Life with Sally

I hope you will in some degree enjoy our conversation today about the seasons of challenge in our own lives and know that you are not alone. God does see you and He indeed loves you.

"And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock." Matthew 7:25

God will hold us all accountable for the wonderful opportunities we have to minister to others, the freedom we have to choose how to give his love and light to others. The level of materialism in America, combined with the avail- ability of Scripture and the freedom to invest our lives for him, provides us with a heavy weight of stewardship for our own spiritual heritage.

This week, plan to include creativity in your own routines. Paint, cook, garden, build, compose, act out a scene, gather wildflowers, or do something that satisfies our own soul need to be involved in making your own work of art with your loved ones.

A moment to pause, to take in some lovely music, to ask the Lord for new strength, allows me to rise from my chair with the intention of subduing my home with joy rather than frustration. After all, dishes mean there was food to eat. Laundry piles mean we all had clothes to wear. Tracks on the floor mean we have many friends who came to celebrate life with us.

Such great potential lays dormant in our souls, but such a vast harvest is available if we engage in the wisdom and with submission and obedience the First Gardener. There is such capacity for life--in Him and in His ways. Live into the potential of your call to civilize and cultivate. When women become intentional about eternal issues, the whole world will be influenced by her grace and life.

Who in your life needs some encouragement toward love and good deeds—maybe in private?

Throughout history, when women attend to the education of their own minds and souls, and that of their children, a country flourishes for having foundations of intelligence, wisdom and truth in every arena.

It is not enough to know the truth; we must learn to walk in truth. As we lead our children with the principles of God's wisdom found throughout Scripture, we are helping them to establish pathways of righteousness in their hearts.

Choosing to be a servant-mother means willingly giving up myself, my expectations, and my time to the task of mothering—and choosing to believe that doing so is the best use of my time at that moment. It means that, by faith, have already made a decision to make myself available in the routine tasks and myriad interruptions of daily life because I believe it is God's will for me to serve my family through them. Making this choice ahead of time means I will expect problems and needs to arise and be ready to deal with them in peace instead of impatience and resentment.

If we want to experience the blessing of God and have a sense of wholeness to our lives: we must seek to understand his original design as clearly as possible. We will then have a map by which to travel toward God's destination. But we need to do more than understand. We also need to commit to living as mothers with undivided hearts—dedicating ourselves fully to the task of building a home and nurturing our children.

Join me today as we reflect on God's design and purpose for family, and reflect on how even research and science undergird, with vast research, the importance of a mother's role, with the family as foundation.

I will be discussing: Postpartum depression, voices in culture, to work or not to work, and many more issues. My desire is to get to the heart of God, to see how He imagined our role as He created us with such beauty, finesse, intelligence--just what a community of people would need to flourish. I hope you enjoy this series. Most of all, though, as we begin, we must consider that as believers, we have committed to serving God with our hearts, souls, minds, treasures, times. So as we see the eternal value He place on babies and children, we must also regard children with the same high regard as He would direct us to do.

Ask yourself: -Is there a high expectation for a situation or relationship in your life that has been robbing you of joy? How can you better find the tension between the ideals and realities of that circumstance?-How can you allow the Holy Spirit to enter into the imperfect circumstances of your life, allowing you to find supernatural joy?-In what ways can you find gratitude, seek beauty, and find joy in the celebration of life today?

All of us love to hear great stories, and your children long to see you as their hero. How might the way you want to be remembered affect the way you live this day?

Join me today on my podcast as my leaders share with me their own struggles and difficulties as moms as well as their own vision for what women need.

Do your children have any specific heroes they identify with? Do you? If not, consider going on a hero-hunt—maybe together!

God's goodness is the source and foundation of your child's developing character. As they learn to value that goodness, their character will begin to be shaped by it; when they receive Christ and His Spirit, they will continue to walk in it.

Our children, especially boys, come to us in all sorts of shapes, sizes, issues, personalities and skill sets. I must confess that I struggled with all of my children in different ways at different times. But at some point, I finally had to realize that I needed to make peace with my precious children and the puzzle I was given to figure out with my own different ones, as all were quite unique.

As parents, we are in effect giving God's life to our children by helping them flesh out the words of the old hymn: "Trust and obey, for there's no other way, to be happy in Jesus, but to truth and obey." Strengthening your child's faith and shaping your child's will is the path for them to finding their life in Christ, just as every marriage begins with belief and willingness.

We are an artistic bunch: books, music, movies, scripts, cd's. Not a scientist in the crowd. Many of you who have followed J&J have written to ask me about the music we have shared on fb and other places so I thought I would go ahead and put the info here. Enjoy!

Find Jennifer at her blog, here: Jennifer Fulwiler and on Instagram here: Jennifer Fulwiler

Find Randall and his wonderful products on Instagram at Slugs and Bugs and his website here: Slugs and Bugs

You can find Ruth at her lovely blog, Gracelaced, or on Instagram as Ruth Chou Simons.

It's safe to say that most of us would agree with the popular aphorism "A mind is a terrible thing to waste." That unforgettable phrase first entered the collective American mind in 1972 as the slogan for UNCF ads, helping that worthy organization raise billions of dollars in scholarships for African American college students. It has since become part of the American vernacular, expressing a truth that resonates for all thinking people: Every mind is valuable and worthy of investment and development. It also suggests that the mind is a renewable resource, or, as Leonardo da Vinci quipped (though not in English), "Learning never exhausts the mind." In other words, the more we invest in the mind, the more it will give back.

No matter how hard we try to help our children stay on the straight and narrow way, how diligently we try to guard their eye and ear gates, how much we try to model and train them to practice the Golden Rule, they are constantly tempted to be pulled away from God's ideals. Truly faith-driven parents will never completely give up on their biblical standards, and yet the longer we are on the parenting journey, the more we may let go of our tight grip on what we believe Scripture teaches about parenting. But that doesn't change the realness of the ideals.

Because it is launch day and Clay and I are in Oxford, England, we will not be in the right time zone to do our normal facebook launch party. So we recorded a special launch day podcast for you from Scotland.

Nurturing my children was not always a planned part of my normal day, but sometimes the spontaneous times of training and instruction were the best times.

Website: www.LaraCasey.com Shop: www.shop.cultivatewhatmatters.com Instagram: @LaraCasey Set kid-sized goals. Training your children how to set goals, even at a young age, is giving them early practice at one aspect of what it means to be a disciple of Christ.

Kristen Kill is a woman transformed by the delight of God. She is passionate about encouraging women who feel stretched thin with the truth that, even in the tension, God is singing over them with love. After spending the last seven years in the hustle of New York City, Kristen and her husband, Josh, are learning to go slow as they raise their five kids in the Pacific Northwest. Her days are filled with homeschooling, walking her slightly anxious hound dog, and putting off the cleaning for one more day. Find Kristen writing at kristenkill.com and follow her on Instagram @kristenkill.

If you would like to see what Holly is up to, follow her at storyformed.com or find her on Instagram @storyformedhome. To keep up with Glenn's latest musings, follow him on Twitter at @gpackiam. You can also find links to his resources on glennpackiam.com.

Lifegiving parenting is not about changing the culture we live in but about being a counterculture to it. It's not about creating a comfortable Christian subculture insulated from the surrounding world; rather, it's about being the kind of lifegiving home culture that will stand as a testimony of God's biblical design for family to a lost world whose sandy foundations are washing away.

We have had such a great time interviewing different parents asking them to share some of their best ideas and advice about being a parent who raises their children for Christ. Today is our first such podcast. We hope you will enjoy this series and glean from the many ideas shared in the next two weeks. You will love Susie Davis. She is a seasoned mom, an author and loves to encourage those in her ministry. You will be refreshed by our time shared on this podcast, Thanks, Susie.

I think that the goal is to teach our children to obey quickly, but search as I may, I cannot find that as a standard in scripture. And so I may find relief in the grace I have found in scripture.

Join me in my podcast today where I discuss the way to contentment in marriage, how to build this legacy for a lifetime and why God considers your worship of Him as a reflection of how well you choose to love and live in harmony with your spouse.

Discipleship and mentoring took place daily at our table, because of our intentional commitment to inform their values, to reach their hearts with truth and messages from the heart of God.

The lifegiving home must start with a heart that says, "I will be the hostess of life here within these walls to serve all who come here so that they may taste and see that the Lord is good by being here with me."

Our newest book, The Lifegiving Parent, is all about the ways we walk along the path of life with our children, encouraging them to find life in God. Available now for preorder!

If we understand the importance of building this foundation of loving our precious children and teaching them to love others, we will give them the power they need to build strong relationships, stay strong in marriage, learn to work in ministry and a profession well--in short, we will give them the ability to have a fuller, more fulfilling life.

I find myself so anxious to share with you, my precious friends, the joy I find in the message of Christ this year, while deep in the mire of challenges and difficulties. Though I am not able to read or look at my computer or screens because of my eye injury, I have done my best to leave you a podcast message and this blog post that I hope will be of come encouragement to you. Know that you are all in my prayers.

Integrity comes from years of practicing living with godly character. Integrity is a lifelong fruit of determining to live faithfully. Christ is the model for what it looks like to have perfect integrity. But integrity brings the reward of living well into your life and watching God faithfully produce eternal fruit through the pages of your story.

I thought I would catch some of you up on my eye (the fall I had) and a little bit from Joel and Clay for a fun podcast today.

If we want to pass on faith to our children, a real, vibrant, strong faith, then in our trials, we must exhibit to them faith that practices walking with God, persevering, holding fast to convictions, even when they don't seem to matter. Faith must believe that He is--that He is with us, that He is good, that He is in control, that He will reward us in His time and in His way.