Besides a family environment, the children also have the other environments which influence their habit or behavior. They can take everything, bad or good from those environments. Because of it, the parents must update their knowledge to prevent their children from the bad things outside the family environment. In some cases, children know more than their parents. This condition forces the parents to improve their selves and become the great parents for the children. Besides that, that...

Sitting next to you at church, behind the plastic smiles and hearty handshakes, is a family hiding an insidious secret that is destroying their lives. One in every four women in each church community is currently being abused by their partner, or has experienced abuse at some time in the past. One in every four— count them! How many does that make in your congregation?  Sue and John have been married for 15 years. John is an elder in his church and Sue leads a Bible study...

Biological and environmental factors play a huge role when it comes to panic attacks. There still is really no full understanding of why panic attacks happen. Panic attacks cause profuse sweating, elevated heart palpitations, shortness of breath, trembling and numerous other symptoms. A panic attack is the sudden onset of intense anxiety, characterized by feelings of intense fear and apprehension.

Scientists are researching the facts to learn if genetics could play a possible role...

Abuse in the context of an intimate relationship involves a persistent pattern of behaviors. It is not simply a mistake, an isolated incident or a sudden loss of control. The husband, who engages in this style of relating, misuses his wife for selfish ends and violates her dignity and self-determination. While he may not intend to be abusive, he does intend to achieve the goal that motivates all forms of abuse: to exercise power and to control. Physical abuse can leave bruises, break...

Sitting next to you at church, behind the plastic smiles and hearty handshakes, is a family hiding an insidious secret that is destroying their lives. One in every four women in each church community is currently being abused by their partner, or has experienced abuse at some time in the past. One in every four— count them! How many does that make in your congregation?  Sue and John have been married for 15 years. John is an elder in his church and Sue leads a Bible study...

When you speak with rape survivors, this is exactly what you hear over and over again, a gut wrenching sense that something deep and essential has been seized by force and taken away, never, ever to be returned. In its place has been left only violation and destruction. This can be a very dark place, and although a victim may be silent for years, this place is rarely silent. It is usually full of noises and voices, dark and scary noises, with threatening and condemning...

You’re in your counseling office with Shannon, a pleasant, attractive single woman in her mid-thirties, who has come to you for help with relationship issues. Shannon reports that the man she has been dating has gradually become verbally abusive with her. In addition, her description of this man also leads you to suspect that he might have rageaholic tendencies. Your heart goes out to Shannon, and you want to help her stop the madness. As all counselors know, this is a serious...

A divorcee lamented, “If only I had spoken to my husband about his abuse of me in the first five years of our marriage, we’d still be together. I didn’t know that I was allowed to speak up. He would have listened back then.” A dedicated Christian, she had been taught that she must “submit in silence” to her husband, no matter what the circumstances.  A sexually abused woman was devastated by the behavior that her husband...

Just two decades ago, the world first learned of a new disease affecting homosexuals in major cities across the United States. In 1985, Rock Hudson, an actor and the epitome of a leading man, announced that he had AIDS and died from the disease shortly thereafter. In his death, Rock Hudson became the face of AIDS: gay, white, male, urban and affluent.  In those early and dark days of AIDS, when many were quick to pass judgment and turn their backs on the sick and dying, there were...

Slavery is still with us even in the 21st century. Although we tend to think of slavery as occurring in distant places, such as the Sudan, trafficking in human beings exists today right here in America, perhaps in your town or city.  Each year, between 600,000 and 800,000 people are trafficked worldwide in the global slave trade. Here at home, 14,500-17,500 men, wo men and children are trafficking into the United States each year and made, through force, fraud or coercion, to...