Susan Merrill's Blog, page 2

4 Risky Choices Your Child May Learn From You

The secret to loving your children well is showing them how to live well through the choices you make. One of my girls is pregnant. It was surprising to me how many foods and medicines she has been told to avoid for the health of her baby. One of them is lunch meat. I think that is all I ate with my third pregnancy just 23 years ago! Much new research has improved what we know about protecting the health of children in the womb.

But what about protecting children in the home? The cultural acc...

Are You Ready for These 5 Teen Challenges?

The other day, I had a friend confide in me the struggles she’s facing with her adolescent son. His temper is out of control…his grades are slipping…his relationship with his sister is far from great…and on and on. My heart broke for my friend. But it got me thinking about why some adolescents struggle so deeply and act out.

That led me to one of my favorite authors on adolescence Dr. Les Parrott and the following points he noted that helped me better understand teen struggles. They’re from h...

3 Ways to be a Sneaky Mom

I am a sneaky mom. I will sometimes work quietly, without my children knowing it, to help them along—not to interfere, but to put opportunities for growth or involvement in their path.

And I’m not the only sneaky mom out there! A friend of mine said she was a little sneaky when she helped her son get more involved at church. There’s an older man at her church who takes attendance during the services. He walks down a side aisle to the front of the auditorium and counts the number of people in...

Is Your Marriage Slipping into the Future?

Most people (myself included!) spend their lives in the Someday Zone. We say things like, Someday, I’ll… And we fill in the blank. Someday I’ll apply for that dream job. Someday I’ll take my spouse to Europe. Someday I’ll try marriage counseling. Someday I’ll get away for a long weekend with my husband. And before we know it, someday has turned into if only. 

Take it from me, a mom of five. If you’re not careful, the demands of raising a family will push your marriage to the back burner and s...

Anger Management 101 for Moms

How can someone so small make you so angry? I mean, really, did you ever think a four-year-old would be able to push your buttons so expertly? And why is it that you can control your temper with 99 percent of the people you interact with, but when it comes to how to control anger with kids, they have you pulling your hair out and trying to hold your tongue in about two minutes flat?

If you want to know how to control anger with kids and learn to express it wisely, remember, most importantly,...

What Men Have to Say about Romance

My friend and iMom specialist Shaunti Feldhahn has studied marriages for a long time. Her research on the difference between what men and women think is romantic is the subject of today’s article. I think it is fascinating, and her writing has helped me understand Mark more. Read her thoughts below.

I did a test survey of fifty men on a retreat. When I asked the question “Do you yourself desire romance?” one of the men answered, “Yes, very much,” but added in the margin, “but we have differen...

5 Things to Remind Yourself When You Fall Short of Superwoman

Have you ever experienced mornings that are perfect for comedy shows, but not so much for reality? These chaotic, sometimes even humorous mornings, may consist of walking the dogs, making breakfast, packing lunches, getting dressed, packing sports gear, and somehow managing to drop kids off at school on time. Mornings like these are already exhausting, but what finally tips the scale are unexpected incidences like spilling hot coffee on your white blouse or getting pulled over for speeding.

W...

3 Musts to Hearing the Voice of God

Have you ever been praying and all of the sudden, you are prompted in a way you have never experienced before? I think moms, in general, are intuitive; however, we doubt ourselves. We wonder if what we heard was from God or from our own flesh. Here are three things to put into practice to identify God’s voice from all the other voices that are coming at you daily.

1. Turn on the Receiver

When you pray to hear God’s voice, do you pray expecting to hear from Him or do you pray with doubt? The B...

3 Things You Must Do to Let God Breathe Life into Your Desert Valleys

One morning, during one of our content meetings, I asked our team if they had been reading anything interesting in their Bibles. After a few minutes of quiet, our intern spoke up and mentioned a passage in Ezekiel 37, which talks about the vision of the valley of dry bones. This creepy vision produced an intriguing conversation. We learned that dry bones represented Israel when they were in captivity to Babylon. Like unburied skeletons, the Israelites were in a state of living death, pining a...

3 Reasons Why God is Not Answering Your Daughter’s Desire for Marriage

“It is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all” was once said by Shakespeare. You may have a daughter who is desiring marriage, but it seems as though God is not answering her as quickly as she hoped. It seems to her that all her friends are getting engaged and married and she is far from those milestones in her own life. Being a mother myself, knowing that our daughters feel like this can be heartbreaking. However, you can bring understanding to your daughter’s journey...