The way you choose to shape your children's souls will also shape yours.
Sally Clarkson
Yesterday, I carried all the necessary Christmas boxes full of decorations from our basement and began to open each lid with such fond memories. Choosing my favorite Christmas music on my iphone, I connected it to my little speaker and began to decorate my little heart out. Just as I was putting the final touch on one of my wreaths, Amy Grant began to sing in her dusty alto voice, "I'll be home for Christmas!" and the tears in my eyes started flowing.
Thirty-six years of married life, 33 of motherhood means I have decorated the same way, only in locations all over the world, in small flats (apartments), a tiny cottage, a ranch house, a mountain house and an Austrian bungalow and a rambling traditional American home with a basement. Yet, each place held the spirit of Christ coming into our home through me, the self-appointed conductor of beauty, life and light.
I love Christmas. It reflects our God-given desire to celebrate life, to be generous, to have meaning, to share love, to give gifts. And we get to be the hosts of His beauty to those we love.
Through some of the years, I felt the burden of the task keenly and could barely put one foot in front of another. Yet, now, these 36 years later, it is a legacy of life that has sown our hearts so much closer together.
Today, in the podcast,
Psalm 25:5
Lead me in Your truth and teach me,
For You are the God of my salvation;
For You I wait all the day.
Isaiah 30: 18
Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you,
And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
How blessed are all those who long for Him.
The Value of Learning to Wait--practicing patience takes time and courage but it produces the deepest most heart gratifying fulfillment.
1. I talk a legacy of beauty and how it passes to the future generations. What we practice grows deep into the lives of the next generation.
2. Looking at the biblical subject of waiting and how it is a process that builds the things we invest in into the story we leave.
3. Learning to stand back and get the long view of life, and working with the end in mind and believing by faith that you are building something that will matter.
4. Cultivating a Community of Great Souls--Life with Sally membership is a way to have discipleship and spiritual mentoring online as well as leadership training.
Mark your calendars and register later today, (Monday), for my online Christmas Tea! I thought it would be so much fun to have an evening together with some of you who are my sweet friends online. I used to do a Christmas tea every year for those in my Bible study. So now I can do it with all of you kindred spirits online. Grab tea, hot chocolate, cider and join me for an evening of celebration.
The evening will include:
A story of a cold evening in Austria and how some cookies became my favorites with the recipe.
A look at some of my favorite decorations and why I have picked them.
A favorite children's book of mine, reading it just for you.
An advent devotion from my heart to yours.
Some stories from our own Christmases over the years.
And wishes of His love, light and grace from my home to yours.
If you are a member of my course, Cultivating Life with Sally, it is free and you will receive a registration code for the webcast live in your email just as you receive our course each month.
If you are not a member, you may register for this one night only for $1O.
We plan to do these types of evenings for all of our membership subscribers several times a year and each time it will be free for them. So, Christmas is a good time to sign up for the yearly membership before we go up in price in January or February. Hope you can make it. We shall have fun. This would be a great Christmas gift--a yearly subscription will be locked in for the price even if we go up in price in a couple of months.
