Home Therapy

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 Have you ever thought how it would be to live in a tent? Not just use one while ‘roughing’ it, but really use it all the time, because that’s all you have.

In these times, not many people do that anymore. After all, this is the 21st century and most people are used to living in buildings. There are, however, some individuals that still use tents. Even in our modern world, in this wonderful country of ours, some people don’t have a home. Have you seen the Extreme Makeover Home Edition show on TV, where they go and surprise families with the news they’re getting a new home? One of those families was living in a trailer and tents.

I’ve been reading David Wooley’s Promised Land books, and he is so good at explaining the culture of Nephi’s times. At some point, when the family leaves their ancestral home, escaping into the dessert, they pack a lot onto their camels. Their ‘tent’ was very spacious, with room enough (partitions) for all the members of the family. Even if they had to live in the dessert for a long time, they had all that they needed to make their father’s tent a home.

I remember reading about Rachel and Leah in the Old Testament, and that each one had her own tent. Of course, the children lived in their mother’s tent, and I’m sure that tent was home for them.

I know that even the humblest home or trailer has the minimum amenities needed for us to live somewhat comfortably. But are we making that place a home for our children? What are our priorities?

I think we should focus on what we’ve been taught for so many years:

1- Family prayer

2- Family Home Evening

3- Family scripture study

No matter where we live or our circumstances, where we call home should be a place of refuge for our loved ones. Somewhere our children want to rush to and feel protected, loved and at peace.

To view a copy of the Neighborhood News for Wednesday, 23 February, please click  here.

Personal Touch

Welcome to the Neighborhood News

In today's Personal Touch interview, Rebecca Cressman talks to Jill. Dr. Jill C. Manning is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist who specializes in research and clinical work related to pornography and its impact on marriages and families. She is a former Social Science Fellow at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., and as a result of her research was invited to testify before a Senate sub-committee about the harms of pornography on families. She has been featured in various television and radio programs, and is the author of numerous academic journal articles, as well as the book entitled What's the Big Deal about Pornography: A Guide for the Internet Generation and the recent talk CD entitled Let's Talk about the Elephant in the Room: How LDS Women Can Protect Families from Pornography. Clinically, she has worked for LDS Family Services, as well as in hospital, private practice, school, and residential treatment settings. She currently resides in Denver, Colorado with her husband and daughter.
Web: http://www.drjillcmanning.com/

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In the book ‘The Screwtape Letters,’ author C.S. Lewis shows us how the devils work with humanity by sharing the one-sided correspondence between Screwtape and Wormwood, two of Satan’s minions. In the following excerpts, keep in mind that the ‘enemy’ is God, and notice how they try to entice and seduce the human’s senses, to perdition:

"But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts,

"The humans live in time but our Enemy destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present… Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present.

"Mere excess in food is much less valuable than delicacy. Its chief use is as a kind of artillery preparation for attacks on chastity.

"there are other, and more indirect, methods of using a man's sexuality to his undoing. And, by the way, they are not only efficient, but delightful; the unhappiness produced is of a very lasting and exquisite kind,"

I’m sure you wonder why I’m quoting from this book. Today’s newsletter touches on pornography. I’m not trying to write a treatise on the subject, I’ll leave that to others, but I wanted to show how the devil and his minions work on us. I’m sure nobody started out going to peep shows, or watching forbidden movies. I’m sure it took time; how much I don’t know, but enough that the devil’s workers got hold of them. I leave you with this scripture from the Book of Mormon:

"And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well—and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell." 2 Nephi 28:21

As always, we welcome your comments.

To view a copy of the Neighborhood News for Monday, 31 January, please click here.