Most families have a 'black sheep.'

Daily Devotion

You say, 'I raised all my children the same way, how come this one is a problem?'

Source: The Word For Today

Through wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established.
Proverbs 24:3 NKJV

(1) Congratulations on succeeding with your other children! You're ahead of the curve. A good family rule is: Pray about your shortcomings; focus on your successes. Don't obsess over one particular child, short-changing the others of your time and attention. Though it doesn't feel natural, reduce your intense concentration on your problem child. Stop 'fixing' them, enjoy all your children, and watch things improve. (2) Children develop at different rates and in different ways. Many problem children are just late arrivers; give them the time they need.

(3) Most families have a 'black sheep.' They make us uncomfortable by not doing life like the rest of us. Accept what you don't like about them until God either changes them or teaches the family mature, unconditional, non-controlling love through them. (4) You do your best as an imperfect but loving parent, then your children, not you, make their own choices. The prophet Samuel's sons "did not walk in his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice" (1 Sam 8:3 NIV). Embarrassing and disappointing, yes! But no charge of spiritual or parental failure is laid on Samuel's doorstep. As godly a man as ever lived, he 'walked the talk.' But when push came to shove, his sons had their options and chose not to do likewise.

However dysfunctional your child may be, under God their greatest asset is a parent who responds by faith, not by fixing, by praying, not prying, and who gets out of God's way and lets Him work.

SoulFood reading: 2 Kings 1:1 - 4:17, Mark 15:33-47, Ps 80:1-11, Pr 13:11-12

This Daily Encouragement comes from The Word for Today devotional available free from UCB Australia. For more information, please visit The Word For Today website at www.thewordfortoday.com.au

a day after titanic disaster, a list of names indicating saved or lost

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Nearer my God to thee

A Hymnologist Looks Back to the Story of the Titanic.
Jessica M. Kerr

When Sarah Flower Adams wrote the hymn, "Nearer, My God, To Thee" in 1840, she could not have dreamed that it would come to be associated, over 50 years later, with one of the greatest tragedies in maritime history. The story is well-known. As the R.M.S. Titanic, proud flagship of the British White Star Line, sank beneath the waves, having struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage, the ship's band is reported to have played the hymn "Nearer, my God, to Thee". The music and the singing by those still left on board was heard by the survivors in life-boats until all sounds died away, and the great ship disappeared beneath the waves. More than 1500 passengers and crew went down with the ship including the eight members of the band; but among the survivors there were a few who remembered the music and the singing of the hymn in those last tragic minutes. So runs the story to this day; and in England it is still, half-a-century later, the accepted version of the courageous part played by the ship's band. In his book "Famous Shipwrecks" (London, 1950), Frank Shaw wrote "The ship's orchestra, men not used to the ways of white water, men unimbued by the sea's stern traditions, and yet heroes one and all, coolly collecting their instruments. ..through the clamor of lowering boats and the wails of women and the crisp shouts of men, playing - playing, stimulating music, careless music -and then - when the imminence of death purged their souls of gaiety, coming together in that splendid hymn of appeal "Nearer, My God, To Thee". When Noel Coward's play "Cavalcade" was produced in London in 1931, the scene on board the "Titanic" was enacted to the sound in the background of this hymn These brave musicians, led by Wallace Hartley, played minute by minute as the ship sank lower and lower by the bows. Their valor has become legendary, but their untimely deaths have fueled a debate .

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