Strengthening Your Grip on Family

Inspiration: Perhaps the most taxing of all, are the years a family finds itself in and out of crisis situations. Little babies that cooed and gurgled grow up into challenging independent-thinking adolescents. The protective, sheltered environment of the home is broken into by school, new friends, alien philosophies, financial strain, illness, accidents, hard questions, constant decisions, and busy schedules...and it isn't difficult to feel the pressure mounting-especially when you add dating, new drivers in the family, leaving for college, talk of marriage, and moving out. Whew! And what does God say about these years?

He says we'll be "blessed." We'll be "happy." It will "be well" with us during these years...In the family portrayed on this scriptural canvas, "the Lord" is still central...

Even before you finish...it may be the right time for you to come to terms with the truth regarding your family. I must be honest with you, in most of the family conflicts I have dealt with involving trouble with teenagers, the problem has been more with parents who were either too liberal and permissive or too inflexible, distant, rigid (and sometimes hypocritical) than with teenagers who were unwilling to cooperate. When the modeling is as it should be, there is seldom much trouble from those who fall under the shadow of the leader. Strengthening your grip on the family may start with an unguarded appraisal of the leadership your family is expected to follow.
(From: Strengthening Your Grip by: Charles Swindoll

My nephews, nieces, and Son Johnny 2008. I know the pic says 2002 but who can set the time on them cameras?