Life with Sally

Many years ago, Clay and I dreamed up the idea of Our 24 Family Ways as we discussed our desire to disciple our children as we walked along the path of life together. As parents of young children, we wanted them to have strong foundations of godly character and an understanding of what it meant to please God so that they could develop integrity.

What if God designed home, motherhood, & family to be the foundational community upon which society was to emerge from — a place of truth, goodness, & wholeness? What if we were designed to be caretakers of such a task because of the sacredness God placed on women because of His great esteem for them?

I have realized over the years that the most important element to a Christian parent, in regards to discipline, is not the method, but the heart attitude towards God as a Father of us. When we become our children's advocates, always for them, defending them, protecting them, we are helping them grow as we extend the mercy, kindness, and teachings of God.

Your faithfulness matters. The moments of lifegiving relationships, truth discussed, virtue modeled, happens over thousands of days, many years, lots of laying down of life. You are writing your own story of faith and faithfulness. Join me today and be encouraged in your own life to live faithfully.

Your children long to see you as their heroes — those who inspire, live with courage, bring truth to bear in your generation. Each of us has a part. You will love the tales we talk about today and perhaps someone will be telling your faithful tale to others who need courage to live as women of valiance and light. Enjoy and be inspired.

It is not getting the rules right that will make our children want to serve God. It is laying down our life for them, serving them, listening to them, loving who God made them to be, that will secure in them a desire to love God with all of their hearts. By seeing our love, they will more easily understand and receive God's love, as it will already be familiar to their hearts.

The reality is that all marriages are filled with challenges. How a woman responds to her marriage will determine if it is a place where the light and beauty of God's love will be shown. One of the glories of women is the opportunity to spread the gracious spirit of love and peace in her home. It is a beautiful grace of godly women to behold -- the fragrance of unconditional love and the art of spreading light, even in the dark places.

When you first hold a baby in your arms, you can't even imagine the talents, personality, and strengths they will have as an adult. The miraculous and mysterious process of loving, training, cultivating skills, inspiring your children over many years results in a full-fledged adult that you could not have perceived in their earliest moments.

Those who wait for the Lord, who patiently follow after Him, will indeed gain new strength, they will run and not become weary, they will walk and not faint. And their work and their reward will be sure.

Parenting can feel like climbing a mountain with high peaks and low valleys in between, especially with the onset of hormones, emotions, and changes — of them and of us! On today's new podcast, my friends and I discuss lessons we've learned and how we have walked through and are currently walking through life with our teens.

Sometimes the circumstances of life are like our home -- messes and joys, fears and blessings all in the same breath. But it is what we see and how we perceive what is happening that will determine our comfort or our despair. Today, join me and my friend, Jane Biel, as we have a conversation about beauty amidst messes.

Often, people will ask me: How did you raise children who think and who are articulate? Who engage and add to the discussion of truth, beauty, and goodness in our culture? Today, Nathan and Joseph and I discuss how to raise deep thinkers. It was so inspiring to me to hear them discuss what shaped them to become deep thinkers. I hope you will be encouraged as I was.

Life for all of us is filled with anxious moments, yet, it really is possible to gain perspective of life in a fallen world, to learn how get stronger at being courageous and better at walking with God.

Growing takes time. Growing and waiting for the ripe moment requires hard work and patience. We are so used to instant gratification that we often quit on something before it has had proper time to grow -- but character building and training takes time.

When darkness falls, especially on our emotions and thoughts, we can feel lost, moving toward depression or a cloudiness of soul. Today, two of my friends and I share our own stories of depression, dark seasons, and walking through these times with faith.

As I look at the landscape of our times, I see a need for hope, strong faith, foundations of good character and integrity. All of these needs have been a part of humanity for generations. Women who caught a vision of becoming civilizers, life-givers, shapers of souls, were the ones who instilled these attributes through their homes. It was the conversations at the meals, bedtime blessings, morning prayers, that created human beings who learned to thrive in real life.

This time filled with anxiety and fear could, from God's eyes of history, be one of the finest hours for Christians to stay true, to be faithful until the end, to endure hardship, to rejoice in His reality, to live by faith, "assurance of things hoped for, convictions of things not seen."

Whatever we pursue and cultivate will determine what we are able to pass on to all who we encounter. As stewards of our souls, we must seek to cultivate a garden of beauty -- it must be a regular habit, a discipline, to expose ourselves to great minds, musicians, artists, & theologians so that our souls will indeed reflect a museum of His great character and nobility.

I challenge you to walk with courage and faith through this season, no matter how disastrous the voyage may appear to be. Your words of hope and faith will give you the strength and courage to keep going. You will leave a legacy of faith and faithfulness that will help generations to come.

The dreams inside us point to the destiny we were created to fulfill. We each want to know that our lives matter, that we are not invisible. When we see them only as a series of mundane days, become consumed by busyness, or dwell on hurts, we become prisoners to the circumstances of our lives. Ignoring the eternal purposes God has designed for us leads to emptiness.

To create a life where the hours and moments can be filled in satisfying interaction means that we must choose to fill the time our children could be engaged with machines or other entertainment with planned personal time that satisfies to the depths of their hearts, minds, and souls.

"A Joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones." Take good medicine, and even in the midst of draining circumstances, plan on lighting a candle in the darkness, playing music through the pain, eating avocado toast, dancing in the midst of the mess, and smiling often as it is truly good for the heart! And above all, give yourself sweet grace!

A drive for purpose and a desire to impact others for the kingdom of God does not come out of a vacuum. Vision of the heart is what empowers all of us, as God's children, to follow Him in faith and purpose in becoming fishermen in the world. It flows from inspiration, not from moralistic rules or laws to be kept.

We know we are called to follow Christ, to take His message to the world, to raise our children to heed Jesus' call. But sometimes we fail to consider that following the Lord means leaving behind the familiar, exchanging a temporal view of life for an eternal goal.

Life as a woman, mom, and wife can sometimes be stressful, overwhelming, exhausting, boring and demanding on many levels. Sometimes moms feel guilty admitting the variety of feelings they have. Feelings are natural -- they neither define who we are or take away from our righteousness. They are just a reaction to the situation we are in.

The longer I am a parent and grandparent, the more I understand how God feels about us. We are irresistible to Him. We are His own, he made us to be like Him. He champions us and celebrates us. He gave everything, even His own life, to redeem, heal, bring us back to the infinite fullness of life as He created it.

Celebrating is a part of God's nature. The birds chirp to God, the sunrise and sunset sing of His glory, the stars declare His beauty. There is a life and hope and energy in this celebrating. It brings all earthly struggles into perspective, a baby bringing life that would conquer all ills, calm all storms, heal all wounds.

Resting in Him, choosing peace and putting off responsibilities is sometimes such grand medicine for my soul, that after choosing to rest and to invest in fun and love and ease of life, my strength is renewed and all issues are able to be faced with grace. I know busyness is coming, but I will face it with courage later if I rest today.

Today, I talk about making your life whole in mind, body, character and actions so that those who listen to you have a virtuous, good, right model to follow. Jesus said, "The student when fully trained will be like his teacher." Those who follow us, and our children who look to us as teacher, call us to become our best selves out of the accountability they hold us to as we model truth in front of them.

Join me on my podcast today as I speak about why we choose to live with our hearts on fire, with our weary souls seeking one more day to worship, to sing, to be alive with His truths. We live with the end in mind, that our stories will be told throughout eternity, that He will wipe away every tear, He cares that we care for the children, friends, husbands He has entrusted into our hands.

This is the fallen world, and we will never be able to control ourselves, our circumstances, our children, or the world the live in. Living in the grace and knowledge that God forgives, knows our limitations, is not surprised or disappointed, but wanting to give us hope is crucial. Of course you have fallen short -- you are a mom and you are human.

Weariness and just plain sick of the constant day in day out work day inside the walls of our home had drained me. And so Joy, in honor of her name, announced, "Tomorrow night, we shall have a Girl's Spa and Play night. I'll set the menu, the activities, and the entertainment." And so she did. Listen in to hear how we had a fun night in.

We live in a world that values conformity. We want to use our force to make people, and our children, fit into the box. Be good. Be tame. Be moral. Come up with the right answer. Don't bring attention to yourself. And yet, after many years, I learned that who I was was exactly who God formed me to be, and suited my own story well. Live in the freedom of your own design today and cultivate your own life story as you live into your own unique part of His greater Story.

As women, mothers, and wives, it is absolutely crucial that we learn to breathe, relax, and focus and center ourselves on what should be prioritized. Today, I explore the idea of managing the elements that add to the chaos of our lives, and the ways forward to finding peace and centeredness.

The vision of the heart, the cultivation of wonder, is what empowers all of us, as God's children, to follow Him in faith and purpose. Now is a time to awaken to the wonders around you and to celebrate them with all in your wake.

One day at a time, God has helped me to take one step forward, to put my issues into His hands, to live forward by faith into what He was doing, what I was becoming. And now, as I look back, I am beyond amazed at what He has accomplished on our behalf through His generous faithfulness. How important it was, I can see now, that I learned to own my life right where I was, to dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.

What you choose to believe and cherish, practice and submit to, work at and believe in happens when no one else is looking. These are the glorious days your children will remember—the joy of the meantime, the moments cherished, the memories made at bedtime, table time, birthdays, times of illness. So, who knows what tomorrow or the next day will bring. But what will you do in the meantime?

Many stresses and demands face us as women every day. Needs arise and require our immediate attention, someone needs our love, our time, our help. And yet, I do have to say, I love women. They seem particularly equipped by God to be great lovers, devoted friends, makers of beauty, civilizers of chaos, spiritually grounded and intellectually brilliant. Keep calm and carry on, my friends.

When we seek to disciple our children, it is cultivating in them a vision for their importance to Christ's work, a hope that they are needed to fulfill a kingdom cause--with their unique personality and skills, and then giving them practice in serving others as they grow up in our homes, which are the center of ministry. It is about them watching us serve and being caught up in the beauty of our loving, giving to, serving and inspiring others from the integrity and compassion of our own hearts and lives, that their hearts will be captured.

Sensing God is a discovery of Jesus in all of the sensory points embedded into each of us. It shows how the holiest acts in our daily lives are often the simplest: reveling in the beauty of nature; listening to our favorite music; eating a nourishing meal with family. These are potentially heartbeats of a living faith, and when we learn to recognize and respond to God's goodness in them, it draws us into redemptive participation with Him, the source of all beauty.

God tells children to "honor their mother and father" and in this command is a practice of showing respect, giving worth, humbling oneself -- in short, practicing seeing the value in another person. When people are valued, valuing God and worshiping Him is already a pattern in the heart.

What does it mean to live with bold faith? To please Christ, to follow His word and admonitions, to grow every day, to love Him from my heart, to humble myself and confess my need for him and to ask His forgiveness when I fail, to seek to walk in His spirit by faith every day, to live by Truth of scripture, with godly character, with wisdom applied to my life.

As we enter a new year, how important it is that we garner hope for our futures, meaningfulness for our daily life and vision for what matters. As I enter a new season of podcasting, I had in mind to journey together through the days of a new year with intentionality and hope.

Today, I am providing a podcast that I hope will help and encourage you right where you are. Tomorrow, I will have a blog that speaks directly to the importance of decluttering our souls—taking away the doubts, the guilt, the fears, the stress and making a plan of how to stay close to our precious, loving Father, whatever befalls us during this new year, 2021.

As I look back through the years, I realize that what I needed as a young mama and wife is what I still need—friends and community. In this very strange time of unusual isolation and separation from our normal commitments, activities and communities, we have all felt hollow in our hearts. A longing for someone to understand, someone to celebrate life with.

God is looking for our heart-love for Him, not our perfection. In the midst of invisibility and times when no one sees or knows what is going on in our lives, the stresses from challenging children, the loneliness of a struggling marriage, the cleaning up of one more mess amidst the crumbs of our life. Yet, God wants to companion us through these places and show us His love.

Most of us are entering into the Christmas season and trying to figure out how to take care of the needs of our loved ones, keep feeding the masses, maintain our responsibilities and stay sane. Yet, there is a part of me, through the years, that has learned to "give in to the Christmas Season." I don't mean the commercialism or being too busy and over committed. But learning to enjoy the gifts given, however simple, the simple celebrations of home, the lights and the mystery of imagination that can be so much a part of the joy of life.

Sensing God is a discovery of Jesus in all of the sensory points embedded into each of us. It shows how the holiest acts in our daily lives are often the simplest: reveling in the beauty of nature; listening to our favorite music; eating a nourishing meal with family. These are potentially heartbeats of a living faith, and when we learn to recognize and respond to God's goodness in them, it draws us into redemptive participation with Him, the source of all beauty.

Long after each year's gifts have been forgotten, if we give to our loved ones a joyful, loving heart, we will have given them a gift that will be with them their whole lives. They will come to us again and again for the "Life" they need to feel, hear and be comforted by during every season.

"Miracle on Highway 34" is a beautiful modern retelling of the nativity set in a small town diner and the characters that find themselves there on Christmas Eve during a snow storm. After such a chaotic and tumultuous year, Nathan is releasing a movie that offers a little bit of hope, love, warmth, and joy. Nathan wrote, produced, directed, and is acting opposite his wife Keelia in the film. He is hoping it will be a blessing to you and your family this year, something that perhaps you can make a memory around.