Education: A Powerful Tool for Influencing the World MOM 6 & Podcast

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use  to change the world.

Nelson Mandela

The older I become, the more passionate I am about education. Nelson Mandela had it right. Education, communication, the use of words to persuade and to open brilliance of thinking creates its own power of persuasion.

We see how writers have influenced the ways we think through all of history. But this kind of ability comes from sowing the seeds of wisdom, knowledge and understanding over many years.

Recently, I was in a meeting, observing some leaders who were making important decisions about urgent responsibilities that needed to be managed by some new employees of this organization. An elderly CEO, an advisor of the other leaders in the room said,

"The problem is, most younger college graduates who are applying for these positions are ill prepared to take on such responsibility.  They have not read broadly on many subjects or world view and so they have almost no perspective of historical issues. Because they are media dependent, they are subject to believing popular views espoused in media. Raised on television and entertained to death, with a constant appetite for movies, their opinions are shallow and reactionary. Thinking clearly and well and synthesizing ideas from reading profoundly and exposing themselves to great thinkers is clearly not even a part of their training or a part of their daily habit or routine. Add to that a lack of character training and an inability to work hard and long through difficult seasons of work, and you will find it almost impossible to find an excellent candidate who can handle such important responsibilities. "

Though, obviously, many do graduate from college with excellent abilities, this statement is generally true about many young college graduates. Educational tests have shown a constant drop in academic abilities.

I feel so strongly that we live in a more and more ignorant world, where people are easily led as sheep to slaughter because they follow others rather than think for themselves. And even worse, because they have not studied scripture, pondered the life of Christ, studied the attributes and actions of God, they are pontificating foolishness on social media, embarrassing, in my humble opinion the cause of Christ, and all because they accept as truth what someone else said, without having a framework or foundation of knowledge for themselves that would help them become excellent thinkers. Ignorance and mental weakness brings poverty of soul and ultimately of life. This is a dangerous description of adults when there is no valued wisdom, experience, or positive academic prowess and virtue. When the adults are lacking, it follows that the children will have no excellent food for thought upon which to train and feed their brains.

Scripture commands us to,

"Worship God with our minds." 

God has created human beings to have a great capacity to use their brains to understand, learn, study, comprehend, create, invent, debate. And so one of the stewardships we have as moms is to take responsibility for our children's minds. God will hold all of us accountable for how we were faithful to shape and train their minds for his glory. It is one of the equal ways we are commanded to worship God. It is a glory to God when we seek to fill and expand our brains to be superior in thinking skills.

It is also a glory of a woman to be disciplined in her ability to think well and to articulate ideas and truth well. It exalts God, even as Mary did when she gave her magnificat.

No matter what educational choice a family makes, it is still the parent's responsibility to be a steward of their children's minds.

Like a muscle that needs to be stretched and used over and over again to become strong, so our brains must be stretched and exercised to become mentally and academically strong.

We must teach our children how to think correctly about:

*God, His attributes, His character, His word, so that they can have a true understanding and love for who God is.

*Biblical morality,  and why God set boundaries for sex, lying, character traits as written in Proverbs and throughout the New Testament. This foundational knowledge helps them so that they can build their lives on true foundations for relationships, choices, context of a spiritual life in a foolish world.

*Wisdom, and understanding so that they can learn to stand strong on their own to resist the ways that culture calls to them. Understanding the implication and long term consequences of foolish decisions will help them to take responsibility for their own choices. 

*Read to them and help them fall in love with reading and books so that they will have a big vocabulary, a large understanding of the world, be versed in knowing how to think about ideas, facts, religion, politics, languages and all facets of education. Biographies, Hero tales, Live science books with photographs to appreciate the intricacies of God's involvement in creating the body in all of its miraculous functions, seeing molecules and atoms that literally hold the universe together, the beauty of color and design of plants, birds, seasons. Give them a broad understanding of history and the ways people and their philosophy determines the outcome of nations. Give them fiction that provides them with stories that are soul touching and engage in inspiration for their own life stories.

*Use your dinner table and meals to discuss ideas and philosophies about family, marriage, purpose, relationships.  Evaluate stories and characters together, to shape faith and convictions where they get to exercise their own power of communication. 

*Watch their appetites and the time they spend in secular arenas--what they sow they will become--video games, television, cell phones. These are pretty much a waste of time and the more time a child spends in these areas, the more lazy their brain pathways will become.

The leaders of the world are most often those who are well educated to think well and clearly. A big vocabulary comes from reading and being read aloud to. 

How important it is, then, that we as moms, take the time to become the best educated we can be. I am not referring to degrees from college. Degrees do not necessarily determine a person's ability to think, or to influence.

But we must be readers, students of the Word, interacting with wisdom, and learning how to reason and defend our faith and ideals, so that we will have the internal resources to build our children into world leaders.

So, 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.

My two daughters have taken this role very seriously, but it flowed naturally, organically from the rhythms of our lives. Giving children, (and adults) a love for learning leads t them pursuing knowing and learning as they grow into adults. It is a natural consequence of having a home that cherishes thinking and talking, theology and ideas

After much hard work and pursuing interests through study, Sarah is being asked to speak to conferences in Oxford, has won the Frederick Beuchner writing competition in Oxford 3 years in a row and has graduated with distinction from Oxford. Joy is getting her PHD in theology as at St. Andrews with a full scholarship because of the trust of her professors and wants to influence young women to live into their full potential spiritually, academically and relationally in order to influence the thinking and foundational education of the next generation. 

Together we are writing a book called "Girl's Club" and will host two national conferences to talk about this area because we believe one of the most profound ways we can civilize our world as women is through accessing our potential in education as well as spiritually. And we all believe that godly friendship with excellent women is part of this process. 

 Hopefully, I can begin writing more about educational issues that will help encourage many of you as you seek to influence your children's minds. Having influence on my children's minds has been one of the most fulfilling tasks I have ever enjoyed. The fruit in their lives has catalyzed the growth in my own.

What choices do you need to make in your schedule to not only fill your own mind with great thinking, stories and ideas as well as being sure you are taking seriously the broad view of education in the lives and minds of your own children and friends?

Educating the WholeHearted Child

By Clay Clarkson with Sally Clarkson

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

By Sally Clarkson

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A Wise Woman Builds Her House--And a Special Announcement

"All are architects of Fate,

Working in these walls of Time;

Some with massive deeds and great,

Some with ornaments of rhyme.

Nothing useless is, or low;

Each thing in its place is best;

And what seems but idle show

Strengthens and supports the rest.

For the structure that we raise,

Time is with materials filled;

Our to-days and yesterdays

Are the blocks with which we build.

Truly shape and fashion these;

Leave no yawning gaps between;

Think not, because no man sees,

Such things will remain unseen.

In the elder days of Art,

Builders wrought with greatest care

Each minute and unseen part;

For the Gods are everywhere.

Let us do our work as well,

Both the unseen and the seen;

Make the house, where Gods may dwell,

Beautiful, entire, and clean.

Else our lives are incomplete,

Standing in these walls of Time,

Broken stairways, where the feet

Stumble as they seek to climb.

Build to-day, then, strong and sure,

With a firm and ample base;

And ascending and secure

Shall to-morrow find its place.

Thus alone can we attain

To those turrets, where the eye

Sees the world as one vast plain,

And one boundless reach of sky."

“The Builders” --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“What kind of cake do you want this year?” I asked my eldest son, recalling with a sense of dread the 3-D Manhattan Skyline cake he had requested several years ago for his 5th birthday.

“Hmmm, let me think about it,” he replied, as he added another brick to the building he was constructing. For the past several weeks, he has been erecting a vast Lego city in our basement. I have watched in wonder as his sprawling city has grown, each building thoughtfully planned and constructed, his attention to detail both awe-inspiring and startling for an 8-year-old. No, a 9-year-old, I reminded myself. He is turning nine.

He has been building his entire life. A dreamer-boy like his mama, his head is filled with worlds of possibility. You can almost see it in his eyes--the vision of towers that reach into the clouds. He knows he was born to build them.

I understand him, this tousle-headed, little architect of mine. Like him, I know I was made to build worlds. I can see them all in my mind’s eye. Like the world of Home--a haven I can picture so clearly. It’s a place where people within my realm of influence are free to live and grow into who God created them to be. A place where creativity, faith, and dreams are nurtured. A place of acceptance and love.

That Home is a physical place too. A place of beauty, filled with light and art and music. There is a table, with good food and plenty of chairs. There are comfy sofas, with pillows and blankets for snuggling. The walls are filled with bookshelves and the air is filled with conversation, born out of relationships and ideas. (And, apparently, there is a Lego city in the basement.) I’ve seen this particular world in my mind since I was 11 years old, and over the past twenty years I have labored to build it.

But I see other worlds too...people and places that do not yet exist. Others, like my son, build with bricks and concrete and steel. I build with bedtime stories and movie nights and pumpkin muffins--but I also build with words, which is why stories have always been so important to me. Words swirl unceasingly in my head—words belonging to people born of my imagination, asking for their tales to be told. More often than not, I have little time to even listen to these words, let alone preserve them with my pen. But I know these, too, are worlds that I, alone, can build.

In fact, lately it seems that rather than building all of these worlds that I envision, I have, instead, been struggling to simply maintain the little that I have already built. Or, (in my worst moments) I have even found myself chiseling away at the foundations, destroying with my own hands what had once been such a beautiful vision in my mind.

I’m not sure whether it is the reality of my son turning nine, or me settling into my forties that has made me recognize how quickly the time is passing and the brevity of the time that is remaining. But the time of his living in that world of Home that I want to build for him is already halfway over. The short story of my life as a mother with children under my wing is nearly at its midpoint, as is the story of my very own life (as I breathe a quick prayer for God’s grace and many years).

I have precious little time to build that which will last.

It is this truth that I have pondered prayerfully over the past several months, and it is this truth that I keep in my mind as I announce to you, my dear book-loving friends, that I will be stepping away from Storyformed as a regular contributor for the next season. This is not a decision that came easily for me. I have wrestled with it for months, knowing that this ministry is so important, and the work here matters immensely. It has been the greatest privilege to be able to share with you all of the worlds I have discovered and loved through stories over the past fourteen months. But I know that, in this coming season, I want to be intentional about stewarding my time in such a way that I am building only what God had called me alone to build, regardless of how wonderfully good other things may be. Most importantly, that includes the Home that I described, where I am most urgently teaching my precious sons how to use their own giftings to do their part in constructing the Kingdom here on earth. It still includes lots of stories, of course, but less podcasting and more dinnertime discussions. Less reading for the questions asked on the Facebook page and more reading for the questions in my six-year-old’s precious heart. I hope it still includes writing, though perhaps it will be fewer reviews of stories already published and more whispers of stories yet untold. (Though that vision may still be a castle in the clouds for some time to come. We shall see!)

I want you to know how grateful I am to be a part of the Storyformed community and Whole Heart Ministries. It has been such a blessing to be able to share some of my words and my heart with you. And I do hope to pop in on the blog or the podcast every once in a while!  I believe so strongly in the work that we are doing here and, as I am stewarding my time with eternity in mind, I know that the labors on this blog and the podcast are those that are, indeed, lasting. I am grateful to Holly, Sally, Clay, and the rest of the Storyformed team for allowing me the privilege and the blessing of building alongside them.

Thank you all so much for inviting me into your homes and your lives every other week over the past year. It has been a privilege and an honor to share this chapter of my story with you all. But I see worlds in my mind--the world of my Home with stories yet to be lived and other worlds with stories yet to be told. And I, alone, can build them. And so, with this goodbye, I lay a stone.

God’s blessings to you all, my friends.

The Discipling Mama MOM 5 & New Podcast

“Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

Proverbs 22:6

This verse succinctly states the durable value of training our children as well as instructing them. Teaching our children what they should know is not complete without training them to live out what they know.

What is the difference between instruction and training? Training is the practical application of a learned truth to actual life. Training involves advising our children on the appropriate application of Scripture and giving them opportunities to  act out what they are learning. It also means taking the initiative with our children to correct their immature or sinful behavior and require them to do what is right.

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. When they are older, chances are they will tend to think and act according to those pathways they learned at home during the early years.

Training often requires that we take the time to interact with our children about their attitudes or actions—even if that sometimes means confrontation. And confrontation, I've noticed, is something that many parents avoid. I have often seen that parents are willing to buy their children many things and provide them with many experiences, but they tend to back away from conflict because it is unpleasant. But unless we take the initiative to gently and lovingly confront our children's sin and selfishness, they will not learn to be mature adults. We need to be willing to risk unpleasantness with our children in the interest of their growth in righteousness.

How will you determine the way in which your child should go? Are you willing to persevere and risk uncomfortable situations with your children as you train them in righteousness?

The Servant Leader: How a Mama Reaches Hearts MOM 4 & Podcast

"Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends."

John 15:13

 Today, I had the pleasure of meeting with one of my sweet young mama friends. With a baby in hand, and three other young ones, we spoke of how much she loves her little ones. And we spoke of the overwhelming feelings that often accompany her days--one child wants this, another fusses, then something is spilled and the baby wants to nurse again. And on and on and on. 

In this chapter, I will discuss why we have to understand and embrace serving others, (including our children), as just a part of life or we will always be unhappy and feel used. Yet, as I told my friend, all mamas regularly need to find and or cultivate someone to help, someone to have fun with, someone to understand the guilt feelings that inevitably come because none of us is perfect. 

But, again, our starting point is the foundation we laid the recently in my last 3 podcasts. If Jesus commended me to love and train my children as a part of my service of worship to Him, to accept this stewardship with faith and grace, then I must follow Him and his example of how He influenced His disciples. He served, fed, encouraged, instructed and eventually died for them that they might have life. And so, I follow Him.

Yet, once I deeply understood that it was through Jesus making food and feeding his crowds over and over again, washed feet, lifted prostitutes off the dusty ground, held squirmy babies close, and gave His life, we realize that it is through our serving of our children that we will open their hearts to us. 

What does it mean to practice servant leadership as a mother? I believe it starts out with a choice. I have to choose to serve Christ by giving my time and energy to my children, husband, friends, colleagues—not just when I feel like it but when they need me. This means I often must sacrifice my own needs and desires for the purpose of giving them what they need and modeling for them the depths of Christ's love.

For me, choosing servanthood has meant sitting quietly on a child's bed, listening to her sorrows and loneliness, encouraging with generosity of spirit administering love— when I would rather have had some time to myself. It has meant being exhausted from caring for three children under six, yet still getting up in the middle of the night to soothe the pain of an ear infection—without complaining about how tired I am. It has meant making the effort to plan an outing—a picnic lunch, a drive to the mountains, a favorite book on tape—when we moved to a new area and my children felt friendless, even though I had a million other things to do or would just love time by myself instead of being the friend my children couldn't find in others and giving my time freely. It means listening to a neighbor pour out her heart and cry over difficulties when I have my family waiting for dinner. 

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.

Ministry to others almost never happens at convenient times, but it changes lives forever. 

Learning to give up our expectations keeps us from becoming angry when our expectations of life don't turn out exactly as we thought. Children have been the same from the beginning--growing, eating, making messes, crying, laughing, playing and going from infant to adult over many years and much love along the way.

How does this verse represent Jesus' life? What does it mean for mothers to lay down their lives—for you to lay down your own?

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

By Sally Clarkson

Buy on Amazon

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

By Sally Clarkson

Buy on Amazon

Get your own copy of each of these books and follow along with me in my podcast series. Lots more inside these pages that will lead your heart to peace about your role as a mother.

The Staying Power of Stories - Part 1

Hi Storyformed 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.

By Jason Pederson

Most of my childhood is spread across four states. I can still recall unpacking the
familiar boxes of fear and anxiety that the moving trucks always seemed to deliver
alongside my Legos, trading cards, and tennis shoes. Worry shaded my perspective like
the brim on one of my ball caps. New skies meant new friends and the only friendships
I had known were uprooted before they had time to mature. The ebb and flow of my
uncertain surroundings kept me wading in the shallows where I searched for sure
footing and calm waters. For me, that stability came in the form of stories.

Whether it was constancy, permanence, or companionship I was after, books satisfied
that longing in me. An unfamiliar house with its new carpet smell became the well-worn
sandstone corridors of Redwall Abbey. A neighborhood full of strangers grew into
Mirkwood Forrest with its dense boughs and heavy mists. And anyone of my new
friends could turn out to be the most important companion in the fight to take back
Narnia from the hand of the White Witch. The anxiety produced fertile ground ripe for
adventure. My imagination and confidence flourished in the soil of these stories.

As I now look over my shoulder, many years later, at the path formed by thousands of
pages, I can’t help but notice that very few have stayed rooted to the spot where I first
encountered them. The vast majority have been carried away by indifference. In reality,
the path looks more like stones scattered across a river; each requiring a leap more
daring than the last. As I continue to read, I find the river to be wider than I expected,
leaving me feeling as if I am forever suspended mid-river. What may be unnerving for
some has given me a deep appreciation for each new story that proves strong enough
to carry my momentum forward.

What is it that produces this kind of “staying power” in a story? Where does it's
strength and endurance come from? Why do some stories propel us forward while
others leave us stranded?

My 2-year-old son loves books. I find myself reading him stories far beyond his
comprehension and admittedly, his attention span, in an effort to bring him closer to the
ones with power and substance. Even just dipping our toes into one of these stories
brings back the same delightful impressions that captivated me years ago when my
young eyes first passed over the words.

I know you’ve felt it too. Story knits us all together in that way. The particular stories
themselves may differ, but the captivating threads that pull on your heart, have the
same effect on mine. I have followed the roots of the stories that have stayed with me over the years and found that they lead me again and again to the same four streams.
Each stream nourishes my life in a different way, but together they satisfy completely
the longings of my heart.

WONDER is the stream I first encounter as I am being caught up in a story. Wonder
shows up when my imagination is given a glimpse of something that resonates
with what my heart knows to be Good, True, and Beautiful. I use these terms
because, as a Christian, the landscape of my imagination is defined by God, whose
words and character beckon my heart to embrace life as He designed it to be
experienced. Regrettably, there are times when my heart is captivated by empty
promises and half-truths. But it is into that perspective that Wonder calls the loudest and
draws my gaze upward to rest upon the truest Word.

Thomas Chalmers, a nineteenth-century Scottish minister, wrote about the “expulsive
power of a new affection, saying: the only way to break the hold of an object on the soul
is to show it an object even more beautiful.” This is Wonder in its essence; to enliven
our eyes and hearts to see and savor the most beautiful.

Words strung together in a beautiful way can be original and even evoke a sense of
awe. But originality and inspiration are not strong enough to withstand the currents in
this life. The roots of resonance need to be present in a way that connects the story to
the core of what it means to be human. The best stories use wonder to help us
remember this whimsical mystery we all find ourselves wrapped up in. The point is that
life is meant to be lived and Wonder is an invitation into that adventure not an
escape from it.

G.K. Chesterton sums this up well in his book Orthodoxy where he says,

“Fairy tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water.”

Wonder has this incredible way of sweetening our senses by helping us see the amazing realities right in front of us in their fullest color.

I tear up every time I read J.R.R. Tolkien’s words from The Return of the King when the
wizard Gandalf consoles the young despairing hobbit, Pippin: “End? No, the journey
doesn’t end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-
curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it…White
shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.” These words make me
ache for glimpses of that green country every day. I’ll let you in on a secret; if you look
closely in the places where that rain-curtain seems darkest, you’ll find the fabric to be thinning a bit at the seams. In fact, the life of Jesus is one gaping tear through that heavy curtain.

Jesus told great stories, but he lived an even better one. He was a master at using
wonder to wake people up to the realities of the kingdom of heaven. One of my favorite
examples is from Luke chapter 5 when Jesus first calls Peter, James, and John. After
they had been fishing all night with nothing to show for it, Jesus tells them to cast their
nets again the next morning. They end up pulling in the biggest catch they had ever
seen. The wonder that Jesus awoke in them was not in the wealth of the catch but in
the wealth of the Master. They left a worldly treasure on the shore to follow the greatest
Heavenly Treasure. What I love most about this example is that wonder bookends the
story. The same question is on the minds of the disciples at the beginning and end of
the story: Who is this man and where will he lead us? The only difference between the
two is that the second is carried on a breeze from the White Shores beyond. The
disciples caught a glimpse and couldn’t look away.

Wonder resonates, wonder enlivens, wonder invites, and wonder reveals.

Listen as wonder whispers through the words you love. Allow the ache to burrow deep into yourheart. Dwell in the stories that reveal thin slivers in the rain-curtain. Let the sight lead
your longings to the only place they can be satisfied: the love of God bookended in
mystery and laced through with wonder.

What are your favorite books with staying power?

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.

Wholehearted Mothering in a Half-hearted Society: Mission OM 3 & Podcast

“The wise woman builds her house,
But the foolish tears it down with her own hands.”

Proverbs 14:1

As I prayed about my own life years ago, I realized that because I was a mother, I was automatically under a different set of responsibilities than my unmarried friends or my married friends who had no children. With the privilege of bearing children comes the responsibility to commit wholeheartedly to the care of those children.

As a woman who has enjoyed a career of teaching, speaking, counseling, and writing, I have had to make many difficult decisions to cut my career opportunities in order to focus on my family priorities. However, I have come to realize that embracing God's call to the duties of motherhood doesn't diminish my abilities to use my gifts, strength, and training, but fulfills a part of God's design.

Loving my children, protecting them, and building them into a godly heritage is a life's work worth far more than any money or status I might find in a career. If the mother who gave her children life is not willing to do what it takes to provide security, love, protection, instruction, and stability for her own children, then who will be willing to do so? Many will be orphans in a crowded world, longing for the security they were supposed to find in their own family.

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.

What does it mean to build your house or family? In what ways might you tear it down?

Join me today as I share a wonderful story of one way God worked amazingly through a woman who started small, by faith, to care for her children in the mountains of Brazil. The ways God blessed her faith and her hard work is amazing. My sweet friend, Sandra Maddox, joins me to tell the story.

Sandra shares on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/theartofdomesticity/ and You can find her at her beautiful blog by the same name:  The Art Of Domesticity

I am so grateful for Sandra and the ways her life has encouraged me through the years of our friendship. 

This summer, I am using these two books of mine to discuss the meaning, value, design and discipleship. I hope you will get your copy and follow along. 

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

By Sally Clarkson

Buy on Amazon

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

By Sally Clarkson

Motherhood: Beautiful by Design: Mission OM 2 & podcast

“See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.”

Colossians 2:8

Family was the first community that God designed where a child could find comfort, security, acceptance, love, purpose and the modeling of what it looked like to live devoted to Christ.  The  family was even the foundational place in which the Son of God was welcomed in which to grow from childhood to adulthood. God did not automatically create Jesus as an adult, but for His own purposes, placed Jesus into the hands of Mary, his mother and Joseph his earthly father.   When God chose to bring Jesus into the world, as a full reflection of his glory and being, he chose to bring him into a simple family with a mother and father and, eventually, siblings. It was within the context of this home that Jesus was trained and instructed and loved and nurtured, both protected and prepared for his ministry ahead.

Throughout his life, Jesus upheld and affirmed the original design of marriage and family and stressed the needs and concerns of children. In Luke 2:51- 52, for instance, we read that Jesus willingly submitted himself to the authority of his parents and that he prospered in this role of a son to parents. Even from the cross, Jesus expressed his respect for family, requesting specifically that his disciple John take care of his mother, Mary

Jesus also demonstrated a consistent concern and affection for children and considered them important to the work of God's kingdom. Again and again the Gospels show him spending time with children, talking to them or blessing them or drawing them onto his lap. He even told people directly that they needed to become like little children in order to enter into his kingdom.

Clearly, nothing in God's mind had changed between the time of the Old Testament and the New in regard to the design of the family and the centrality of children in his plan to bless and redeem the earth. I think we can assume as well that the Lord's view of children and what they mean in a family and a society is the same today.

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. 

In what ways have you been influenced by cultural expectations that conflict with God's design? What impact has this had on your family?

God of Our Fathers- A Tribute for Father's Day

This weekend it’s Father’s Day in the States and, in honor of the day, I thought I would share with you an essay I penned a few years ago--a tribute to my husband’s grandfather. Happy Father’s Day to all of our Storyformed Dads!

Southeastern Missouri.  That’s where we took our boys, all packed up, bright and early last weekend to bury my husband’s grandfather.  He had been the last of our grandparents still living--the first “Harry” of three.

Years ago he made his living as a farmer, tilling the soil that had been in his family for generations. Local school children knew him as the “Indian Man” for his love of sharing the Native American artifacts that he found in the dirt...the dirt he worked by the sweat of his brow...the dirt where my sons’ grandfather had learned to be a man and where my husband had played as a boy...the dirt that made him a living, but also made him a life.

He was a creator of puzzles and (I suspect) the originator of those engineering genes that are so dominant in my husband and my firstborn. I’m not yet sure if my youngest got his genes, but he did get his name--“Harry”--changed slightly and put in the middle, but it was still given to honor him. His joy was contagious; he always had a laughing face and smiling eyes–or (rather) eye. He lost one as a young man in an accident. Personally I could never tell which one was real.  Everything about the man seemed alive to me.

As we gathered at the church with family and friends, we shared memories of Grandpa Harry, shoring each other up with faint smiles, hugs, and condolences. The pastor spoke of his long life and the legacy that he left, and we shed tears of loss and longing. We looked through photographs and played with puzzles and had a hard time believing that the man who began by counting down the days to his 80th birthday had died three days before he turned 92.

The next day, as the boys dug in the wet, black dirt of the farm, full of decaying corn and sweat and memories, I grieved that they would never remember their great-grandfather, the farmer.  As we walked the field, passed down for generations from father to son, I lamented the fact that my husband’s sons–our children–would never know this land. Growing up three generations and half a country away, the family “homeland” could never be their home. I thought of the generations of farmers who had walked the ground beneath me, each season planting in faith and believing in what they could not yet see. I wished that my boys could reap from the land what their fathers had sown so faithfully. But we already knew the farm was to be sold. There would be no more sons to inherit it.

I looked past the shed and the grain elevator, up into the grey sky and wondered what Grandpa Harry thought as he sat beneath that sky, at night under the stars, unencumbered by city lights–vast and glorious and seemingly infinite? With nothing for miles around, how many stars could he see?  Maybe as many as another Patriarch saw, thousands of years ago?

“[God] took [Abram] outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars, if indeed you can count them.’ Then He said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.” Genesis 15:5

As I kicked an old corn cob on the ground, I remembered the story.  Although Abraham and his descendants were given a Land, God’s promise to him was much bigger than that.  God intended for Abraham to leave a much greater inheritance than a physical place. He was to be the spiritual father of a number too great to count.  His legacy was not land, but faith. And one of the stars that Abraham saw that night--one of his spiritual descendents--was Grandpa Harry.

I smiled at the boys pulling at the tall grass and wildflowers and watched my youngest fist dirt with his chubby hands.  I recalled how we had given him his great-grandfather’s name because of his profound influence on my husband’s spiritual life.  Like Abraham, Grandpa Harry’s legacy was faith. His life was lived, not for the farm, but for the Creator of the farm.  More than the “Indian Man” or the “Puzzle Man,” he was known to all who knew and loved him as a follower of Jesus Christ.  He overflowed with an infectious joy because he was full of the joy of the Lord, a Lord he lived for and encouraged my husband to follow.  I watched as my husband held the hand of our eldest and walked out of the old grey shed, and I caught my breath with a realization:

My husband–he was a living, breathing inheritance.

I bent down for the last time and ran my fingers through the dirt.  What Grandpa Harry had left my children was infinitely more valuable than any acreage could ever be.  He lived a life devoted to a Savior and preached a Gospel that changed the life of my husband…and now my husband was pouring that same truth into the hearts of our children…a spiritual legacy.

“And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.” Hebrews 11:12

As we drove away, I thanked God for Grandpa Harry and I prayed that, because of his faithfulness–and my husband’s–that my children would be faithful followers of Jesus Christ too…and their grandchildren after that.  And I added (daringly), that through the lives of my husband and children, Grandpa Harry’s spiritual descendants would be so numerous that, like Abraham’s, they could not easily be counted.

That, indeed, would be the old farmer’s greatest harvest.

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.

What Value Does God Place on Children & A new Podcast Series

I believe every child has a profound need: to be loved, cherished, and cared for by a mother who loves them.  And it's not just a need, but an important part of God's design for shaping human beings to become healthy, strong, resilient. 

For thousands of years the view of motherhood described in the Bible was generally respected in cultures around the world. Motherhood was seen as a noble and important calling. Women considered themselves blessed to bear many children, and it was considered normal and good for home and family to be the central focus of a woman's life. 

By the time I became a mother, however, the American culture had dramatically redefined the role and value of motherhood, and the biblical model of motherhood no longer drove the imagination of culture. Somehow, over the course of the last century, traditional motherhood had become a lifestyle option--and for many, a lesser option--rather than a divine calling.

One confidant told me, 'The most important thing you can do with your life is invest it in your children. Their lives are more important than building a career!' And what she said certainly seemed to ring true in my spirit."

But other advisors assured me that I could handle the challenge of balancing children with career--after all, most of the mothers I knew were doing just that. One woman, an older missionary, even advised, "Don't let your children control your life! You've got lots of gifts and messages and a ministry to share with the women of the world! It would be a waste of your time and experience to focus too much on your children and lose your ministry! Don't have more children. It will take up too much time.”

I found that I was confused by the differing voices, the multiple opinions of what the role would mean for me. But it was in studying scripture and seeking God that I found peace and freedom to become the mother I needed to be for my own family. 

~from  The Mission of Motherhood, Chapter One

This summer, I will be hosting a podcast series on some of the issues that confront mothers today, while using my book, The Mission of Motherhood, as a basis of some of the discussion.

At almost 65, and through many seasons of life,

I see now even more than ever that the relationship between a mother and child often determine the emotional health, mental strength, confidence, faith and vision of the child when he or she becomes an adult. 

I have no desire to argue philosophy, I just want to encourage. At this point, I am not going to change my opinion but just want to share wisdom I have picked up along the way. Get your own copy and join me in this series.

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 women 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 places on babies and children, we must also regard children with the same high regard as He would direct us to do. 

I may surprise you with some of the answers I will give. Again, in motherhood as in other areas of life, we all want the black and white answers, the formula, "Just tell me what to do." But we need to be careful of just repeating what others have said about any issue and learn to seek God, scripture and try by faith to reflect truth within the wide boundaries He allows for us to exercise wisdom, skill and faith according to our own stories. I hope you will join me. 

These are the two books I will be using this summer in my podcasts. The first 6 weeks, Mission and the second 5 weeks, Ministry. Get your own copy or give one to a friend and build your own community of friends who are cultivating the same values. Hope they encourage.

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

By Sally Clarkson

Buy on Amazon

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

By Sally Clarkson

Buy on Amazon

How to be Joyful When Life Overwhelms & A Podcast

 

"The joy-filled life is not found by diminishing 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. To celebrate life is simply a choice."

-Seasons of a Mother's Heart

I returned home from England this summer in anticipation of my children coming home. Home is our sanctuary, the place we all gather in and find peace, friendship, comfort, a place to belong. I get so very excited to have them with me because of course, they are my favorites. I can hardly wait.

When my adult children come back home to visit me, the excitement and anticipation ignites me to tidy the house, set out lovely flowers, light candles, and leave them chocolates and goodies all around, prepare their favorite meals. I do this so that they can feel welcome, experience my love for them, and feel the peace and joy that comes with home.

However, can you imagine how I would feel if I went to all of that effort to make things beautiful and love them extravagantly, only to watch them walk in, sit on their phones and computers all day, have bad attitudes, and tell me that they're just "too busy" or "too stressed" to enjoy it or to spend time with me? If in total self-absorption, they were not aware of the place that had been prepared for them, they would not feel the blessing of the love and grace that was given.

How must our loving God feel when we don't choose to celebrate this life He has given us to subdue? We see His fingerprints through the people we love, the children we have dancing through our homes. The sunrise and stars above, the seasons of flowers, snow, fall color. God is available, prepares for us each day, wants to shower us with His love, grace, compassion, wisdom, but often we are too busy or self-centered to notice Him and to "be" with Him.

Often times, our own expectations of how we thought life would be, get in the way of us being able to grab onto the joy and abundant life that God has for each of us. Finding peace and joy does not mean giving up on our ideals, but in seeking the balance, the ebb and flow, that is life. 

Joy won't always feel as second nature as taking a breath, but with every breath, how can you choose joy? 

It is a conscious, daily effort that can transform your life if you allow it to. Joy is a choice to see Him in the midst of daily moments, to call upon His spirit's presence and strength at each turn, each curve in the road. Joy comes from being assured we are not alone in the dark places and that He is light and will shine His light in each place.

Take a moment today to have a quiet time and bible study, reading over these verses and meditating on them, as well as the questions below.

"A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones." -Proverbs 17:22

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." -Romans 15:13

"Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy." -James 1:2

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?

Today, I am speaking about this topic on my podcast. I am reading a small portion of my book, Dancing With My Father,  which I wrote when I was trying to figure out how to be joyful in a disappointing world. I hope you will enjoy it and be encouraged by it. 

Dancing with My Father: How God Leads Us into a Life of Grace and Joy

By Sally Clarkson