At Home With Sally

Today, Joy and I had fun talking and just comparing notes. We shared our restless thoughts, our comforts, our complaints and the funny things happening in our lives. I promised to try to keep podcasts going during this time and we had lots of fun recording this one for you.

Today, Nathan and I talk about what it looks like to be a good man and how to shape your boys’ hearts so that they will grow in their self-image to wanting to be a good man in their generation—a good man who is willing to be a part of bringing God’s goodness and light and morality back into a culture that longs to be led and taught.

This is a time for us to act in light of our hope, that He is preparing for us a place where all of life will be redeemed. A time to show others—our families, children, friends, that our hope is sure—not false. It is a time we can write the days of our sequestering as ones of growth, strength, love, beauty because He is “God with us,” and He is a rock, immovable, our refuge.

Over the years of our lives, our family hosted hundreds, if not thousands of people. Yet, to make sure each one felt welcomed and cared for meant that we had to prepare our children’s hearts, (and our own), to know what to expect, how to treat each who came through the door. It’s one thing to want to tell people about Christ. Yet, it is quite another to know how to reach out, start a conversation, put people at ease. Manners are the vehicles through which we act out honoring others, to grant them the respect they deserve as a fellow human being. Manners give the confidence to know how to act towards someone.

We can all move forward from where we are--with great hope, because of Him. So, I give you a part of my heart and how I have kept from staying in the mire of guilt and disappointment with myself over the years.

When a child learns to wait on his mama and on circumstances, he is practicing learning to wait on God--and that is just the person God uses--the one who looks to God and waits expectantly on Him.

We no longer live for ourselves, but for the glory of Jesus, who bought us with a price, that we might live for Him every moment, every day. I am "the mama," the one who helps right the wrongs, listens to hearts, prays, laughs, gives all of myself, even on a "stormy day" or "stormy season," because it is part of my learned role--to care for those in my charge as Jesus did--even in the midst of the unexpected storms of life like the one we all find ourselves in currently. This Good Friday, I pray you will know His grace, His love, His help as you join Him by laying your life down. Have a beautiful holy weekend, and a Happy Easter!

And then it dawned on me as. I was thinking about this. I would love to share in your disappointments. Tell me (in a comment, on Facebook, on Instagram messages) about what disappointment you have had this month. What was cancelled, how are your children disappointed, how have you born the loneliness.

All of the little and big ways you are giving of yourself during this time are gifts of worship of loving God, by being His hands, His words, His time, His love to those around you. Sarah wrote a poem about love given in her own life to her sweet ones, as a sacrifice of her love to them. I know it will touch you as it did me. And of course, we recorded a podcast together I hope you will enjoy.

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.

Just when all appears dead and there are no signs of life in the world, daffodils pop up, as if out of nowhere, to proclaim there just may be surprise and life ahead.

There is no one right way to live life in a home. No one size of routine or rules or order fits all. Homes with young children will be quite different from a single-adult home. Elderly adults will order their lives by different life rituals than will single adults, young marrieds, or university students. But the more carefully we plan our days, the better our homes will provide us with freedom and enjoyment as well as purpose and accomplishment.

Today, Lanier and I talked about the process of living by faith in times of chaos. Moving to a place of restoring is a walk of perseverance and we have both learned this through many seasons of our lives. Chaos often invades our lives when least expect it. The Covid Virus has turned all of our worlds upside down. Yet, having lived through many a heart-breaking disappointment or even just a cancellation to my plans, a loss of control of our lives, I know that waiting on God in faith will show me, in time, that He had never left me, that He was always walking with me through every trial, every season. His faithfulness never fails.

In this episode, Sally and Kristen discuss how to impart a love of community and friendship to our children. They encourage moms to model how to serve in friendship themselves, as the first model their families will see, and explain what it looks like to serve in friendship through trust, loyalty, empathy and encouragement. They share how to become an invitation to others in everyday life, and how to teach your children to be a friend through: -Trusting the Holy Spirit -Training them how to share and live generously -Teaching them HOW to create community Ultimately, Sally and Kristen encourage and equip moms to cultivate their own hearts for service and love, while becoming a living example of how to put others first. Then, they are joined by special guest and friend, Elizabeth Foss who shares her own testimony of trusting God even when we feel weary. Reflecting on her cancer journey and the community knit in her own family mothering nine children, Elizabeth reminds us all that there is nothing that we face t

Nathan has always been larger than life and had on his heart the desire to be a hero. We saw Nathan‘s spirit early on and even while struggling with learning disabilities and an out-of-the-box personality we encouraged Nathan into the story God had for him to tell. We wanted to instill in each of our children the the values of a loving and good God and the belief that they had a work on the world We believed forward into their lives. Which is why I am so excited that Nathan is releasing his first solo book called Good Man, it’s a collection of Nathan‘s stories, thoughts, and insights from his journey of discovering who it was God created him to be.

One of the most profoundly important gifts we can give to our children is a life of faith, a life of believing God in the small moments of life, the large challenges, a life given to believing in His reality. Without faith, we cannot please God. No works, performance, giving will cover over a lack of faith and faith living.

Joy is one of my favorite people in the world. Today, we took time to record many of the rhythms, food, practices that we have both been practicing in our home to make it through these challenging days. I hope you will love it as much as Joy and I enjoyed being together across the miles in a FaceTime recording. You can find all things Joy @Joyclarkson.com and you would be so entertained and inspired to connect with her on Instagram @joynessthebrave Happy Tuesday! We are thinking about you all and praying for you!

In the busyness of our activity-oriented world, it is tempting for us to measure the value of lives by accomplishment or position. Yet, in this time of the covid virus, we are all re-evaluating our priorities. As I look back on the years with my precious children, I found myself seeking to understand how important it was to lay heart foundations, an imagination for living for God, an understanding of truth before I worried about the academic accomplishment of my children.

Perspective is something I have had to learn about the last many years of my life. In the workaday world, busyness can take over and often I have the illusion that I can control my life. The Corona Virus has taken all of us by surprise and has shaken up our expectations of life. Finances are at stake for many of us, illness, disappointment, confusion. But, I have learned that my God is stable, secure, and loving and He is always in control—even when we do not understand or feel secure.

On my podcast today, my friends and I came up with countless ideas of the ways we have created and nurtured life-giving memories with our own. I hope our ideas will inspire you.