Grateful for YOU this Thanksgiving!
This Thanksgiving, we are especially grateful for friends like you who have invested in families over the past year.
Issues like increased financial stress, cultural attacks, and gender confusion have been a burden to families. That’s why your support of family ministry has been such a blessing.
By providing Bible-based resources to save and encourage marriages and families, you are equipping God’s people to “hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering…” (Hebrews 10:23 ESV).
You’ve helped empower marriages like Areli’s. She wrote:
“I’ve been listening to Focus on the Family since I was 21. When dating my eventual husband, I devoured anything I could find from Focus on the Family about dating and relationships. Throughout our relationship journey—during our engagement, wedding, and now seven years of marriage—Focus has been a big blessing.”
Within the past year, you helped more than 350,000 couples build stronger marriages. You’ve also saved over 50,000 marriages in crisis through our Hope Restored™ program.
We appreciate you and want you to know that when you give a generous gift today, your support will go twice as far through a Matching opportunity. The $1 Million Match is part of our year-end GIVE FAMILIES HOPE campaign.
Double your gift to save marriages and families!
The challenges and uncertainties of this year have strained couples to the breaking point and put families at risk. You can GIVE FAMILIES HOPE.
Right now, you can DOUBLE YOUR DOLLARS to GIVE FAMILIES HOPE through our YEAR-END MATCH provided by generous friends of the ministry. Your gift between now and December 31 will be matched—dollar for dollar—up to $1 million.
Your gift today will help save marriages, bring restoration to homes in need, equip parents to raise godly children, bring dignity to children in foster care, impact our culture with truth, and so much more.
GIVE FAMILIES HOPE this holiday season with your gift today!
Jim's Heart
Greetings from Focus on the Family! I hope you and your loved ones have had a good year and are looking forward with anticipation to the upcoming holiday season. Thanksgiving is such a wonderful time to celebrate all of God’s many blessings to us and to express our gratitude for His goodness and faithfulness.
I realize, however, that you might be walking through a season in which the word “celebration” doesn’t exactly fit. Maybe you’re experiencing financial difficulty, navigating health issues, or even grieving the loss of a loved one. Whatever your situation, I pray you can rest in the Lord’s sovereign care and that this passage from Philippians 4:4-7 brings you a measure of solace:
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice … The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Don’t we all need the peace of God daily? As I look around at our world and see the cultural turmoil and ever-growing hostility to biblical values, I’m reminded of this. And with Thanksgiving approaching, I’m especially challenged to focus my heart on gratitude to the Lord for His many blessings — and not just the material blessings He’s provided, but the spiritual riches He’s lavished upon each one of us who claims Christ as Savior and Lord.
Speaking of material blessings, have you noticed that today’s consumer is confronted with nearly endless choices — such as the “latest and greatest” technology, every movie and TV show known to man, packed grocery stores, and any item you could ever dream of ready to be shipped with the click of a button?
I can’t help but wonder, however, if the ease and convenience we enjoy have caused a dearth of genuine contentment and gratitude. We believe we are owed certain things that God has never promised. In a word, we become entitled.
Our grandparents certainly understood this principle. After all, no one could live through the Great Depression without learning that a decent pair of shoes or a hot meal were blessings that should never be taken for granted.
Now, we roam around the grocery store and mindlessly fill our carts. Our refrigerators, closets, and garages are full to overflowing — and yet Westerners are notoriously unhappy, anxious, and discontented. Why is that?
I believe the reason can be traced to Jesus’ timely warning offered in Luke 12:15: “…Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” Is it possible that we are living at a time when materialism has overtaken developed nations to the point that we no longer know what it means to be content with the simple blessings God sends our way — such as family, friends, faith, a roof over our heads, food on the table, and the freedom to worship freely?
As I’ve traveled internationally, I’ve seen some of our brothers and sisters around the world who are living in extreme poverty or suffering under intense persecution. Despite having very little, I’ve seen the joy on their faces because they know Jesus Christ. They look toward an eternity in which “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more…” (Revelation 21:4).
What’s more, they express gratitude to the Lord — not for their trials, but during them. They recognize that God’s promises stand, and that the salvation He extends through Christ has ultimately conquered all sin, heartache, sorrow, and even death itself. Suffering believers who choose to give thanks to God embody the Gospel itself.
Gratitude leads to contentment, and contentment begets even more gratitude. Can we, as the people of God, learn to live with either plenty or scarcity with a posture of thanksgiving? Scripture teaches that we can — and are called to do so.
As we seek to live out our days with joyful, grateful, and contented hearts, our families can be one of the greatest vehicles God uses to keep our eyes fixed gratefully on Him.
We are grateful for ministry friends like you who join Focus on the Family in investing in families all around the world. Not only do you help people thrive in this life, but you also help nurture them spiritually so that they’re able to look forward with hope to the world to come.
During 46 years of ministry, support from faithful friends like you offers practical help and timeless truth for folks across the globe. You have helped save marriages, equip parents, defend preborn babies, and empower citizens. Most importantly of all, you have delivered the Gospel to countless people.
Rose from California says, “Parenting isn’t easy, but since I began listening to the Focus on the Family podcasts, there has been a dramatic improvement in our family’s daily interactions. Focus has given me real-life, easy-to-execute advice.”
These are the kinds of stories that are worth giving thanks for . . . and they are only possible through the gracious and sacrificial partnership of friends like you.
As we enter the busy holiday season, more and more families will turn to the ministry you provide for help. Your gift today will GIVE FAMILIES HOPE to heal marriages, restore families, save lives, and more.
We have been blessed by a group of generous friends with an incredible opportunity. We are so grateful that they have provided a $1 MILLION MATCHING OPPORTUNITY. That means you can DOUBLE YOUR DOLLARS to make twice the impact this holiday season.
May God grant you and yours a meaningful Thanksgiving and a joyous start to the Christmas season!
God bless you!
Jim Daly
President
