At Home With Sally

Our brains and souls long for color, beauty, the crafting of words and ideas, the discipline of conquering a classical piece of music on piano or a contemporary song on guitar. Our palate are made for deliciousness, our longings are for traditions, celebrations with our people in our place done in our way.

Though many of us cannot be with our families for Thanksgiving, and we are inside our homes with no where to go for reprieve, and we wish the tumult of the election would go away and that Covid would end, we pick up ourselves, we bring beauty to choose, light to darkness and we breath in the peace that He is with us.

My dearest friend and daughter has such a perfectly timed surprise for all of us. I can’t wait to share about it today with all of you. Sarah has joined me to tall you all about what is ahead that I know will encourage your heart. Here is a message from her.

Our idealism does make us vulnerable. May God give us grace to not be destroyed in the flow of darkness right now but help us to be light givers.

Today, I had the privilege of having a chat with my sweet friend, Leah Boden. Not too long ago she was at my house sharing a “cuppa.” So in honor of that time, you see my photo. But today, we had to be quarantined. I loved this podcast and I know you will be encouraged as I was.

God whispered, “Be gentle to yourself today. Don’t make this day the one where you get everything done, figure life out, take care of everyone else in the world. Just be still, just rest, just breathe in peace.” Truly, it was the message that came to my heart.

There is this auspicious week where the voting takes place and at this moment, I have no idea what will happen. Yet, when I come into God’s presence, when I am still and “know that He is God,” somehow He takes me beyond the illusion the this world and what we “think” is happening is of utmost importance, when from His point of view, there are always bigger issues at stake. I want to live in awareness of Him and His eternal and providentially directed ways and not be defined by the human attempts all around me to super impose meaning and value of life where in reality God’s purposes are greater and more important.

Today, we share all sorts of fun with you. How to initiate and respond in friendship, all about taking time in nature and so much more. I hope many of you will ponder reaching out to someone, or maybe you will hit the ball back to someone who has initiated to you. Or maybe you can serve a ball yourself. :)

I was so thankful to be able to have a conversation with my online friend, Pierce Taylor Hibbs, about anxiety. In this episode, today I talk about some of these issues with him, author of Struck Down but Not Destroyed: Living Faithfully with Anxiety, about ways to move through these issues. We share stories of God's faithfulness and presence, our own growth in compassion, and our responses to God in times of great anxiety and suffering.

I invite you to join us in our podcast today and it is my prayer that our message will give you encouragement but also a pause to think about how to live well into this moment that you have.

If you want to equip your children to stand strong for truth, for Christ and for family values that includes a high picture of morality, marriage, sex, the foundations of scripture, world view, then you must gently engage over the years, little by little, day by day.  It is best for children to hear about controversial subjects from their parents than on the internet.

Gentleness grows stronger with practice. It comes with humility. It grows as wisdom and takes root in the heart that values the ones she loves. May God grant us to become gentle in our love, that others may see Him through us.

God longs for the most personal, intimate relationship with us. While He created us with this in mind, sometimes in the midst of a particularly challenging time, we allow ourselves to drift away from Him. And yet, it is in drawing closer to Him than ever before, in committing ourselves to daily time alone with Him, that we are able to claim our roles as His child. When we let Him meet us where we are, peace will follow.

There have been crucial dark moments in my life when I would have floundered or fallen apart if I had not had friends to carry me, to comfort me, to guide me when I couldn’t see where I was going. We were created with a yearning for connection, community, and a sense of belonging, a people to call home. Much of our joy is sustained through relationships with people who have chosen to love us, to help us, to be committed.

The secret to cultivating a lifegiving home is not a perfectly balanced life, luxurious home, or a fancy table of food. Instead, it is an open mind, inspired heart, and a deep longing to create stability, no matter the circumstances.

The starting point of your influence is the state of your own heart, mind and soul. If there is purity, wisdom, strength, faith, love and righteousness there, then when you pour out your life, those around you will be blessed indeed.

In all of our ideals, righteousness is progressive. In other words, we make mistakes, we fail, sometimes we do foolish things because they are so accepted in culture. Sometimes, wickedness jumps after us like Potifer's wife chasing Joseph. And our children learned the concept of fleeing--just drop what will burn you and flee--run immediately away from the temptation.

These days, it seems we’re constantly faced with another example of an influential man using his power for evil, living without morals or care for others, or maybe even one who chooses to look the other way when confronted with another man’s bad behavior. Now more than ever, we need good men in this world, men who live a life dedicated to goodness, heroism, protecting those in need, and love.

We all long for kindred spirits — those with whom we could spend hours dreaming, laughing, and sharing our heart’s troubles. But many people I know struggle to find those kindred spirits. Living our busy lives, we hope that lifelong friendships will fall into our lap, or come knocking at our front door. But over many years of struggling with loneliness myself, I’ve found that the best way to cultivate a true, deep-rooted friendship is to commit to seeking them out, intentionally going out of our way to invite a new friend over for a cup of tea and a deep discussion.

At this time in history, where very little is considered sacred or holy, we must seek diligently to create not just knowledge of what the word holy means, but to place tangible practices in our lives where we and our children come to learn that some things are sacred and set apart and deserve our reverence and worship.