How to Blend Families (A Step Parent's Dilemma)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MP12FRL

Step families are quite common. 

Blending families after divorce and remarriage is a difficult process.

The secret to co-parenting is negotiating change

But change is hard.

This guide gives step by step advice from experienced educators and also provides several fill-in worksheets to help you resolve family relationships, deal with discipline, navigate the financials, and create a balanced family with happy parents and children.

Available only on Amazon in paperback and also for Kindle.

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I began writing in high school. I would turn the music up really loud and let the words flow. Mostly it was poetry and short stories. I showed my work to my English teacher who, of course, encouraged me.

I also kept a diary which I would encourage everyone to do. It makes you think about what was important every day of your life and you get to really know yourself when you look back through the years. What was going on in my life on January 5th of eighth grade or May 5th of twelfth grade, who I was friends with, what I was stressing about, what my hopes were, etc., are more real because they are on paper and not faded or altered by my memory.

An Ideal Step-Father

I’d like to honor my husband, Paul, who became step-father to my daughters when they were 8 and 11. He had custody of his own children, too, who were then 6 and 10. The kids are grown up now with nine (going on ten) kids of their own.

As a step-father Paul was as fair with my kids as his own, and still is. He loved and treated them all the same. He was a great example to them of how a husband should treat his wife. Our daughters have chosen men who cherish them and our son shows great respect and care for his wife.

I'd like to focus on four personality traits that Paul exhibited to the max:

Walking on Water - The Whole Story

Photo by Milo Miloezger on Unsplash

The story of Jesus walking on water is told in Matthew 14, Mark 6 and John 6, but only in Matthew’s account do we learn of Peter’s feat, too. The disciples had just seen Jesus heal thousands of people and then feed them all (5000 men plus women and children) with just five loaves of bread and two fish. Afterwards Jesus sent the disciples off in their boat to sail to Capernaum while he went to pray. The crowds of people were so impressed with him and his miracles that they wanted to make him king right then and there but Jesus sent them off, too.

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A Psalm for Thanksgiving Day

Psalm 113 is the first of six psalms (113-118) called “the Egyptian Hallel” (Hallel means praise).The Jews sang the first two psalms before the Passover meal and the other four afterwards. I’m going to go out on that limb and say that Jesus and his disciples probably sang these psalms in the upper room on the night of the Last Supper.

Here it is:

¹ Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, you his servants; praise the name of the Lord.² Let the name of the Lord be praised, both now and forevermore.³ From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be praised.⁴ The Lord is exalted over all the nations, his glory above the heavens.⁵ Who is like the Lord our God, the One who sits enthroned on high,

Light Shines from the Sun ... and the Son

In the last post I looked at how the New Testament book of John begins with the pre-existence of Jesus. Here’s chapter 1, verses 1 – 5 again:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

“The light shines in the darkness.”

Did Jesus Exist Before He was Born?

The book of John can be divided into several major parts. It begins with the pre-existence of Jesus. Let’s look at chapter 1, verses 1 – 5:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

“In the beginning” is an allusion to Genesis 1:1. Now the interesting thing here is that 1st century Christians with a Jewish background would get this right away but

Do You Swear?

Photo by Gabriel Matula on Unsplash

My mother never swore. Almost never. I heard her say “damn” once, but that was it. I remember one time when I was in the back seat of the car and she was driving. A nice conversation was underway between me and someone else in the car (I no longer remember who) when in response to something incredible that the other person said (probably my sister) I expressed amazement by saying "gees" instead of my usual "gee!"

Faster than a whip came my mother’s hand across my mouth. “You don’t talk like that!” she simply said, not yelling.

What did I do? What did I say? She went on to explain that “gees” was just too close to Jesus’ name. I was maybe nine or ten and I understood the Ten Commandments, especially the one about not taking the Lord’s name in vain.

Pretty rough, you’re thinking, to strike a child for that, but

Solving Biblical Puzzles (This is an amazing find!)

I wrote this short story and hid my own coded message within as well. After you read how Danny solves his mystery go back and look for my message. Comment below with your solution.

Danny’s Puzzle

Grabbing his pencil Danny set to work again practicing the letters from the workbook his friend, Arnie, had lent him. It was so strange to make the weird symbols and to go from right to left across the page, but he had watched Arnie do it with ease and, though he knew his friend had been in Hebrew school for years, Danny felt that mastering the twenty-two letters within the month was a reasonable goal for himself. Arnie’s bar mitzvah was Danny’s target date and he was the type of kid whose competitiveness would keep him focused. He wasn’t trying to actually learn the difficult ancient language; he just wanted to be able to recognize the letters and maybe a few words.

What I Learned about Blending Families

Tips for Blending Families – Remarriage after Divorce

When my husband and I married long ago our children were 6, 8, 10 and 11. My girls were 8 and 11 and his daughter was 10 and his son was 6. We both had full custody. Divorce and remarriage was challenging for all of us, but we succeeded as a family and all of the kids have grown into wonderful, productive adults with children of their own. Here’s what we learned from our experience.

1 – Get a new place. This may be really hard,

THE GIRL IN THE TIME MACHINE

THE GIRL IN THE TIME MACHINE

A NEW TWIST TO TIME TRAVEL

A desperate girl
A faulty time machine
A paradox waiting to happen ...

Seventeen-year-old Laken Mitchell thinks using her parents’ time machine to send abused girls to the last century will make their lives easier. And it does, until dead bodies start turning up.

Cool Stuff You Learn Reading this Blog

1) 
If you list the 66 books of the Bible in three columns Proverbs, Luke and 3rd John all line up. They also line up with the 20th Hebrew letter, resh. The symbolic meaning of resh is “head.” (Ever heard of Rosh Hashana? The Jewish New Year or “Head of the Year.”)

Also, the letter resh starts the Hebrew word for friend which occurs more than twice as often in these 3 books combined than any other 3 books. Think about that!