Faithful & Persevering Mother MOM 12 & Podcast

"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

When I was a young single missionary living in Austria, one of my favorite retreats was a village in the lake district in the Austrian Alps. Hallstatt is a thousand year old town tucked between a towering mountainside and a deep lake. To get there, I had to take a train from Vienna. I would step off the train onto a small platform standing all by itself on the other side of the lake, then walk a few steps to a dock where a boat would take me the rest of the way to Hallstatt.  As I stood at the back of the tiny boat, with the soft spray of the lake blowing in my face, I always noticed the remains of a small rock castle built on the side of the mountain.

One weekend I had taken my mother and a friend to visit this favorite retreat. We dined on a lovely deck outside our quaint hotel, which fronted the water, then retired to our rooms. Within an hour, however, a ferocious storm engulfed the whole area. The electricity in the town suddenly went off. We looked out our third-story windows and saw, in the darkness, that the deck where we had recently eaten was now flooded with violent, tossing waves.

As we peered fearfully across the lake, everything seemed to be moving sideways and up and down. The high winds were blowing the torrents of rain sideways, the trees were bent over, and everything seemed to be caught up in the violence of the storm. An enormous flash of lightning illuminated the black sky. And suddenly I saw the outline of the stone castle, standing constant amid a storm that was shaking everything else to its core. 

I have never forgotten the sense of strength and solidity I felt, gazing at that old structure that had not been daunted by centuries of such storms. It has become to me a picture of what God has created a home to be.

Women are created to be home-builders, (Prov. 14:1, The wise woman builds her house,). But the reality is, there are so many storms that come our way trying to destroy our homes and tear them apart. 

A faithful mom is not someone who is perfect in following all of her ideals but one who is willing to believe that God is good and that He will help us through all the ups and downs. A mama who puts one foot in front of the other day after day, year after year. 

And when she gets to the end of her journey, she finds that building on the rock of God's word, enduring by faith through all the storms, she will find her house standing strong with faith alive because of the way she was willing to build. 

May God grant you to see that your faithfulness matters and that He wants to keep us safe through the journey. He wants, even more than we do, to have us find His blessing as we faithfully follow hard after His leading. 

Does your home feel this way—sturdy, founded on a rock? What might cause it to feel (and be) more so?

Modeling Ministry From the Heart MOM 11 & Podcast

Run with endurance the race that is set before you, the race of faith.

Hebrews 12:1-2

"We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."

Ephesians 2:10

What a crazy, mixed up, secular world we live in. Traditional values that have held for thousands and thousands of years are questioned. We find Christian leaders are now also suspect and can find no leaders to trust. The political world is going awry. In such a world, we long for anchors and for boundaries to show us how to live, how to make decisions.

Spending time with my adult children the past few weeks has convinced me even more to understand that we all need to feel a sense of purpose in this world. We need to know that living righteously matters and is not a waste of time. We need to feel that we are a part of something bigger than just the mundane day to day tasks.

God created us to have purpose and it is what we need for our own lives and to give to others. We were made for kingdom work, for helping bring light to a dark world. Christianity is not about moralizing others or living by the right rules, but instead about knowing the present Christ, experiencing a real relationship with him in the midst of such confusion.  We need to feel that we are participating in purposes that bring meaning to our lives. Helping our children understand that they were designed uniquely by God to serve the needs of others helps them to realize their position in God's kingdom.

There is a tendency to leave the work of serving others in the hands of the "professionals" or to those who have chosen as their life's work some sort of a  ministerial vocation. Significantly, Jesus chose no professionals as his disciples. He chose common, ordinary men to do the work of God's kingdom. Spiritual qualifications in the mind of Christ are not determined by the degrees a person has earned at a university or a professional resume but by the anointing of his Spirit and by a willingness to serve in obedience to God's commands.

I believe that parents too often fail their children in this regard. They give a wrong impression about serving the Lord through the slight hypocrisy in their lives. We go to church as a family and listen to a sermon. On the way home from church we might comment to the kids, "That was a great sermon. There certainly are lots of needs in the world. God really has called us to share our faith."

And then we say, "Where should we go for lunch?" And the teachable moment turns into words of a platitude without action. 

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 availability of Scripture and the freedom to invest our lives for him, provides us with a heavy weight of stewardship for our own spiritual heritage.

And we need to pass this message on, to pass on the baton of serving him to others as they run their life race.

For what good works has God created your family? Sit down together and talk about it.

Feeling Invisible As a Mama? Cheering You On!

 

"For the ways of a man are before the eyes of the LORD, And He watches all his paths." Proverbs 5:21

I think one of the things that can make me feel weary is feeling as if I'm invisible. And of course, most of our mama-life is invisible. This noble cause we embrace is often fraught with relentless repetition, exhaustion, draining of our emotions, and spiritual challenge. Yet it is also the very place we are called to worship. This is the place faith is being forged and character is being modeled and love is going deep into the hearts and minds of your children. This is why I champion the cause of motherhood. What you are doing matters so much. And Jesus, who sacrificed His time, emotions, and ultimately His very body, sees you and is so very pleased, cheering you on from the heavenly realm.

No one said to me, "Yeah, Sally, you chose to be patient with one more ear infection and sleepless night! Congratulations, you are the queen of children with mental challenges, three asthmatics, and even one with some learning issues! Of course all four are sinful and fuss and make messes and want to eat and wear relatively clean clothes every day. Congratulations, you are so very patient with those hormonal teenagers, you just waited for your toddler to get over his tantrum and you handled it patiently--you a hero!"

One of the strengths and profound work of a woman, as I have said many times before, is to bring civility and order out of chaos and to bring beauty, intelligence, and excellence in subduing her kingdom of home into a life-giving haven.

My home and all the little choices of each day became my sanctuary of worship, my sacrifice of praise. Bringing light into the potentially dark corners of our lives together, singing and dancing and celebrating God's reality in the mundanity of dishes, late nights of Winnie the Pooh and ear infections and steamy showers to alleviate croup, these are the places my children felt the comfort and grace of His touch through me.

It is indeed the glory of a woman when she chooses to love and embrace her precious child as a gift and as a work from the hands of God.

Today, I pray you know how much you are seen and loved by God!

Cultivating Creativity & Celebrating Creation MOM 10 & podcast

"For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”

Romans 1:20

We cannot know God well if we do not understand Him as an artist with a creative heart. And because we are like Him, we are made to create, to design, to become artists in our own lives.

When I engaged my children in creative pursuits, they became especially satisfied that they were able, out of their own brains and experience, to create their own life work of art. 

One of the best ways I can appeal to the yearnings for beauty, creativity and wonder that God has already placed in my children's hearts is to expose them to the many facets of God's artistry as expressed in what he made. The sheer splendor of his creation, from the tiniest plankton to the biggest whale, from microscopic crystals to soaring mountains, calls to the deepest part of our human nature. The beauty of the environment God designed for us to live in has the power to move us to tears and gives us a sense of joy and appreciation of life.

All of this God created for us to experience so that we could enjoy more fully the life that he prepared for us to know. He did not intend for these things to bring us fulfillment in themselves but to point beyond, to the Artist himself, in order to affirm his magnificence, his power, and his kindness and generosity in making our lives so full. He gave us a richly created world to help us know him better.

Creativity, after all, is one of the essential expressions of God's personality. He is the Master Designer who has the power to make something out of nothing and something fresh and new out of the ruins of something old. His inventiveness knows no boundaries. The beauty of his handiwork is unparalleled. His creativity is awesome and powerful as well as unbelievably beautiful—he is the God of exploding volcanoes and awe-inspiring storms as well as rainbows and sunsets. Even his means of creation are creative, for sometimes he creates directly and sometimes he lends his creative powers to his children and delights in their inventiveness.

When is the last time you were impressed by the inventiveness and creativity of God? Do some research and find a new place you might explore.

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.

Bringing Order & Cultivating Home Life MOM 9 & Podcast

Life and housework are so daily! :)

There are dishes in my sink and piles of laundry to be washed. A busy weekend of visitors, dinners served and (mostly!) cleaned up after, planned activities and impromptu trips taken have left my home looking a bit like a tornado has passed through.

Our homes are constantly in the process of becoming mess and then moving to order and then all over again. The best antidote to a messy house? A deep breath, a good cup of tea, and a reminder of the truth about living the joy-filled life.

Today, I talk about the tension of bringing order to your home as you learn to subdue it little by little. I thought maybe an excerpt from Seasons of a Mother's Heart might also add to the discussion of how to live through the many years of organizing your home.

From Seasons of a Mother's Heart:

"I am more convinced than ever that even in the midst of the mundane, burdensome, and oftentimes frustrating tasks of life allotted to me as a mother, God wants me to find His joy. He wants every single day of my life to be a celebration of his blessings, whether they are large or small. He wants me to celebrate life ... the life He has given to me.

But what does it mean to "celebrate life?" Does it mean that I can let my house be a wreck so I can enjoy my children, or that I never have negative thoughts and attitudes, or that I never discipline my children? Does it mean that I simply overlook the myriad difficulties that inevitably spoil the best days, or that I ignore the burdens I carry as a stay-at-home mom, or that I close my eyes to intractable sins that won't go away?

Of course not! The joy-filled life is not found by trying to diminish my God-given responsibilities as a woman, wife and mother, nor can I find joy merely by refusing to face the hard realities of life in a fallen world. There is a tension that God is asking me to acknowledge and accept--the tension between ideals and realities. True joy is found by living somewhere between the "ideal life" and 'daily realities.' that is where Jesus meets me, where His Holy spirit empowers, and where I learn how to live the Christian life with supernatural joy."

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.

"Where no oxen are, the manger is clean, But much revenue comes by the strength of the ox." Proverbs 14:4

Hope you enjoy the podcast today. Let me know what you think. And share it with your friends. 

We have several more chapters of Mission of Motherhood. Be sure to get your copy of Ministry if you want to follow the next podcast series. 

The Mission of Motherhood: Touching Your Child's Heart for Eternity

By Sally Clarkson

The Ministry of Motherhood: Following Christ's Example in Reaching the Hearts of Our Children

By Sally Clarkson

The Staying Power of Stories - Part 2

Hi Friends! It is my pleasure to introduce to you, Jason Pederson, a Storyformed guest contributor. Jason believes good stories change lives. Though he has only recently begun work on his first children’s novel, he has been storytelling for 10 years through his residential design business where his home designs help fund adoptions (www.jpdesignhomes.com). Jason is married to his best friend, Jennifer, and together they adopted their now two-year-old son, Jackson, who is eagerly anticipating the arrival of their newest addition; due this Christmas. They live in a Colorado cottage filled with good books and a funny little dog named Belle.

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By Jason Pederson

There are stories that stay with us long after we first encounter them. Words that awoke longings in us as children still hold sway over our adult imaginations. They gather somewhere deep within us to form reservoirs that tend to well up into surprising surges of joy when we least expect it.

What is it that makes a story stick? Are there related threads that weave through the stories that we love most?

Over the years, my wife and I have been compiling a family library that we hope will encourage, challenge, captivate, and launch our children into a full life. Some of the books are well-worn and have traveled all the way from my childhood bookshelf and now find their place in my son’s bookcase. I often find myself wondering why, after all these years, I kept those particular stories? Hundreds of books that once rested in my palms were eventually passed over, given away, or replaced. Is there something inherently more enchanting or resonant in the stories that “made the shelf”?

This article is not meant to be a tour of my personal bookshelf, but an invitation to listen for the refrains that resonate through the beloved stories that are unique to each shelf. At my own invitation, reflection has led me to discover four streams that consistently run through the stories I cherish most. I described my experience with the first stream – wonder – in part one of this article. You can find it here. I observed that after a story has led me to a place of wonder, I return to reality with renewed clarity. After experiencing wonder on a page, my senses are more keenly aware of the beauty and mystery in the present. Wonder that merely impresses our mind with originality or stirs our heart with beautiful prose can still leave us stranded if it lacks resonance with the present. True wonder offers a glimpse of glory and then supplies us with the enduring strength to chase that vision long after we turn the page.

For me, the stream of wonder inevitably feeds into the stream of gratitude. If wonder helps us to see and savor the Good, True, and Beautiful, then gratitude helps us sing about them. Something stirring may leave us in silent wonder, but gratitude will eventually break the silence. Whether it comes in the form of personal reflection or outward declaration, our joy leads to thanksgiving.

GRATITUDE completes joy.

C.S. Lewis says it best in his Reflections on the Psalms: “I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise does not merely express but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation…Fully to enjoy is to glorify.” When a story leads us to discover a deeper joy, a truer beauty, or a more enduring good, we respond most naturally with gratitude and praise. When you have walked with Ents through the forests of Middle Earth the local neighborhood hike can come alive with mystery and whimsy. The gratitude I feel for being given that perspective keeps me rooted in the adventure of the moment. Every walk in the woods should be a practice in gratitude.

Gratitude completes joy by giving it a name. There is a scene near the end of the Disney movie Secretariat that contains only two words, but when they are spoken, they summarize the thrust of the story in its essence. Secretariat is the name of an American Thoroughbred racehorse who was contending for the first Triple Crown in 25 years. After rounding the last turn in the final, and longest of the three races, Secretariat, who was known to underperform over long distances, is shown pushing a record-breaking pace. Instead of tiring, he continues the fast pace and opens up a larger and larger margin on the field. He races to a stunning victory 1/16th of a mile ahead of the rest of the field. In the scene, his longtime caretaker observes this majestic feat, and erupts with the words “oh glory!” The scene makes you want to leap off the couch, throw your fists in the air, and shout for joy along with the crowd. Gratitude rightly ascribes the name glory to the joy that comes from witnessing something truly magnificent. When a story leaves us feeling grateful for the experience, it is gratitude itself that helps us to name what we found most moving. In naming our joys we are offered a glimpse into the authenticity of our character.

Gratitude first helps us to name what we most enjoy, but then it gives us a way to measure the strength and value of those joys. With the right application, gratitude can become a kind of gauge that displays the magnitude of our wonder. Like the wind that precedes an approaching storm, gratitude is a great indicator of the breadth and intensity of that which we find inspiring. I think of the passage in C.S. Lewis’s The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe when the Pevensie children first hear the name Aslan. “At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in its inside.” Apart from Edmund who felt a sensation of mysterious horror, the other three children experience feelings associated with gratitude in varying degrees. What they each feel in that moment reveals the essence of their character and the level of value that they unknowingly assign to Aslan before encountering him. Follow the strength of your gratitude and you will eventually come face to face with your deepest longings.

Gratitude completes our joy, names our longings, and measures our wonder. The strongest thanks and the highest praise are reserved for the truest and deepest joys. My intention in linking gratitude and joy was to show that being grateful for something is really an invitation into enjoying it more fully. Gratitude is not a character-defining duty but a soul-satisfying delight. Stories that invite us to work in the garden of gratitude will yield contentment and satisfaction for years to come.

Storyformed is here to celebrate the soul-forming power of imagination, good books, and beauty in the life of a child. To find out more, click HERE.

Becoming a Gardener Of Souls MOM 8 & podcast

Daniel Ridgway Knight

I love this picture--a woman surrounded by beauty, the product of her life's cultivation--as it is such an encouragement to me for my own life. Part of the glory of women, in my mind, is that they have been throughout all the ages, civilizers; those who subdue, causing gardens to flourish. Wisdom is personified all the way through Proverbs as a woman. The older I have gotten, the more I have sought to grow into this great role. Gardening is such a visual representation of the potential of a woman's life.

A field that lies fallow has endless potential for producing fruit, vegetables, and flowers of every kind. If the soil has been prepared and fertilized and attended to, it has massive potential. Yet the potential lies dormant until the seeds or plants have been strategically placed into the soil.

This is a picture of all of life. We have the Holy Spirit inside of us when we become Christians. We, and our children, are made in the image of God. Intrinsic within our hearts, lives, and souls is the capacity to display God's imprint to the world, but the potential lies dormant, waiting for a gardener of the soul to cultivate it.

And so, I picture myself as a gardener of souls, in relationship to Him who gives me the power and strength through His spirit to be a part of His work in the world. First, of my own soul. I must plant the seed of God's word, of truth, excellence, art, beauty, character, intellect, relational skills, vision, and inspiration, and water them daily with the grace of God by engaging with Him, watering what I've planted with faith--engaging my heart at every point, every moment with His perspective, His thoughts, His priorities. I must bask in the sunshine of Jesus---living in His love, His redemption, His humility, His generous soul always reaching out and giving in compassion and redemption. Pulling the weeds of sin, bad attitudes, and hurts. Protecting what I've planted from the storms of Satan and the world. All these things I must do to cultivate a beautiful harvest as I walk in His power and reality in my life, through the seed of Himself that He planted there..

I invest deeply, so that others may have the richness and productivity of His life and ways and truth and character to draw from my soul.

And then, I come to motherhood. I understand how broad my role is in planting the seeds of truth and faith and character in my own children's lives. Protecting them from the ravages of their own storms in a fallen, wicked world. Exposing them to the sunlight of Jesus in every way, every moment throughout my day. Helping them to develop a strong root system of family, friends, and Christian community during the winter seasons, and to water their souls with God's love, grace and hope, teaching them to spread their own plant in the direction of cultivating a life of faith, service, and giving as they yield from their souls eternal produce.

All this and more is waiting to be intentionally planted, cultivated, and nurtured, but requires a wise and intentional gardener--willing to do the hard work it requires to bring about a great harvest.

So, what are you planting? How intentional have you been about designing the garden of your own soul, and those of your children? How are you protecting? Fertilizing? Weeding? Watering?

Such great potential lies dormant in our souls, but such a vast harvest is available if we engage in wisdom with submission and obedience to the First Gardener. There is such capacity for life--in Him and in His ways.

Live into the potential of your calling to civilize and cultivate. When a woman becomes intentional about eternal issues, the whole world will be influenced by her grace and life.

Loving Mom, Strong Friend: MOM 7 & Podcast

“ … and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds …”

Hebrews 10:24

Nine-year-old Nathan was showing signs of stress and emotional struggle. He was having a hard time being obedient and having difficulty getting along with one of his friends. So one evening I invited him into my bedroom to talk. He joined me on the couch and laid his head on my lap. Then he looked up at me with resigned eyes and said, "You know this isn’t going to last long!”  

Sure enough, over the course of the next hour, the phone rang six times. Each of the other children bounded into the room needing me for some "important” task. Clay stuck his head in to ask me about an article that needed writing. The dinner dishes were unwashed, Joy needed an asthma treatment, and bedtime for everyone was approaching quickly.

To Nathan's surprise, however, as each person interrupted, I said, "I will be with you as soon as I can, but I have something important to do right now. I don’t want to talk to anyone on the phone. Sarah, you do Joy's asthma treatment. Joel, you start cleaning the kitchen. And please don’t interrupt me again.”

Each time I said it, Nathan looked at me with big, doubtful eyes. But he relaxed more and more as the hour went on. I began to scratch his back and gently massage his head. And then, eventually, he began to talk.

Nathan shared with me his hurt feelings and insecurity regarding a couple of his friends. He spoke to me about feeling lonely. He shared some secrets. I had the opportunity to talk with him, to share some verses with him, and to pray with him.

As I tucked Nathan into bed later that night, he said, "You know, Mom, when you spend time with me and talk to me and encourage me, I want to do the right things. But when I'm lonely or having a hard time, and you don't spend time with me, I'm really tempted to want to do wrong!"

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

Storyformed Podcast Episode #30 - Summer Q & A and A Special Announcement

In this Storyformed episode, Holly Packiam and Jaime Showmaker answer listener questions and make a special announcement. 

Topics include:

• Cultivating imagination without it leading to violence and aggression;
• Book recommendations for young boys;
• Picture books suggestions with themes of courage and bravery;
• Favorite audio books for kids ages 3-5; and
• Book recommendations for new readers

Click HERE to listen to the podcast and to view the Show Notes at storyformed.com.

Happy Independence Day!

I pray your day is full of barbecues, fireworks, and plenty of friends and family. Enjoy!