Articles
Welcome to the Articles page.
Every article listed here once appeared in an issue of SALT Magazine. For more information on the Magazine, click here. Also, authors Jim and Cindy McDermott have written a book titled The Christian Family: in the world but not of it. The book is a compilation of articles previously written in SALT. For more information on The Christian Family, click here.
FAMILY
Spiritual Kidnapping
"Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour." (1. Peter 5:8) Lions and other animals of prey are most likely to devour the weak, the sick, and the young, and it is no different for Satan. He has always been after our children... [And] Satan also has more subtle means of getting to his victims...
Teaching the Faith to Our Children
The most important thing we do as parents is teaching the faith to our children. Sometimes in the business of our lives we can lose sight of the forest for the trees. We are so busy making money, running errands, going to the store, paying the bills...
Birth Control: leaving the decision with God
When Cindy and I decided to allow God to decide how many children we would have, we hadn't really thought the issue through. We had been married less than a week when we first discussed birth control...
Parenting with Grace
In SALT we have talked often about disciplining our children, including being very clear in our rules and consistent in maintaining them. We’ve also discussed being a strong-willed parent, as opposed to a weak and wishy-washy parent, so that our children will receive the discipling and disciplining they require. But in this article I want to explore another aspect of parenting: grace...
Me and My Quiver: a mom's perspective ten children later
"They will be such a blessing to you when you're old."
"They will, but they're also blessings now!"
This is part of the conversation I had with a couple I had just met. Standing around me were my ten children, a sight that usually sparks a myriad of facial expressions and comments...
Normal is Unacceptable
I take care of new moms at the hospital so I often run into families with two or three-year-old daughters. “That’s got to be just about the cutest age for little girls,” I often remark. And then so often the moms will say something like, “Yeah, but she’s in those terrible twos and she already thinks she knows everything. I hate to see what she’ll be like at sixteen if she’s like this now.” Well, if everything the mom says is true, I may hate to see what she’s like at sixteen, too. But it doesn’t have to be that way...
A Message to Fathers
I read the last three chapters of Ephesians and I was profoundly struck once again by how clear and simple our calling is, and yet, effective fatherhood demands that we have every area of our spiritual house in order. True Christian fatherhood is so much more challenging, so much more involved, so much more spiritually consequential, and so much more rewarding than most of our fathers let on to us...
Grandma is Expecting: the grandfather's perspective
At one point I thought about writing about the woman who had 8 children by in vitro fertilization. Her case was very unusual, to put it nicely, and many interesting issues were raised. But I think her case was more useful as gossip than for edification, unless there is a hidden groundswell of people trying to decide whether to have 14 children artificially or without a husband.
Anyhow, I have news from my own life that I’m sure will be the source of gossip and small talk on a much, much, much smaller scale than octomom. My 45-year-old wife of nearly 24 years, who has borne me 12 children, had 6 early miscarriages, and who is known as grandma to our two grandchildren, is expecting a baby in 7 months...
The Grandma Letter
I was sitting with a friend not long ago and we were talking of things that Christian women and moms discuss. She suddenly said to me, “I wish someone would write a grandma book!” I asked her what she meant by that, and you hold in your hands what that discussion inspired...
"But You would have None of It"
Jim and I stood together, hunched over the bathroom counter with our eyes fixed on the pregnancy test. The positive result came into view, faint though it was. Closely we looked at the test; for us, faint positives always ended in sadness... But we knew that God had created a baby, and we were grateful...
"Follow the Fellow"
I’m married to a dreamer. And as the years have gone by, we’ve met a number of couples who are misty reflections of us in the mirror...
COUNTER CULTURE
To Clarify... I Surrender
One of my most defining characteristics – in other people’s eyes – is the size of my family. Our family of thirteen children stands out against the norm of our culture... And while people don’t seem to understand the mechanics or experience of the large family lifestyle, it is the reason behind our family size that is even more misunderstood. Even when I explain what we believe in this area, I still so often feel misunderstood, by both Christians and non-Christians alike. They miss the point of what our family, personally, is really all about...
Come Out From Them and Be Separate
The world – and, sadly, many of our Christian brethren – are concerned, offended, and in disagreement over the lifestyle choices we have made that separate us from the culture at large... Some might say we’re too heavenly-minded to be any earthly good, since the people of the world can’t relate to us...
Thoughts on Courtship
As a courtship movement father who has 1 child married through courtship and 6 unmarried children between the ages of 14 and 21, I am intensely interested in the issue of courtship - especially as it relates specifically to my children...
Thoughts on Palin, Feminism, and Working Moms
This not meant to be an article about politics. I know, however, that John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate has caused people to question whether a woman should be president and whether a mother with 5 children - 4 of them still at home - should be president, vice president, governor of a state, or anything else outside the home...
Overemphasizing Education
Most of us spent at least 13 years of our lives (full time K-12) going to school. But our parents told us that that wasn’t enough – that at least 4 years of college were required or we wouldn’t be able to make a decent living. And these days people think a couple years of preschool is a good idea (otherwise, their children will be behind when they get to kindergarten). Add up the years of schooling and you get a total 19 years – and that assumes you don’t want to be a doctor, lawyer, college professor, or anything else that requires graduate school. The really educated folks will be in school for 21-27 years of their lives...
Can't We All Just Get Along?
Jesus prayed that those who would believe the apostles’ message would be brought to complete unity and His prayer was answered. Concerning the early church, Luke wrote, “All the believers were one in heart and mind.” The results, of course, were remarkable, for “the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” Wouldn’t you love to be part of a church like that?
Sadly, most Christians have never experienced anything even remotely like the unity the disciples experienced at the beginning. We are divided - divided by just about everything...
Absolute Purity
There is a growing movement among homeschoolers that rejects the custom of dating. Some support "courtship" and others support "betrothal" as more consistent with Biblical principles. Others counter that nowhere does Scripture condemn dating...
Courtship: is it working for you?
We recently got a letter from a stranger, a Christian courtship father writing to a select group of men in the hope of finding a husband for his daughter... This letter brought to mind again that, despite their high ideals, many courtship and betrothal families are having trouble finding spouses for their children...
A Martyr and a Fool
"A man who has faith must be prepared not only to be a martyr, but to be a fool." (G.K. Chesterton.) If this quotation sounds familiar, perhaps you read it in SALT. Our daughter found it for our last issue and when I read it, it really affected me. I think what it impressed on me was this...
MISCELLANEOUS
Christian Holmes: love thy neighbor
... That morning we were eating breakfast, listening to the sounds of the movers next door, when something happened for the first time since we moved in: Someone knocked on the back door.
We looked at each other, then at the door. The knock repeated, and I got up, coffee cup still in hand, to answer it. I opened the door, a little clumsily, with my left hand—
And nearly dropped my cup. There in front of me...
A Day in the Life
I was watching my daughter make pancakes the other day for breakfast. She was working along when the griddle began teetering. Nonchalantly, Heather righted it and returned to flipping pancakes... Heather is able to so nonchalantly balance – flip – balance – flip because, unfortunately, such things are not rare in our home..
Home Management: getting beyond the details
Many - most commonly mothers - are looking for specific, detailed information on how to manage their home more efficiently. They want to know how to cook, garden, sew, and organize... There is nothing wrong with being intensely interested in these things. But I do believe many people get so bogged down with the minutiae of life, they lose all perspective as to what is really important...
May I Be Your Servant?
I want to share with you three stories of servanthood. Awhile back we were visiting at a friend’s house where a number of families had gathered. We were enjoying conversation when someone directed my attention to the kitchen...
Open Ears
Learning curves are no fun. That’s my observation on life this week. Watching another child of ours learning how to drive and our second-born son counting the months down to graduation from graduate school, I’m reminded of times in my life...
And the City Was Bewildered
My reading today was in the book of Esther. You probably remember the story... So I read all of this, and I couldn’t help but think of our country and our current government. And although I don’t intend for this to be a political article per se, I find myself thinking about the healthcare bill..
New Year Resolved: seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness
It’s a new year and for many of us that means turning over a fresh page of our lives, setting goals, and resolving do better. We decide we’re really going to lose weight this year, or exercise regularly, or spend less money, or make more money. We plan for a better us and a better life for us. Of course, the first month of the year is history, and by now most of those New Year’s resolutions have been broken....
