From the Archives: Awaking Wonder: Making Your Home a Place of Resources

Episode #451 (originally aired July 22, 2020; any giveaways, launches, groups, or meetups mentioned are no longer active)

Click here to play the episode.

“Make it a goal to give your child an environment that piques their curiosity in people, ideas, stories. Give them opportunities to explore, learn, and create driven by their own interest and delight.”

Sally Clarkson, Awaking Wonder

Creating an environment that inspires wonder in your children is at the heart of education. My team and I want to equip you with beautiful resources to make the process a little easier for you. When you join me at Life with Sally, you will receive monthly Awaking Wonder Units delivered to your inbox. You also have access to the Awaking Wonder at Home Video Series (12 videos with my family and me!) And I know it can be difficult in the midst of math lessons and meal prepping to plan studies of the great artists, composers, and authors, so we have prepared printable studies along with a podcast-like audio discussion that you can listen to with your children.

Here is a sampling of the Composer Studies:

Each Artist and Author Study also has links for coordinating resources.


“Mom, I’m bored. There’s nothing to do!”

Oh how I dreaded this statement. Yet, this pressure helped lead me to understand that the more interesting I made my home, the less my children would need me to entertain them. Clay and I spent many a time together figuring out how to create places of art and drawing, places to build and leave up lego creations, a box of dress up clothes and a myriad of other items that our children could use to build on their own creative play that led to a more robust imagination and more knowledge.

I can’t wait to share this podcast that I recorded with my leaders who have so wonderfully created our membership, https://lifewithsally.com. We have put together a community where fun traditions, spiritual teaching, ideas, books, recipes, discipleship takes place all the time. We created it to be a resource for all of you who want ideas to keep these ideals going. It is our hope that our membership will help Awaken Your Wonder and know better how to build your own home into a place that exudes life, fun, education, discipleship.

Last week I talked with my friends about getting started and establishing foundations for awaking wonder. We are back this week to discuss resources for making your home a place to awaken wonder in your children. All parents are educators regardless of whether they choose public school, private school, or homeschooling and our homes can be a place of inspiration, imagination, and learning. With a bit of planning and intentionality, you can create a lifegiving home where your children can explore together and develop an appetite for wonder. When my children were younger we had baskets of books, bins of dress up clothes, and briefcases for each child filled with coloring books, stickers, and other trinkets for car trips. Creating spaces where you children can explore will awaken their minds and hearts.

In today’s podcast we discuss some specific ways to make these areas of exploration a reality. Where do I create these spaces? How? Will it cost me too much money? We spend time discussing how to make new, interesting, and engaging activities while mostly using what you have on hand already. What can you utilize in a new way? What art supplies can you pull out to be more accessible? Are your children ready to learn a new game? Learning and growing doesn’t have to be while seated at a desk, it can happen all along the way.

Books Referenced in this Podcast:

 

More Resources:

Life with Sally

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Play Episode #451

Rich Souls Do Not Exist By Accident

Pouring into your child requires a commitment to what you most want child to hide inside their heart and soul and how you can encourage that to happen. If you pause with concern you won't do this right, let me assure you that you will do it right because you're embarking on a new journey with a desire to show your child the love of Jesus. Perfection is not a requirement.

There are many treasures to be found and shared and shared again as you and your child become a part of this legacy circle of fellowship and discipleship. It will change your relationship, outlook, understanding of God, and your purpose. And, I do believe, it will change the world.

Read more about this in Teatime Discipleship For Mothers And Daughters.

From the Archives: Awaking Wonder: The Secret to Loving Children Well

The Secret to Loving Children Well

Episode #467 (originally aired August 24, 2020; any giveaways, launches, groups, or meetups mentioned are no longer active)

Click here to play the episode.

Awaking Wonder in our children is a practice that is very important to me. Whether your children are in public, private, or home school, you are teaching them and have opportunities to awaken wonder in their heart and mind. You may be wondering what that looks like practically. In my membership, Life with Sally, we share monthly Awaking Wonder units. From observing and studying nature to reading about history, our team puts together beautiful studies each month for our members. There is a PDF page summary that you can print and keep in a binder to reference, and there are hands on activites along with numerous book resources linked for you to check out from your local library for children and mamas too.

Here is an example of a recent unit (click image for printable PDF):

Another special resource available is the Awaking Wonder at HomeVideo Series. We have heard from our members that these are one of their favorite resources! There are twelve videos that include my adult children and a more in depth discussion of what it means to awake wonder.

I learned through many years of mothering and homeschooling that my children need to feel the freedom to live into the possibilities of all that they were created to do. They are not mine to hold on to—they are loaned to me, but they are now living into His purposes, His life for them, His calling.

“People asked me what our secrets were for influencing our children.

This is the secret: Loving them well, generously, all the time, in every situation.”

Being loved specifically and intentionally adds to our physical well- being, our spiritual equilibrium, our emotional health, but also our mental strength and health.

Probably the most important influence of my whole life in learning to interact in a healthy way with all people, including children, came from pondering Jesus and the way He embodied life-giving influence.

The attitude with which we come to our children will affect much of their response to us as teachers.

We can all see that humans are not thriving, in general. Despair, depression, loneliness, isolation, and rising suicide rates are common plights. But we must see that unless we return to a more humane and personal way of investing our lives, people will continue to grow more troubled, more impersonal, more distant.

To create a life where the hours and moments can be filled in satisfying interaction means that we must choose to fill the time our children could be engaged with machines or other entertainment with planned personal time that satisfies to the depths of their hearts, minds, and souls.

All of us need a place where our roots can grow deep and where we are a part of a like-minded community and have a safe refuge from the storms of life. Home can also give wings to dreams, nurturing possibilities of who we might become.

All homes will have a personality of their own, but part of loving well is planning the life and shaping the character that will define the unique attributes of the family who dwells there.

When a parent makes it a habit to be affectionate to a child in a way that accompanies their personality needs, there is an automatic connection. … affection is a sure sign of closeness and preference that often softens the instruction of a parent to a child.

As we evaluate how to love our children and students well, we must ask ourselves, ‘Do they believe and feel I have their best interests in mind, or do they think I have my own agenda for them?’ ‘Do they understand that even though they struggle, I am here to help them succeed?’ ‘Is their heart open to my instruction, or is there a wedge of resistance that I need to figure out and address?’

—Sally Clarkson, “Awaking Wonder: Opening Your Child's Heart to the Beauty of Learning”

Play Episode #467

Home Is Your Own Small, Lifegiving World

This has been one of my greatest delights. Home can be one of the most deeply transformative places in the world, a refuge where lives are touched, hearts are sharped, and God is known.

Home should be a beautiful place filled with God’s grace — where people are loved without expectation, the table is enjoyed with all its God-given delights, memories are made because people want to remember, and the sacred sense of welcome and belonging is offered to each person who enters.

Read more about this in 10 Gifts of Heart.

Tea Time Tuesday: Pondering, Reflecting, Praying

Click here to play today’s mini podcast episode.

Yesterday, Clay and I celebrated our 45th anniversary here, in the comfort of familiarity and peace in a mountain town we have visited for almost 30 years. We find rest, peace, beauty. We shared an exquisite dinner together. We ended with off with sweet memories shared and amazement at what the Lord had generously given us over the years. It has been such a privilege to be able to speak, write, podcast and encourage women and families all over the world.

But as we talked about our future, we wanted to plan and reflect on how we might best serve our community of precious friends and followers. I am trying to figure out how to slow down and cut back so that I can have more free time and personal time with friends and family. So for the next few weeks, I will be traveling, speaking and visiting family, but I am taking a little break on my regular podcast schedule.

My assistants and I have chosen special, old podcast episodes to share with you so that I can take a break from that for a few weeks. After all these years of sharing my life and encouragement with you, there are some episodes that have particularly resonated with my listeners and that have had the most listens. I am looking forward to sharing these episodes with you over the next few weeks.

My podcast is like opening the door of my home and welcoming you in. Oh how I would love to spend time with each of you over a cup of tea. My heart to encourage and equip women, mothers, and families led me to create my membership site, Life with Sally, a treasure trove of resources for you! While my podcast is like opening the door of my home, Life with Sally is like spending time with you in each of the rooms of my home.

We may sit in my library with a cup of tea and discuss education, awaking wonder with your children through books, exploring nature, and reading aloud. Then we may go to my kitchen and prepare some of my favorite meals together and discuss the importance of creating a lifegiving table rich with words, meaningful conversations, and rhythms of feasting.

We may then spend time in my living room, sharing a Bible study together, discussing how to create a lifegiving home, listening to the great composers, or looking at beautiful works of art.

All of these discussions and more are a part of the resources available at Life with Sally. As I share some of your favorite episodes from the archives in the coming weeks, the blog post/show notes for that episode will include samples of how you can dig deeper and receive more encouragement and resources at Life with Sally. I hope you will join me there!

My posts will be up just the same. I get so many notes from all of you and it means so much. Please pray for me that I can figure out how to simplify life and pull back on some areas so that I can spend my time strategically with those in my world.

Do you require times of reflection? Please pray for us as we evaluate and dream about projects and books, as well as carving out more personal time with family and friends. I would love your feedback.

Raising Children Has Been The Most Fulfilling Work I Have Ever Pursued

As a mother who has raised four children from birth into adulthood, I can affirm that engaging my life and faith in the lives of my children has been the most fulfilling and fruitful work I have ever pursued.

My investment in my children was about more than all the routine work of motherhood, and even more than my spiritual influence as a discipler. In the bigger picture of my life at home, I was civilizing my children, and shaping their hearts and lives. I was cooperating with God to mold them into well-rounded adults.

Each mom has a different puzzle, but she has to keep what is a priority to God at the center of her decisions in life, and when she seeks the heart of God, her legacy will be one of faith and faithfulness and will have implications for eternity.

What Will You Fill Your Home With Today?

Home is so much more than a shelter where we simply eat, sleep, and gather. It is a place of refuge, a safe haven for our children that is welcoming and beautiful.

I truly believe that the home we cultivate as mothers is the restorative training ground for our children — a place where they can be discipled and filled with love and care prior to growing up and heading to battle.

God has entrusted you with an incredible responsibility as the "home maker." What will you fill your home with today?

Read more about this in The Lifegiving Home.

Tea Time Tuesday: Sometimes My Faith is Fragile

Sometimes my faith is fragile. I have spent a greater part of my adult life reading or studying scripture as a way of life. Sometimes I feel like I am walking in darkness or find fear, discouragement influencing my sense of faith in Jesus. I love Him always, but sometimes, He feels far away. Then I live into His gentleness, His humility toward me, His child, His promise to never leave me or forsake me. As psalms, we see that dark nights of the soul are a part of a faith journey with our precious shepherd in this broken world.

That is when I need to gently reach for His hand and heart, walk slowly through each season with His kindness, compassion leading me.

Some years ago, I met Elizabeth Santelmann online as we shared podcasts. A kindred spirit, indeed. She sent me a message when I was living in Oxford. She was going to be in town on the night I held my Oxford Bible studies. We all brought food to share, squeezed around my small dining area, squished the chairs as close as possible, crowding in 18 women to my tiny space. we shared a lovely, special memory together in my tiny home in Oxford.

From that time, I better understood the heart of Elizabeth. Such a love of the Bible, gentle sympathy, compassion for each woman attending, life-giving encouraging words.

Now she has filled a wonderful book with words of guidance, truth, compassion and all encompassed in the light of Jesus’s words—the Bible. This timely book invites weary women to rediscover closeness with God through simple, grace-filled spiritual practices. I know you will love it.

You can find all things Elizabeth on IG @sunshineinmynest — I know you will be refreshed by a gentle, inspiring teacher who will walk beside you and make the beauty of Christ come to life. Be sure to listen to my podcast today where you will be encouraged by my conversation with Elizabeth.

Be sure to sign up to my membership, Life with Sally, for a new virtual teatime livestream next week, Tuesday, September 1st, and a Mom Heart Meetup in Nashville for all who are members. Can’t wait to meet you face to face. More details for both meetups on my membership. Would love for you to join us.

The Fingerprints Of God Are All Over Your Life

When we read of Abraham's life, it is said, "By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he left, not knowing where he was going." (Hebrews 11:8)

This has been true of my own life: following God over many years, often not knowing where my obedience would require me to go or the demands it would place on my life.

Many times I was led to countercultural decisions. Yet I counted on the fact that if I followed hard after God, my life would be filled with meaning. I had faith in His leading to work in me and shape me to become more like Christ and to mature more, and that He would companion me each and every step.

Read more about this in Well Lived.