**used blog 10/8/2020) Taking time to breathe in Fall!

Chill wind is blowing outside my door and the aspen leaves are dancing in the glory of golden spangles. Life has been so very busy that I have hardly had time to take in the beauty, changing color and to breathe in this lovely fall weather.

So, today, I am putting aside duty and deadlines to sit and sip hot cider, to sit in my "cozy" chair and read a story and to celebrate a fall tea time with my sweet daughter, Sarah.

To not recognize this day and the beauty He has crafted for my soul is to not worship and be grateful and to notice His masterpieces.

And so today, I take time to breathe in the beauty, that I may adequately turn my heart of thanksgiving to Him who took the time to make it for my comfort.

What for tea time?

Knobby Apple Cake  or

Squirrel Nutkin Cake, as Joy renamed it!

2 cups sugar (I use the organic brown Turbanado, the small grind)

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup oil

2 eggs

2 cups flour (1/2 cup extra for high altitude) (I use half freshly ground wheat, and sometimes a little oat and rice ground together and mixed together)

2 tsp. soda

1/2 tsp. cloves

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. nutmeg

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp vanilla

4 cups grated apples

1 cup chopped nuts (I add them to the top of those who want them.)Cream butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Sift dry ingredients together and add into wet ingredients, mixing thoroughly. Fold in apples and nuts, bake in greased floured bundt pan for 40-45 minutes at 350.

Drizzle powered sugar glaze over cooled cake and serve.Glaze:

2 cups powdered sugar

dash salt

warm water to thin

2 t. melted butter

1/2 tsp. vanilla Mix glaze ingredients, add water as needed to thin, add more sugar if too thin. Drizzle over cake.Tastes best when warm or hot! A sprinkle of nuts on top with a drizzle of homemade caramel sauce is also delectable! Enjoy!

**used blog 10/1/2020) The Gift of Inspiration

 Part of our purpose as moms is to inspire our children.

"As mothers and fathers, it is so easy to get distracted by the details of our lives. We have so much to do! We must feed our children and take care of their health. We must oversee their education and their training to make sure they will be able to take care of themselves and live in a civilized society. We train them in righteousness so they may understand how God wants them to live. We try to relate to them in mature ways and help them learn to have healthy relationships.

Yet often, I think, we get lost in these mulitudinous tasks that rule our lives, and we lose sight of the underlying purpose behind all those tasks, which is to prepare our children to go into the world and make disciples for our Lord.

Each of our children has been given a specific personality and a particular set of circumstances that will give shape to God's purposes for his or her life. It is our privilege and responsibility as parents to help our children understand their particular fit in God's plan. This means pointing out special skills and talents. It also means helping children realize that God didn't give them such skills and talents just to use on themselves, but to glorify him and bring others to Him through the stewardship of their lives. In other words, we are to help them see themselves and their potential and then to inspire them for God's purposes:

Joel, you are so musical. Maybe you will write great music that will encourage others to worship God and want to know Him!"

Joy, you are so compassionate. I love the sweet cards you make! I can see the Lord using you to comfort and encourage many lonely or hurting people."

This quote and more about the gift of inspiration are in my book, The Ministry of Motherhood.

When our days are busy and so many demands on our time cry out for attention, it can be easy to start seeing our children as if they are projects to be perfected; always needing more correction, more training, and more and more work. After awhile, that sort of focus leads to resentment on both sides. Over many years of mothering, I've learned that reminding my children of the things they do well and encouraging them to bless someone else can do more to turn a negative attitude, a really bad day, or a hopeless cause completely around than the longest, most eloquent lecture I could have mustered.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Our chief want is someone who would inspire us to be what we know we could be."

I think that's a pretty good job description for a mom, don't you?!

MomHeart Conferences 2013! Register Now!

MOM HEART CONFERENCES 2013 COLORADO, CALIFORNIA, TEXAS AND NORTH CAROLINA!

"Increasingly, I find that women are unsure about what it means to be a good mother. They are confused by a culture that send them drastically mixed messages about the importance of a mother's influence and whet her priorities should be. As a result, so many mothers I meet are baffled and frustrated. They don't know how to reconcile these conflicting messages with the calling of God on their hearts and lives.

What's the cure for this confusion? I believe it lies with a rediscovery of the traditional mission of motherhood, a rediscovery of what God had in mind when he designed families. And the fundamental mission of motherhood now is the same as it always was: to nurture, protect, and instruct children, to create a home environment that enables them to learn and grow, to help them develop a heart for God and His purposes, and to send them out into the world prepared to live both fully and meaningfully. It's up to us to embrace that mission as our own, trusting God to walk us through the details and to use our willing mothers' hands as instruments of his blessings."

~Sally Clarkson, The Mission of Motherhood

Curled up in my overstuffed recliner in my tea room, music softly wafting, spiced candle flickering, mug of hot coffee in hand, I relished a few quiet moments alone. Amazing, to have 5 minutes to myself to breathe and reflect and sip!

How far God has brought me from the early days of 3 babes under 5, little sleep, everyone grabbing for a different part of my body, crying, always making messes and wanting to eat. Those early days of chaos and living frantically from one day to the next--to now!

Four grown children, who love us and the Lord, and in spite of all our flaws and foibles, are healthy young adults, ready to write their own story of faith with each decision and each new day.

How very blessed I am, that at an early time in my motherhood, God impressed my heart with the importance of His Biblical call on mothers to be civilizers and to build a righteous generation in her own home.

My excitement overwhelmed me as I thought about our Mom Heart, 2013 coming up. I am more enthusiastic  than ever to host many of you from all over the United States to celebrate this amazing journey and blessing called motherhood.

I now know that building children in our homes for His glory brings hope to the next generation of adults, when in contrast to the culture, we send children from our homes with strong moral character, a vibrant faith in God, a vision for bringing light and hope to their own world--Yes, this call indeed matters.

Please consider joining me and hundreds of other moms for this year's conference!

Go HERE for more information and to be able to register.

Very soon, we will announce a few giveaways--but please help us get the word out. We sold out of one conference last year very quickly and it is very possible we will sell out in all conferences, so be sure to register early. I can't wait to see you and share my heart!

I will be discussing Sarah Mae's and my newest book,

Of course I think this will be the best conference ever. I hope to see you there!

This year's theme is: MOVING FROM DESPERATE TO DESTINY!

We will be discussing the themes from Sarah Mae's and my newest book!

REGISTER HERE NOW!

Mom Heart Conferences 2013! Register Now!

MOM HEART CONFERENCES 2013 COLORADO, CALIFORNIA, TEXAS AND NORTH CAROLINA!

"Increasingly, I find that women are unsure about what it means to be a good mother. They are confused by a culture that send them drastically mixed messages about the importance of a mother's influence and whet her priorities should be. As a result, so many mothers I meet are baffled and frustrated. They don't know how to reconcile these conflicting messages with the calling of God on their hearts and lives.

What's the cure for this confusion? I believe it lies with a rediscovery of the traditional mission of motherhood, a rediscovery of what God had in mind when he designed families. And the fundamental mission of motherhood now is the same as it always was: to nurture, protect, and instruct children, to create a home environment that enables them to learn and grow, to help them develop a heart for God and His purposes, and to send them out into the world prepared to live both fully and meaningfully. It's up to us to embrace that mission as our own, trusting God to walk us through the details and to use our willing mothers' hands as instruments of his blessings."

~Sally Clarkson, The Mission of Motherhood

Curled up in my overstuffed recliner in my tea room, music softly wafting, spiced candle flickering, mug of hot coffee in hand, I relished a few quiet moments alone. Amazing, to have 5 minutes to myself to breathe and reflect and sip!

How far God has brought me from the early days of 3 babes under 5, little sleep, everyone grabbing for a different part of my body, crying, always making messes and wanting to eat. Those early days of chaos and living frantically from one day to the next--to now!

Four grown children, who love us and the Lord, and in spite of all our flaws and foibles, are healthy young adults, ready to write their own story of faith with each decision and each new day.

How very blessed I am, that at an early time in my motherhood, God impressed my heart with the importance of His Biblical call on mothers to be civilizers and to build a righteous generation in her own home.

My excitement overwhelmed me as I thought about our Mom Heart, 2013 coming up. I am more enthusiastic  than ever to host many of you from all over the United States to celebrate this amazing journey and blessing called motherhood.

I now know that building children in our homes for His glory brings hope to the next generation of adults, when in contrast to the culture, we send children from our homes with strong moral character, a vibrant faith in God, a vision for bringing light and hope to their own world--Yes, this call indeed matters.

Please consider joining me and hundreds of other moms for this year's conference!

Go HERE for more information and to be able to register.

Very soon, we will announce a few giveaways--but please help us get the word out. We sold out of one conference last year very quickly and it is very possible we will sell out in all conferences, so be sure to register early. I can't wait to see you and share my heart!

I will be discussing Sarah Mae's and my newest book,

Of course I think this will be the best conference ever. I hope to see you there!

This year's theme is: MOVING FROM DESPERATE TO DESTINY!

We will be discussing the themes from Sarah Mae's and my newest book!

REGISTER HERE NOW!

REGISTER!

Mentoring Mondays

"If you don't have a foundation of truth and freedom and a clear understanding of God's design for your role as a mom and for the part your family's story will play in history, you will take everything you hear from other cultural voices as truth, and then you will live by the premises and opinions of other people. Often, these voices of culture are filled with relative morality, formulas, and create guilt, a performance mentality and fear of failure in parenting. Jesus' came to give us abundant life--filled with purpose and meaning and it is only in knowing His truth and His design that we can find peace, contentment, wisdom and fulfillment. He was the creator--He alone has the answers."

-Sally Clarkson

As a young missionary in Communist Eastern Europe, many years ago, I was inspired with the discipleship principles of Jesus. He taught, loved and poured into the lives of 12 men, and then sent them back into the world to cause Christianity to flourish and to redeem generations of people to know and understand what it meant to know God's love and forgiveness through Christ. The miracle of personal relationships through mentoring and how strategic these relationships are to passing on truth, the word of God, the values of His kingdom,  became real to me as I saw the first few women we discipled in our tiny little apartment, eventually be used to lead thousands more to Christ over the last 35 years.

The miracle of Christ in one life and the power that one life has to bring about a revolution of redemption in myriads of other's lives-- was a pattern that grew in my life--first to my children and then to other young moms who met in my home and finally to conferences and then through books and finally, all over the world.

God only requires that we give him our heart's allegiance and that we are willing to obey Him and follow Him, and he will lead us into a story of faith, and we become the redeemers of light in our own lifetime, through the relationships of love, friendship and passing on truth.

And that is why I believe so much in mentorship--the sharing of life and truth and love and encouragement from one woman, one friend, to another--this changes the world.

And so an idea came to my mind--maybe in some small way, I could mentor some of you who have been sending me your own thoughts and struggles in your journey as a mom.

Thanks so very much for all of you who have written comments and emails to me about your desire to have a mentor in your life. I see your hearts so clearly and have so many personal memories that encompass your thoughts and needs and emotions.

The idea of working on a plan of providing mentors for each of you--for support systems and those who would ease your pressure would be my desire, if I could just make it happen. But, I thought that if I could possibly be of some small encouragement on a regular basis, I would begin to implement what I will call Mentoring Mondays, where I will take one lesson or thought a week to specifically teach about one aspect of motherhood.

Of course I do not think I have all the right answers and have made many mistakes myself. But when I read the Bible, I have to look at Titus 2 and see that when Paul says for the older moms to encourage the younger moms, I have to obey and take that to heart--because it is a scriptural pattern.

And so with fear and humility, as I offer you, not a formula or rules or a system to follow, but, I want to offer Mentoring Mondays to begin together to discuss some of the issues that make you feel desperate or alone, and hope some of these meetings together will bring you hope and will create some fellowship amongst us as friends as we share in these Mondays together.

Mentoring Through 18 years of Mom's Conferences

I also wanted to tell you about the 15 years of tapes from our Mom Heart conferences that are available right now for downloads if you would like to hear some of the stories of my own life as a mom, or how I trained and disciplined my children, educational principles that create thinking, articulate children and ways to homeschool;  or traditions we held, or the inspiration for our own family that God provide, dealing with the day to day pressures; taking care of myself and so many more subjects.

JUST GO here: and you can download the messages and begin some of the mentoring process today.

So, next Monday, God willing, I will start a vlog series on mentoring. Stay tuned for more and let me know what you think.

Exchanging the Temporal for the Eternal

I wonder if the disciples had any idea what they were in for.

While Nathanael gathered figs, Matthew sat at his table counting taxes, or Andrew wound nets tight on a rocking boat, did any of them dream of something more? Did they ponder the Scriptures promising the Messiah would come? Or were their minutes already as full as my own? Did His coming and calling take them by surprise?

I think the latter is probably more likely. He surprised them. They probably weren't watching. And they certainly didn't expect Him to show up and call them personally.

What about you, dear one? Do you remember that He has come, that He is coming, that He continues to call men and women to Himself? Do you live your life with an eye open to the eternal things God might want to do in your own life?

"Jesus' work in a person's life has always begun with a call to leave behind the goals, purposes, and distractions of this world and to say yes to a whole new life, a new way of thinking. "Follow me" is what He told the disciples as He recruited them. And they did, abandoning their fishing nets, their tax-collector's moneybags, their permanent homes, their everyday duties and pleasures. And they never went back. Sure, they still did a little fishing from time to time! But once they made the choice to follow Jesus, their lives were forever changed. They never returned to 'normal.'

I think this is vital for us to keep in mind as Christians and as parents. We know we are called to follow Christ, to take His message to the world, to raise our children to heed Jesus' call. But sometimes I think we fail to consider that following the Lord might mean leaving behind the ordinary and the familiar. It means exchanging a temporal view of life for an eternal goal. And this may mean leaving behind things we really care about--involvements and pursuits that seem important and worthwhile but may not be God's best for us.

Part of giving the gift of inspiration is helping our children understand this--and perhaps reminding ourselves. To fulfill God's design for their lives, our precious children must at some point determine to give Jesus allegiance in every aspect of their lives. There is a cost to discipleship, and that cost is everything!" ~ The Ministry of Motherhood

 Listen today. Slow down and open His Word and listen for His call. And when you hear it, say yes!

We Need You for Desperate! What Advice Do You Need As a Mother?

Friends, we are counting down to the Desperate release (January 8th!) and we need your help to add a few more things to the book.

What questions do you have that you would love answers to when it comes to mothering small children? Where are you feeling particularly desperate as a mother?

Would you please leave your question in the comments? We'll be choosing around 20 for the book. Thank you so much!

Guess where I am and guess who I am with......:)

A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.

anynomous

Resting and playing restores the mind, heart and soul as Sabbath rest for life is observed. Here with my sweet friend who knows what is in my heart and who can even complete my sentences--being together is a seamless pleasure.

Enjoying the brief getaway and restoring my little self! :)

- Unknown

My Primary Responsibility and Joy

 

"God holds us accountable for our stewardship of His blessings. And that means I am responsible for the ways in which I choose to care for the children He has given me. At the Judgment, I know I will give an account to Him for these precious lives He entrusted into my hands.

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 cildren, 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." ~The Mission of Motherhood

One thing I think many moms find difficult is the fact that every yes is by definition also a no. A "yes" to time watching somersaults in the backyard is a "no" to a phone call, a glance through a magazine, or a bit of alone time. A "yes" to asking friends over for a time of encouragement is a "no" to the free time you might have spent on yourself, rather than cleaning the bathroom, organizing your notes for the evening, or baking cookies to share. "Yes" to the carpool means "no" to sleeping in; "yes" to playing during bath time means "no" to your favorite television show ... and on and on it goes.

As a mom, what we really need is long-range vision! While the decision to draw your circle of direct influence a little smaller than many around you choose to draw theirs might  appear to minimize who you are,  the truth lies elsewhere. Think about a drop of food coloring splashed into a cup of water. The more water, the more diluted the color. And so it is with each one of us. When we spread ourselves thin, leaving no time for snuggles and backrubs, Bible study and reading deeply, family vacations and Saturday afternoons at the park, our influence becomes diluted.

So may I suggest something, mama? Feel free to say lots of "yes"-es to your littles, and lots of "no"-s to others. Limit yourself in this season of mothering young ones, and watch your influence grow where it's most important.

I have never heard a woman say, "I wish I would have worked more hours while my children were young" or, "I wish I would have read more magazines and watched fewer somersaults." Rather, the longing is for time long slipped away, somersaults tumbled and blown away like so many autumn leaves.

The Last Homely House...a project of life art

Helen Allingham

“Frodo was now safe in the Last Homely House east of the Sea. That house was, as Bilbo had long ago reported, ‘a perfect house, whether you like food or sleep, or story-telling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all.’ Merely to be there was a cure for weariness, fear and sadness.” The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

As a lover of great literature, Rivondell, in Lord of the Rings, captivated my attention and Sarah's and Joy's attention. Picturing our home as a place that remembers all the great life from eras gone by and that captures its beauty, has been one of our goals, that has given us hours and years of collecting and crafting and nurturing over the years.

A library that holds all the great books of children's literature and classics and great thinkers, biographies and writers is a must. And now, due to Clay's kindness to move his office to the basement, I have our library as a tea room of sorts. With comfy chairs, a tea set, art and paintings from my background all over the walls, with candle light and music--it is a lovely getaway where I can share heart-to-heart with all in my wake.

A well-stocked kitchen with all sorts of home-made recipes crafted over years of testing, with all the holiday food; food for those who are ill; birthday fare; winter-cold-night soups and breads and all sorts of healthy variety in between.

Fireplaces where stories are told and ideas discussed and children are cuddled.

bedrooms with comfy chairs and piles of books in baskets to encourage reading and quiet times and of course candles galore.

Piano, guitars, drums, flute, dulcimer--all collected over the years--some more used than others, but all for practicing producing music of all sorts.

Games and book baskets and art books and cd's and Pandora and dvd's from all imaginings to instruct, inspire, soothe, comfort and to stoke the imagination.

Clusters of chairs, grouped together to encourage great and close conversations--rockers on the front porch; setees and big chairs on the back deck; gatherings of chairs in 2's all over the house to make a close meeting and discipleship time for all who are there.

And of course a bookshelf in every room, with each child collecting his own library.

A suitable place for traditions celebrated and momentous occasions retold and the Bible read, over and over and over again--to remember Him and stories of faith and heroes and courage and holiness.

This is what I have had in my heart to shape--a home that breathes life and truth and love into all who would enter--

To make sure my home, for my family and friends, is indeed the last homely house and that all that has been excellent and worthwhile over the ages is celebrated in its walls--

because everyone needs a place to belong and a home where welcome is always fresh with all who cross the doorway.