Making A Difference In Eternity

“Christian homeschooling should not be only about our children getting good test scores, going to college, and getting a job or career. Those are the temporal, not eternal, goals. If we allow our spirit to be distracted by this world, we will miss the opportunity to fill heaven with righteous generations.

Homeschooling is only a small part of the much bigger picture in which God wants us to see ourselves and our children. So much of what we do is temporal and passing, but what we are doing with our children is eternal—we are creating a link in a chain of godly families that will become, by God’s grace, a long, strong chain representing many generations of righteousness.”

Read more about this in Educating the Wholehearted Child.

Educating the Wholehearted Child
By Clarkson, Clay, Clarkson, Sally
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Tea Time Tuesday: Leave a Legacy of Love

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“We love because He first loved us.” - 1 John 4:19

If I could point to one thing that truly had an impact in my children, it was giving them a foundation of unconditional love. Generous, overwhelming, words of affirmation, an expectation of forgiveness, acts of service, and many more gestures of love is what opened our children's hearts to listen to our messages about God. A heritage of being loved and cherished is profoundly important in the life of any human being.

Focusing on love as the lens through which I looked at every person who came my way gave me the understanding of how Jesus lived His life. Love is the oxygen needed in our hearts to be healthy.

Surrounded by people who care for their needs, commit to cherishing them from birth to death, wrapping them in the bonds of unconditional love is a legacy that will give them strength, hope and vision through the rest of their lives.

Love is giving of ourselves to the benefit and values of others God has placed in our lives. When we love and touch it predisposes our children to remember the caresses and affection of love and will cause them to be more prone to believe in the love of God when they are teens and we tell them God loves them.

When children are deprived of love as an infant, consequences to their health, emotional stability, understanding and perception of God, ability to hold relationships and even intelligence is effected the rest of their lives.

God created all of us with a deep need to be loved, and a capacity to love generously.

Love done well is expressed in the messy details of life.

Loving them as they are, appreciating the personality that God has given them, restoring them to generous love when they have failed, pouring out love even when they were at arm's length, Sometimes many times a day, became the fuel for building a fire in their hearts to want to love God.

God's word shows the way. God is love.

“Greater love has no one than this than a man lay down his life for his friend.” (John 15:13)

The two greatest commandments are to love God and to love others.

“Love one another and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2)

Has anyone ever loved you too much? Be a vessel of love today.

More on today’s podcast about this and my book, Well Lived.

The Daily Rhythms Of Your Life

Clay and I agree that most of our educational influence came from how we scheduled life and gave it a shape through our rhythms, routines, and rituals. What we practiced every day as a way of life probably influenced our children and their ultimate life messages more than the resources we provided.

A home filled with meaningful rhythms gives foundation to life messages and values. We knew we needed some kind of routine to give order and stability to our ideals. What we practiced every day, all the time, as a routine and expected exercise established deeply held values that shaped our family culture, our sense of “We are the Clarksons. This is what we do. This is how we live.”

Among our daily rhythms were morning devotions, read-aloud time, play and pretend, quiet hour, tea time, 5 o'clock cleanup, dinnertime discipleship, and bedtime blessings.

Read more about this in Awaking Wonder.

What I Hope My Children Remember

Christ's sacrifice on the cross is a clear picture of what it means to be a sympathetic mother. In the same way that Jesus gave up his rights to die for me, I need to give up my rights to serve my children. I need to nail my personal agenda to the cross so I can really see what my children need at any point in my day. I need to give up my tendency to want to "lord it over" them just to control them so I can accomplish my own desires. I need to humble myself so I can reach into my children's hearts without bumping into my own selfish needs and expectations.

Then maybe I can be a servant to them with a heart that can sympathize with them as children. When I enter their world, only then can I truly and effectively minister to them as children.

We forget so many details about our growing-up years. But we remember the people and how they related to us. And for those who loved us and understood us when we were immature children, I think we reserve a special place for them in our hearts.

Read more about this in Seasons of a Mother’s Heart.

Tea Time Tuesday: Anchors for Marriage

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Marriage! There is no one right way. Cultivating love varies with each couple, personalities differ, stories are unique. Yet grace is needed for each of us.

Forty-three years ago, we stood in front of family and friends, made vows before God to love, honor, and cherish one another, “till death do us part.” Graces and sweet memories fill our hearts. We could not have fathomed what the years would hold, how God would use our marriage in our world. Building the legacy of Clarkson, our feasts, faith, music, celebrating life together, making memories, books written, conferences held, cherishing holidays, cultivating our story—there are soooo many memories over the pathways of our marriage.

In some ways, now is our best time. Our partnership before God has endured. Our familiarity with one another’s ways, the myriad years we shared, has given us a precious treasure I could not have understood when we began.

Yet, as with every couple, there were so many challenging seasons to live through. Building a legacy of faith and faithfulness through 24 moves (9 internationally), sharing together births of four children (3 miscarriages), of living through the seasons of sleepless, sick babies, demanding toddlerhood, adventuresome pre-school, golden elementary years, hormonal, push-back teen years, straining into young adulthood seasons, and adults and grand babies.

Storms and winds of darkness swept through our lives many times. Thousands of meals, messes to clean up, illnesses, car wrecks, difficulties galore, hospitalizations, feeling isolated and lonely, mentally ill children, countless “dark nights of the soul.”

Stages of life drained: parenting the special needs of our kids, navigating grief, financial difficulties, midlife doubts, temptation to compare, being petty, anger, exhaustion, disappointment, giving up hope. Life takes its toll.

We grew from immaturity and selfishness toward humility, grace, selflessness, admitting flaws, straining to understand how to love and forgive.

But there had to be anchors that held us fast in storms.

Join me today as I speak of these anchors on my podcast from my book Well Lived: Cultivating Gratitude & Grace.

You Are Changing Eternity

As I look back over my ­decades of mothering, I can remember so many times in which I was by myself in my bedroom, pouring my heart out to the Lord — searching for strength, asking for wisdom as life presented me with so many dilemmas I did not know how to handle. I begged Him to meet with me and to hear my cries.

I would leave my room not always changed in my emotions, but resolved in my heart to move in the direction of faith. Sometimes, I felt ­invisible — did He see me? Did my prayers matter? Did my obedience make a difference? Did my ­day-in, ­day-out choices of faithfully serving and cultivating life in my home matter? Every mama, I think, has these questions.

God has plans to bring light and beauty to the whole world, and He delights in using very normal people like you and like me to do it. Perhaps a word from you will spark a chain reaction that will have implications throughout the world as one person shares what you have shared with them, or as you share a book or send a note or give words of life and love. Perhaps one of your children will change history and affect thousands or millions because of your faithfulness today. Your labor is not in vain.

Read more about this in Mom Heart Moments.

Build Your House For Eternity

My children have all grown far beyond my expectations. That resulted out of their own personal direction and choice. But I learned more clearly that children are the most valuable resource of any country in all of history, and their capacity to excel, to create, to accomplish is vast because they were endowed with amazing capacity in their hearts, souls, and minds.

How they are shaped determines what they will become and what our own history will become. Little human beings require attention, nurture, love, and focused time in order to develop their capacity to become those who are strong, emotionally healthy, intellectually astute, and vibrant of spirit.

When you make your home a place of welcome, refuge, fun, comfort, and delight, you will find the work inside its walls will hold influence for a lifetime. You will be remembered as the wise woman who built her house for eternity.

Read more about this in Awaking Wonder.

Tea Time Tuesday: We All Need a Little Hospitality

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This morning I am sitting sipping in my Colorado home, praying for you, my friends. I was remembering a stretching da today and it set me to praying for you.

Often, as we pour out our lives, serve meals, train and instruct little souls, bring order to our homes again and again, we do not even know just how needy we are, just how much we need to soak up some unexpected love, words of affirmation, and to be honored by a listening ear ready to give encouragement.

Crawling out of bed one morning, I was already weary and in deep need of my morning brew. As I walked from my bedroom to the kitchen, tension grew. Clay was concerned about our finances. Pressure!

One of my teens was teary-eyed about a circumstance with a friend. More pressure. The other teen was grumpy. My third child was particularly loud, chasing the dog. My little one kept tapping on my leg to ask me to sit with her in her closet to play "beanie babies." This, before I had my first sip. I was spent to my toes. A little cloud began forming around my heart. I wondered if anything I did mattered. Many times I felt discouraged along the way. Perhaps you do, too.

That day, a friend invited me to her house for a cup of tea. She said, "Come in and sit for a while and let's be friends." They were the best words I had heard in months. I entered her home where candles lit, music was playing softly, a small cinnamon bun and a cup of tea waiting for me. I didn't know how much I needed kindness and sympathy. It was a soothing balm to my sore heart. After an hour of pouring out my stress and being loved back, hope slowly filled my heart. She saved my emotional life that day and helped me to keep going. And did so many times over years.

Teatime Discipleship, my phrase for personal, generous hospitality, is about the serving and cherishing one friend offers another. We link arms, to say, "I am here for you" in a world that is draining and isolating.

This week, could you offer "just one cup" to someone in need of encouragement and in doing so, you have done it unto Jesus.

Today on my podcast, At Home with Sally, I share one of my favorite stories from my book, Well Lived. Enjoy.

Embracing Your Children With Unconditional Love

Parenting is challenging, mysterious, and exhausting at times. Often, I would wonder, Am I failing my children? I knew, even as a young mom, that multiple of my children were “different” kids, outside the box of normal behavior and development.

I eventually realized that I would need to embrace the mystery of my children and to learn to love them in their complexity. Instead of trying to fix them, over time, I learned to read their moods and be patient with them.

There are no perfect children or perfect parents. There is only the invitation to embrace a life of walking with open hands and a willingness to grow a bit more every day, in spite of setbacks. That is where we encounter God’s grace at work in the most complicated moments of our lives, taking our complexities and weaving them into something beautiful.

Read more about this in Uniquely You.

Making Followers Of Jesus

Before He departed to be with the Father, Jesus gave us one command: "Make disciples!" (Matthew 28:19). We're charged with making followers of Jesus.

The moments you share with your children will pour the beauty of God's design and purpose into their hearts. It was profoundly important for my children, especially as they began their journey into adulthood to recognize the part we each have to play in God's story. This was something I longed for my children to understand — that they are a treasure in His eyes, they are the art of His creative hand, and they have a purpose to live out.

Simply put, this is the influence and importance of our role as mothers.

Read more about this in Teatime Discipleship For Mothers And Daughters