Do you have a merry heart?

This poem from 1917 may be old, but it has a great lesson on having a merry heart that’s worth hearing again today.

“A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.” —Proverbs 17:22

God hears your cry

Christian music for your home and car

The Best of the Collingsworth Family, Volume 1 By StowTown Records Compact Disc Under the guidance and tutelage of parents Phil & Kim, the Collingsworth Family has parlayed their small church camp group into a nation-wide ministry. Now signed to StowTown Records, the group continues to perform and record a blend of classic hymns, songs of worship, southern gospel standards, and original works. The Best of the Collingsworth Family, Volume 1 showcases thirteen breathtaking performances, including "Shine On Us," "When God Whispers In Your Heart," "God Is In The Shadows," and more. Learn more.

Let your love for God change the world....

Another FREE Bible story — Joseph: From the Prison to the Palace

After being falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife, Joseph was put in prison. But in this tough place, Joseph found God was with him.

Learn more in this week's featured Bible story about Joseph: From the Prison to the Palace

Find out how you can receive free, weekly e-mailed Bible stories.

View Bible stories on our website at www.childrenschapel.org.

School readiness or early homeschool curriculum

Get your child ready for school with SING SPELL READ & WRITE — teaches pre-kindergarten through first grade basic literary skills thru multi-sensory, sequenced steps that use songs, interactive charts, games, readers and workbooks. Learn more here: http://bit.ly/ssrw-cbd

Another FREE Bible story — Joseph: The Butler, the Baker and Two Dreams

Joseph then asked the cup bearer to do him a favour. "I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews and now find myself in prison having done nothing wrong," he explained. "When you get your job back, please mention me to Pharaoh."

Learn more in this week's featured Bible story about Joseph: The Butler, the Baker and Two Dreams

Find out how you can receive free, weekly e-mailed Bible stories.

View Bible stories on our website at www.childrenschapel.org.

Footprints — it was then that I carried you

Footprints--Eco-cotton Throw By Simply Home Comforting words from well known Footprints poem are featured on soft woven throw, with shore motif and lighthouse. My precious child, I love you and I will never leave you. When you saw only one set of footprints... it was then that I carried you. Earthtones and deep blue on ivory background; generous fringe edging; made from environmentally friendly cotton; machine wash/dry. Measures 50" x 60". Made in the USA. May alternately be used for a wall hanging.

Personalization is available!
To order with embroidered personalization, just add to your cart and follow the prompts.
All personalization is done on the premises at Christian Book Distributors. Learn more.

Do you follow your nose?

This poem from 1917 may be old, but it has a great lesson on guidance we need to hear again today.

Another FREE Bible story — Joseph Resists Temptation

Joseph fled out of the house. Potiphar’s wife gathered the other household servants and deviously wailed, "Joseph tried to seduce me. I screamed and he ran off."

Learn more in this week's featured Bible story about Joseph: Joseph Resists Temptation

Find out how you can receive free, weekly e-mailed Bible stories.

View Bible stories on our website at www.childrenschapel.org.

Planning on giving gift cards this Christmas? Pay attention!!

I just learned that gift card recipients can use gift card exchange machines in a grocery store to easily turn in their gift cards for cash. Many parents and churches think gift cards are a safe way to help sons and daughters, homeless, addicts, alcoholics, etc., when, in fact, these people can easily exchange the cards for drug and alcohol money. 

Here's a safe gift card that cannot be exchanged for cash:

Follow this link to find out if the gift cards you currently give to others can be exchanged for cash.

People with disabilities make up the largest unchurched people group

• Persons with disability in the world have the highest rates of the following unemployment, suicide, homelessness, divorce, and abuse.
• 1 billion people in the world live with a disability.
• 20% of the U.S. population is disabled, making it the largest minority group.
• Those with disabilities are the largest unchurched people group.

Hope Heals: A True Story of Overwhelming Loss and an Overcoming Love - unabridged audio book on MP3-CD By Katherine Wolf, Jay Wolf & Stu Gray (Reader) / Zondervan on Brilliance Audio In 2008, first-time parents Katherine and Jay were living their dream. But suddenly their happy life was derailed when Katherine suffered a near-fatal stroke that left her with double vision, difficulty speaking, and a paralyzed arm. Was this what God had planned for her life? Her answer may surprise you as you read her courageous account!

Unabridged MP3-CD; approximately 7 hours 18 minutes; 1 MP3-CD; performed by Stu Gray and Charity Spencer.

Listen as Katherine Wolf of Hope Heals and Adam Weber talk about seeing God through hard seasons of life and ministering to families in the church facing disabilities. Find it on iTunes here: https://apple.co/2F3eVqP

Whom does anger hurt?

Clifford Hurst
November 4, 2018 at 8:56 AM

WHOM DOES ANGER HURT?
Americans are angry. With next week’s mid-term elections looming before us the atmosphere is charged with anger. Almost everyone to whom you talk is seething with it. America is ½ a degree from boiling over. Oh, I know, many would deny that what they are feeling is anger; and, those that admit it would be quick to offer a perfectly logical justification. I admit that I feel anger, and the most anger I feel is for those who instigate and create anger with contrived grievances and fabricated issues.

Recently, I have felt a shift in how I feel about anger. Previously, I had viewed anger as an evil because of the hurt done to the ones on the receiving end of another’s anger. I continue to feel grieved about, sympathetic of, and indignant because of the pain and damage done to the victim of another’s anger. I still see that as evil. What has changed is that I also see the pain, damage, and hurt done by anger to the one who is angry. I’m not trying to make the victimizer a victim. Definitely not!

I counseled a man this week who was angry. In the very contortions of his face, to the growl in his voice, to the fire in his eyes, I could see rage. But, I saw something else: Hurt. Pain. Suffering. Anger was destroying him. Physiologically, anger can damage one’s heart and increase his cholesterol, among other things. Spiritually and psychologically, anger damages the man himself, his person, his soul.

On the most rudimentary level, anger is a legitimate, necessary emotion. It is the person’s neurons, hormones, and systems going into action to enable that person to protect and preserve himself. It is survivalist instinct. Anger, then, is what is experienced when something is coming against a person. We not only have an impulse to live; we have our own opinions, plans, preferences, personal space, and volition. We do not take kindly to anything that would impede us and what we desire, think, or will to happen. When something comes against us, goes against us, hampers us, we get angry.

Much of our anger is merely experiencing the frustration of not getting our own way. I don’t mean that just in the petulant sense but in the most basic sense. Life does not cooperate with our dreams, desires, pursuits, and plans. Something is resisting our way, will, thoughts, opinion, intent, perception, etc. Sometimes a person has been resisted, abused, trampled, demeaned, ridiculed, bullied, etc., to the point that his anger sparks, flares, and consumes him. Whether he then hurts someone else or not, the anger is hurting him.

Not all angry people are reprobate narcissists. Some are good people. Not all are sociopaths. They’re just people. Not all are unconverted. Now, again, I do not absolve any angry person of the hurt he does to another. That is not the point. The point is anger hurts those on both ends of it. This explains my anger at those who instigate anger. There are enough “natural” causes (some of them just) of anger in our lives--real issues, genuine conflicts--without causes being intentionally fabricated.

Media, politicians, pundits, commentaries, bloggers, trollers, and water-cooler authorities are purposefully generating anger. They stoke and stir, fuel, and fan the fire of anger with false offenses, perceived slights, manufactured prejudices, and feigned righteous outrage. They delight in the angry wrecking-mayhem mob, the screaming arguments, the name-calling slug fests, and the ad hominid vitriol. Each is responsible for controlling his anger and is culpable if he does not. True. But, that does not change the fact that one’s anger can be needlessly inflamed and hurts not only his victims but him too.

It is no platitude for me to suggest that the only answer is the peace of Christ. As much as there is the peace of Christ that will keep our hearts and minds, there is the anger of Satan to destroy us, body, soul, and spirit. So, forgive me for noting what an awful thing anger is to the one that is experiencing it. Anger is hurting him. Likewise, America’s anger is hurting America. Anger is not just hurting America. It is hurting Americans. It is hurting Americans who are the victims of anger. It is hurting Americans who are the angry. It is not just the body of America that is being destroyed. It is the very soul of America. Only the peace of Christ can heal those who have been hurt—and those who have done the hurting who hurt too.

More help with anger