parallels between A Christmas Carol and the issues we discuss on this blog) — My Glorious Thorn He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see. - A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens Tiny Tim emerges as one of the smartest characters in this Dickens classic. In the quote above, his father Bob remarks that Tim, while sitting in Continue Reading

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December 21, 2011

The Director’s Cut

Photo Credit: CAPA

(This week, in honor of the season, I’ll be posting parallels between A Christmas Carol and the issues we discuss on this blog) — The Director’s Cut Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead. But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus! Why show me this, if I am past all hope?  - A Christmas Carol When a DVD comes out labeled “Director’s Cut”, then you’ve got me. Because of all the things in a good film I appreciate, my loudest kudos go to the Director who brings it Continue Reading

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December 21, 2011

Slow Fade

Photo Credit "The Examiner": Andy Truschinski as Young Ebenezer and Jessie Mueller as Belle.

(This week, in honor of the season, I’ll be posting parallels between A Christmas Carol and the issues we discuss on this blog) — Slow Fade I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion engrosses you. Have I not? - Belle to Young Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol “My wife thinks I’m a jerk,” lots of men say, “so she’s mad at me.” Maybe, maybe not. Inarguably some men are jerks, their wives react, no mystery there. But lots of wives are angry or disappointed because they know their Continue Reading

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December 19, 2011

Unchained

"You have the power, as Paul says, to resist what you used to be in servitude to..."

(This week, in honor of the season, I’ll be posting parallels between A Christmas Carol and the issues we discuss on this blog) --- Unchained “I wear the chain I forged in life....I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.” ― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol Men don’t come into my office because of a bad decision they made. They come because of hundreds, even thousands of bad decisions, linked together to forge a chain they, like Jacob Marley from the Dickens Continue Reading

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