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
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...
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...
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...
Do Children Need Friends?
We live in an age where most adults believe children need to be in school to be socialized more than they need to be in school to be educated. We homeschoolers know this is true because even after it can be proven that our children are receiving a good education at home, people still object to our home schooling on the basis that our children need to be in school with the other children to turn out normally and to be able to communicate effectively with others...
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...
"The Great Duty of Family Religion"
Joshua 24:15 - "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."
...First, I am to show that it is the duty of every governor of a family to take care, that not only he himself, but also that those committed to his charge, should serve the Lord. And this will appear, if we consider that every governor of a family ought to look upon himself as obliged to act in three capacities: as a prophet, to instruct; as a priest, to pray for and with; as a king, to govern, direct, and provide for them. It is true indeed, the latter...
Counter Culture
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...
The Madison Avenue Church
It’s almost Easter and because of that we have received an abnormally high number of advertisements from churches in the mail. I guess there are still people around who, only because they were raised in a Christian culture, venture into a church on Easter and Christmas but stay home the rest of the year. These advertising churches, then, are competing against each other, in a way, to attract the unconnected families that are looking for a church to go to on Easter.
A couple of the ads we received really caught my attention...
Do Hard Things: the hardest are the most basic
My children have been reading a book by Alex and Brett Harris entitled “Do Hard Things”; it challenges teens not to waste their youth, but to do hard things that will maximize their impact for Christ... However, the message of doing hard things can be dangerous if taken out of context. There is another step – a harder one to accomplish, I believe – that must come first to ensure that doing hard things is worth the effort...
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...
Miscellanous
My Friend Died
Yesterday, I heard my friend died. It was the spiritual death of a professing Christian; the most grievous death of all...
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...
Christmas and New Year's: joy, gift-giving, resolve, hope
Christmas is under attack on two fronts. On the one hand, the secular world is offended at Christ and has removed the memory of Christ from the day... On the other hand, there are those who see in Christmas all the excesses that result from the holiday...
Lovin' My Oven
Have you ever noticed that when things get old, they get quirky?
If your life has any similarities to mine, you know what I’m talking about. You have this nifty little contraption that just gets the job done for you – whatever that job may be. But somewhere along the way your wonderful, pain-free, does-the-task-without-you-giving-it-a-second-thought gadget becomes difficult and unpredictable. You don’t know why it won’t turn on, won’t turn off, makes funny noises, or shoots smoke into the air...
Obstinate Children of God
My husband, wise and observant man that he is, has determined that children come in roughly three types. No doubt he has learned this from being a father of twelve!...
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...
Numbers and Relativity
I was thinking about numbers the other day. My husband, Jim, has a great aptitude for numbers. He can do all sorts of calculations quickly in his head. I have often appreciated this ability. We’ll be listening to a salesman and I can just hear the click-clicking going on in Jim’s brain...
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...
