Category: Family

Family, Holidays, Sharing Stories

Share the Stories Pt. 2

November 13th, 2022
Mollie T. Cox

The upcoming holidays can be rich with stories as well as food.

During visits to father’s parents, I sat at the dining table from one meal until almost time for the next. Why? Stories.

My paternal grandfather only told a couple stories, and my paternal grandmother never told one until I was an adult. However, their sons—my father and his two younger brothers—filled my grandparents’ holiday tables with tales. Mamaw was a skilled cook, but her food is not what I remember.

These brothers became the best storytellers.

The evening’s entertainment by the fire included more stories by the brothers. (Their sister wasn’t given an opportunity.)

The stories entertained, but along the way, I learned their importance. I learned to ask particular questions. (See here.)

Decades ago, I bought It’s Your Story: Pass it On by Colgin and van der Ven. Available on websites selling used books, it is the easiest guide I have found for capturing family history. Reticent family members easily answered the probing and interesting questions.

Has a family story enriched your life?

Decisions, Family, Friendship

I Only Need One

October 2nd, 2022
Mollie T. Cox

I’d been wronged. Or misunderstood. I was frustrated with someone and wanted advice with an opportunity to complain as a side dish. In response, I sought solace among people I trusted.

However, when everything was resolved, we couldn’t move on in a satisfactory way. Why? I had given people information that they shouldn’t have. Therefore, some confidants were not willing or ready to forgive the offender.  

At times, we need Someone to understand our plight. Along the way, I learned that Someone was not the members of my Bible study. Someone was not the members of my book club. Someone was not my friends. Someone was not my neighbors. Someone was not my extended family. Someone was One.

During one hurtful situation, my friend Jacqueline summarized this principle with a quote her mother taught her: Least said, soonest mended.

I learned to pick carefully—not a person who would wallow with me—but someone with perspective and wisdom about the situation I faced.

Like a surgeon, friends cut you in order to heal you. 

Reverend Tim Keller, Pastor and Author

Have you been blessed with a trusted One?

Book Recommendations, Family

Reading to Readers Part 2

September 18th, 2022
Mollie T. Cox

The evidence has become so overwhelming that social scientists consider reading aloud one of the most important indicators of a child’s prospects in life.

The Enchanted Hour*

Our family received knowledge, pleasure, common memories, and enhanced relationships from our years of reading aloud and listening to audio books. (See here.) Along the way I learned that we also received something else—changed brains.*

What were those changes? New neural connections in the brain, reinforced neural connections, and optimal patterns of brain development.

What were the results of those changes? The increase of social skills, attention span, language, and imagination to name a few.

The Enchanted Hour ‘s compilation of research—some of which I had read elsewhere or experienced with my sons—has compelled me to continue advocating reading aloud for all ages.

Reading aloud really is a kind of magic elixir.

The Enchanted Hour*

What are you advocating?

*The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction by Meghan Cox Gurdon.

Family, Parenting

Our Family Newsletter

June 19th, 2022
Mollie T. Cox

When my children were ages five to eight, we started a family newsletter. It was snail mailed to their grandparents, two aunts, and two great-aunts. Our boys drew cartoons, provided book reports, reported family current events, and gave updates on their guinea pigs. One column had prayer requests. The boys chose all topics.

My kindergartner dictated his articles. Occasionally, the older two dictated while my husband typed their contributions. For the first year, we “published” every two weeks. Eventually, we dwindled to once a month.

Our newsletter lasted only three to four years, but along the way, it became a precious history of our family. Copies reside in our safe.

At the time, I didn’t realize the educational impact of the newsletter. Later, I realized that dictation gave the boys confidence to write. Recording our children’s “talk” and showing them the results, took some fear out of writing. Writing begins—although it doesn’t end—by putting “talk” on paper.

After a friend and her husband reviewed long ago copies of their family newsletter, she said, “They were the best and most encouraging items we had read in years.”  

Any family activities worth recording for posterity?

Family, Friendship, Parenting

Admonish. Encourage. Help.

May 22nd, 2022
Mollie T. Cox

And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.

1 Thessalonians 5:14

When I recently re-read this verse, I remembered a sermon Dr. Bill Clark from the Lay Counselor Institute had preached over a decade ago. Admonish. Encourage. Help. He gave an example where he had to employ all three with a client, but usually only one was needed.

I was struck how my “go to” response of helping was not always the best choice. Occasionally, my response was random.

I had admonished the fainthearted when I should have encouraged. I had helped the idle when I should have admonished. I had encouraged the weak when I should have helped.

The only “go to” response in this scripture is “Be patient with them all,” rarely my first choice.

Do you naturally admonish, encourage, or help?