Focus on the Family Magazine - August/September 2023
It can be a struggle to raise a family while balancing your work life, social life and relationships. Focus on the Family magazine is here to help! Each complimentary issue delivers fresh, practical Biblical guidance on family and life topics. Every issue comes packed with relevant advice to build up your kids, strengthen your marriage, navigate entertainment and culture, and handle common challenges you may face in your marriage and parenting journeys. Plus you'll find seasonal advice ranging from back-to-school activities to date night tips for you and your spouse.
It can be a struggle to raise a family while balancing your work life, social life and relationships. Focus on the Family magazine is here to help! Each complimentary issue delivers fresh, practical Biblical guidance on family and life topics.
Every issue comes packed with relevant advice to build up your kids, strengthen your marriage, navigate entertainment and culture, and handle common challenges you may face in your marriage and parenting journeys. Plus you'll find seasonal advice ranging from back-to-school activities to date night tips for you and your spouse.
- No tags were found...
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
AD<br />
Mom’s<br />
Robin and her daughter, Rachel, age 11<br />
must-have guide<br />
14<br />
⅓<br />
Here’s Mom’s<br />
mentoring to help you<br />
begin an <strong>on</strong>going c<strong>on</strong>versati<strong>on</strong><br />
with must-have<br />
your pre-teen daughter<br />
about puberty and sexuality<br />
and make it a fun, b<strong>on</strong>ding<br />
guide<br />
experience that brings you<br />
closer than ever. From <strong>the</strong><br />
author of <strong>the</strong> Christy Miller<br />
series for teens.<br />
Ad Title<br />
Order <strong>on</strong>line at<br />
Shop.<str<strong>on</strong>g>Focus</str<strong>on</strong>g>OnThe<strong>Family</strong>.ca<br />
or call 1.800.661.9800<br />
Refining her passi<strong>on</strong><br />
Robin asked <strong>the</strong> girls in <strong>the</strong> middlegrade<br />
Sunday school class she taught<br />
to pray for her. She told <strong>the</strong>m stories<br />
of her imagined future, painting with<br />
words <strong>the</strong> adventure of sharing God’s<br />
love with Kenyan women and children<br />
while washing clo<strong>the</strong>s al<strong>on</strong>gside<br />
a wide river—<strong>the</strong> African savannah<br />
spread out before her.<br />
But that l<strong>on</strong>g-awaited envelope<br />
revealed that <strong>the</strong> missi<strong>on</strong> agency had<br />
denied her applicati<strong>on</strong>.<br />
“I felt like, if I can’t even wash clo<strong>the</strong>s<br />
for Jesus in Africa,” Robin recalls, “<strong>the</strong>n<br />
what good am I in service of our King?”<br />
The teenage girls in her Sunday<br />
school class saw more clearly how God<br />
had gifted <strong>the</strong>ir teacher. Relieved at <strong>the</strong><br />
news, <strong>the</strong>y said <strong>the</strong>y preferred her to<br />
stay with <strong>the</strong>m and share more stories<br />
that displayed God’s love and grace.<br />
She told stories well, <strong>the</strong>y said.<br />
Only later would she realize how<br />
right <strong>the</strong>y were. During <strong>the</strong> past 35 years,<br />
Robin has shared countless stories of<br />
God’s love and grace, publishing more<br />
than 100 ficti<strong>on</strong> and n<strong>on</strong>ficti<strong>on</strong> books<br />
and selling 6 milli<strong>on</strong> copies worldwide.<br />
“Those books,” Robin says, “became<br />
missi<strong>on</strong>aries that have g<strong>on</strong>e out by <strong>the</strong><br />
milli<strong>on</strong>s all over <strong>the</strong> world, [to] places<br />
I will never go. That’s how God accomplishes<br />
His purposes for our lives, never<br />
in <strong>the</strong> way we think it’s going to be.”<br />
Becoming a writer<br />
Robin’s knack for storytelling showed<br />
itself l<strong>on</strong>g before her missi<strong>on</strong>ary<br />
passi<strong>on</strong> did. When she was in kindergarten,<br />
her teacher wrote <strong>on</strong> a report<br />
card: “Robin has not yet grasped her<br />
basic math skills, but she does keep<br />
<strong>the</strong> entire class entertained at rug time<br />
with her stories.”<br />
Then again, outside of rug time,<br />
stories can be a problem.<br />
“Growing up,” Robin wrote in her<br />
memoir, Victim of Grace: When God’s<br />
Goodness Prevails, “I got in trouble for<br />
telling stories. Teachers called it ‘lying.’<br />
My sister called it ‘exaggerating—again.’ ”<br />
So when <strong>the</strong> girls in her Sunday<br />
school class suggested she had a gift for<br />
storytelling, she balked. Never would<br />
she spend her life as a writer. Instead<br />
she decided to work <strong>on</strong> her math<br />
skills—taking a job at <strong>the</strong> local bank.<br />
She so<strong>on</strong> met and married Ross,<br />
now her husband of 45 years, who<br />
served at <strong>the</strong> time as a youth minister.<br />
He, too, saw her gift for storytelling,<br />
urging her to take writing classes at <strong>the</strong><br />
community college and to read books<br />
about <strong>the</strong> craft.<br />
“He even signed me up for a writers<br />
c<strong>on</strong>ference at Mount Herm<strong>on</strong> in<br />
California,” Robin says. “I was shy,<br />
intimidated, not a writer. He paid<br />
m<strong>on</strong>ey so that I could go sit in fr<strong>on</strong>t<br />
of people and prove I was an imposter.”<br />
But within a few hours of arriving at<br />
<strong>the</strong> c<strong>on</strong>ference, she says, “I had found<br />
my tribe.”<br />
The c<strong>on</strong>ference sparked her desire<br />
to write. During <strong>the</strong> next few years<br />
she penned articles, devoti<strong>on</strong>als and<br />
children’s picture books. The Upper<br />
Room magazine offered her $10 for<br />
her first devoti<strong>on</strong>.<br />
“I was elated,” Robin recalls. The<br />
magazine sent a c<strong>on</strong>tract that<br />
requested her pen name. As so<strong>on</strong> as<br />
her fa<strong>the</strong>r saw it, he reminded her that<br />
she had been a J<strong>on</strong>es much l<strong>on</strong>ger<br />
than she had been a Gunn.<br />
So she became Robin J<strong>on</strong>es Gunn,<br />
professi<strong>on</strong>al writer.<br />
PHOTO COURTESY OF ROBIN JONES GUNN