The Mom Walk ... So Much More Than We Anticipate! (Part One)

The rugged Rocky Mountains fairly beckoned to us to come outside to celebrate each morning as we awakened and sipped coffee on our deck. We had recently moved into a home situated at 7500 feet in the hills of Monument, Colorado, and it also backed up to 25,000 acres of national forest. Pike's Peak was just down the ridge. We were only beginning to discover wonderful trails and vistas that were open to us literally out our back door.

One day, as we were out for a walk, a casual acquaintance, riding a mountain bike near our home, stopped to talk about his recent ride in the mountains.

"There is a spectacular vista in the mountain just above your house where you can see hundreds of miles in all directions. I think it's at 9000 feet—about a 1500-foot climb for you. It would probably only take you an hour or so to make the hike, and I think you and your kids would absolutely love the area."

He quickly told me how to get to the trailhead and wished me well before riding away.

I had been waiting for the right day, and today the calendar was free and the weather was inviting, with crisp, cool air and sunshine. I announced to my four children (Sarah, 15; Joel, 12; Nathan, 10; and Joy, 4) that we would be taking a hike and picnic up in the high mountain behind us. Packing a light lunch with egg salad finger sandwiches, bottles of water, grapes, and a couple of chocolate chip cookies for each of us finished my preparation. I didn't want our pack to be too heavy because I knew I would have to carry Joy on my back part of the way.

After smearing sunscreen on all of us and finding Nathan's tennis shoes and zipping up alight jacket on Joy, we opened the back door and began our adventure. Penny, our loyal golden retriever, trotted along behind us. I yelled goodbye to Clay, my husband, who was working on a deadline for our ministry. "We might be up there for several hours because I hear it is a great place to play," I said to him as I closed the back door.

I have to admit, I was feeling a little proud of being such a great mom—making an unforgettable memory, providing an adventure for my children, and supplying all we would need for our trip.

We found the trailhead within ten minutes and began the steep climb to the lookout. Sarah yelled a challenge to the boys, "Hey, let's run up the mountain and see who can beat to the top!" The three older kids energetically left at a run while I held Joy's hand and started a slower ascent. After about 20 minutes, we caught up with the more energetic group, who were all sitting on the side of the pathway out of breath and panting from the thin mountain air

"How much further to the top?" questioned one of my boys. "I'm already tired and hungry!"

"Don't worry! My friend said we could probably make the whole hike in one hour, so in another 15 minutes we should reach the top of the hill where there is a vista, and we will picnic there," I confidently assured him.

About 20 minutes later, panting and sweating, we all pulled up to a lovely vista that we supposed was the top of the mountain. I was so relieved because carrying Joy the last 15 minutes had been quite taxing. Surely I had just finished the most arduous climb.

We discovered a lovely meadow a little bit beyond the cliff where we had been looking out over the valley and city below. Running through the grassy field, we discovered a tiny, weather-worn cabin, half blown down. Sitting on the old logs and pulling out our lunch pleased us all. Amid the giggles and chattering, we decided to pretend that we were pioneers on the Oregon Trail. The kids ran around whooping and amusing themselves while I enjoyed the beauty and rested under the shade of an old pine. One of my children even found a small cross in the middle of a circle of stones that looked like an old tombstone. What an adventure as we imagined the story of the lives of people who had built a home so high in the mountains, who must have known deep joys and sorrows.

Feeling well pleased with myself at the sweet memories we were making, we gathered around and thanked the Lord for our adventure and for giving us such a beautiful day. After packing up the litter from our picnic, we decided we were rested enough to complete the rest of the hike to the end of the trail. Off we went on our journey with a renewed sense of adventure. Within ten minutes, our path led to gigantic boulders and a small stream that led southward along the back of the mountain we had just climbed. The older three fearlessly began to climb the rocks that were 12 to 20 feet in height.

"Be careful! If you fall, I would have a hard time helping you because Joy and I can't climb up there."

A tiny sense of irritation began to bubble up in my heart, which often surprises me in taxing moments of caring for my children's needs. I recognized my emotions beginning to go a bit sour from being fatigued.

Making progress on the trail among the rocks was a bit slow. After about an hour, the kids rejoined Joy and me and asked for a drink. Each water bottle had just an inch of water left, but since we were certainly close to the end of the trail, I let everyone drink their last sip.

Why have we been hiking well over two hours and have not come to the end of the trail? It must be because of the slower pace we are walking and from having young children with me. After all, my friend had been on a mountain bike. I can't imagine how he could have ridden his bike on these rough trails. Some people are just tougher than others.

The beauty and views of seemingly untouched wilderness awed and amazed us as we quietly walked forward on a now scarcely visible path. We wondered if it was a pathway made by deer leading to the stream. Picnicking and hiking need to become a regular activity, we unanimously agreed. "Aren't we happy we all moved to Colorado?" Sarah asked.

Gingerly we continued to walk forward along the faint trail, which by now had left the stream and led into the dark shadows of an overgrown pine forest. The path moved into the shadows along a very narrow trail on the side of the mountain. I began to perceive that everyone was becoming exhausted. The food was gone and it was time for Joy's nap. What had been a playful, rousing adventure at the start, when everyone was excited and filled with wonder, was slowly dissipating into a silent march, as each of us focused on putting one foot in front of the other.

After a quiet 15 minutes, Joel verbalized what we had all secretly been thinking. "Are we on the right trail? I thought we were supposed to be home by now. What if we are lost? Maybe we should go back. We might be in danger if we don't start back home soon."

Reflecting on the difficult time I had already had bringing Joy through the rough wall of rocks, I couldn't even imagine taking her back the same way without even greater effort. At least this trail was straight and not on a steep ascent, as the previous trail had been. Though I didn't know where it led, I was unwilling to go back on the more difficult part. We seemed to be heading toward the other end of our mountain. Surely we would come to the turning point soon.

"I think we will be okay, Joel, if we just keep going. It would take us almost two and a half hours to backtrack, and I am sure we will find the end of this trail soon. It probably leads around to the other part of the road, which leads right to our house. I think you kids have done amazingly well. What troopers you are and such amazing hikers! Daddy will be so proud of you when he finds out how well you have done."

I hoped my enthusiastic voice would not betray my hidden feelings of fear, exhaustion, and irritation at myself for not getting a map of the mountain. I had never really been on a primitive trail like this and was only beginning to realize how unprepared I had been for such a trek. I had heard of the "wildness" of the wilderness. It seemed that we were indeed in wilderness, as we had not passed another human being in our path for the last three hours...

For the rest of the story, you'll have to come back Friday!

Don't miss our newest book, available for pre-order, now!

The Lifegiving Parent: Giving Your Child a Life Worth Living for Christ

By Sally Clarkson, Clay Clarkson

Cultivating Your Child's Gifts

Have you ever wondered what you were like as a small child? I have many memories of my childhood as I’m sure you do. I remember swinging on swings, playing house with my sister and friends, and wandering around my grandparents Iowa farm. But, sometimes I’m curious if I naturally had a certain bent - specific activities I always returned to.

Last week my first child turned thirteen. When she was little, someone gave me an idea to keep a journal as a way to remember. We wrote down her favorites, cute things she’d say and do, and milestones. And then about twice a year, my husband and I would write letters to her, telling her what we see in her and what we see the Lord doing in her life. As she read aloud certain passages to us, I recognized reoccurring stories and themes in her life. She seemed to take every opportunity to imagine a story and act it out from quotidian scenes from home to momentous occasions such as weddings. From the age of two, my daughter began to call us to gather as she led us in worship or gave a sermon. Now at thirteen, she’s writing books and reading them aloud to us, leading worship for children at church, and performing in musical theater shows. As I look back, is some ways it seems obvious that she would continue to do the things she’s always gravitated to.

To continue reading, click HERE.

Measure Life by How Well You Have Loved

A New Child to Love, a legacy to leave in her heart.  (before my fall. )

Loving well is the best and most profound act of life.

Sally Clarkson, Own Your Life Book

"Mama, you love me the most, right?" ....Our joke through all the years but repeated over and over again.

"I love you the "Joyest" and you the "Nathanest" and you the "Sarahest" and you the "Joelest" my sweets.

Seems that even now, I am often texting, emailing, fb'ing my kids how much I love them, how special they are to me, how much they are beloved by God.

All of my children have gone through bouts of doubt when confronted by a constant barrage of challenges. All four have written notes to me to say our constant love is what pulled them through. "You always believed in us, you were always at our back. You never gave up!"

A heritage of being loved and cherished is profoundly important in the life of any human being.

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.

It is something that cannot be bought or quantified or boxed. Love is real, day in day out, giving of ourselves to the benefit and values of others God has place in our lives--a giving of ourselves for the blessing of others. When we love and touch it pre-disposes 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. Of course, Christ is able to redeem and restore all things. I know in my own life that restoration and healing are possible. But in this fallen world, the process of healing may take awhile.

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

Being loved perfectly was God's original design, it was born in His heart when he created us to know Him intimately.   

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. 

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, focussing on love as the lens through which I looked at life as a mother, giving out words of love on a daily basis--sometimes many times a day, became the fuel for building a fire in their hearts to want to love God.

When love is modeled as a way of life, then a child has the brain patterns, the very familiarity of how love feels from a parent, and will then be more able to experience the love of God when introduced to it as a concept.

We read:

God is love.

Greater love has no one than this than a man lay down his life for his friend.

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

Love one another and so fulfill the law of Christ.

They will know you are my disciples by your love for one another.

So many times, parents are afraid that if they show their love for their children too much, they will spoil them.

Has anyone ever loved you too much? Or do you wish for more love?

Though I was loved in many ways, I grew up with some performance based issues in my family, I often felt inadequate and as though I could never do quite enough to please others--my parents, the world--God Himself. I felt defeated in my inner heart, though I kept striving to perform for many years.

However, it was at a college conference in Mexico my junior year, that a wonderful teacher personally explained to me, while focussing on my heart's cries for over an hour, that God truly loved me and that nothing would ever separate me from his love.

This knowledge changed my life forever.

Then I read and pondered and studied the life of Christ with His disciples. It was His love poured out, serving them and their families, living with them, giving them words of life; cooking for them, washing their feet, encouraging them, that so changed their lives that they were willing to give their lives for His cause.

We as adults must understand that unconditional love, as shown by Christ, is the foundation to good relationships.

But the place that our children learn this kind of mature love is by watching us practice loving them in our home.

Many of you, like me, never really understood or experienced love in this way while growing up, but what I have found is that by receiving God's love by faith and then practicing it in my home with my family has stretched my ability to love, and it has changed my life. I will probably always struggle with it a little bit on earth because it was so deeply engrained in my life. But the love of God has slowly transformed my life over many years. In making it my goal, I have learned to love many people. It is a process of growth.

In our own family devotional, The 24 Family Ways, we made loveprominent in our training.

Way # 5 WE LOVE ONE ANOTHER, TREATING EACH OTHER WITH KINDNESS, GENTLENESS AND RESPECT.

MEMORY VERSE:

"Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us." I John 4:11-12

If we understand the importance of building this foundation of loving our precious children and teaching them to love others, we will give them the power they need to build strong relationships, stay strong in marriage, learn to work in ministry and a profession well--in short, we will give them the ability to have a fuller, more fulfilling life.

Loving my adult children is still just as important as when they were young.

The world can be hostile to adults who seek to live morally excellent lives, and who attempt to live lives for the glory of God. And so even now, loving, listening, encouraging, supporting and giving my adult children a home where they will be circled in love and commitment of friendship is one of the pulls in their lives to uphold their ideals in a very challenging time.

Love covers a multitude of sin.

Love is a perfect bond of unity.

So today, commit in your journal what it means to love to each of the precious ones entrusted into your hands and then begin by practicing love today.

How do you show your children acts of love that penetrates their hearts? 

Why Christ is our True Comfort & Everlasting Hope & Podcast

Now let the heavens be joyful,

Let the earth her song begin:

Let the round world keep triumph,

And all that is therein;

Invisible and visible,

Their notes let all things blend,

For Christ is risen, Our joy shall have no end! 

~St. John of Damascus

I find myself so anxious to share with you, my precious friends, the joy I find in the message of Christ this year, while deep in the mire of challenges and difficulties. Though I am not able to read or look at my computer or screens because of my eye injury, I have done my best to leave you a podcast message and this blog post that I hope will be of come encouragement to you. Know that you are all in my prayers.

Most of us have those in our lives who have wounded us again and again. We have all had to deal with "irregular" people; those who are self-centered, or always seem angry or harsh or critical, self-absorbed in their lives rather than willing to give. We may long for words of love, encouragement, and grace from them, and yet are met with harshness or impatience or passivity or withholding of love. Often it is a family member--a spouse, parent, brother, or child. Or it could be a neighbor or "fellow Christian." Our hearts cry, "It's not fair! I am not willing to be hurt one more time. How can I escape this difficult relationship?"

In reality, sometimes we ourselves are the irregular people. 

The tension of having to live with such a person (or ourselves!)  is very difficult to manage. Our desire is to run away, to leave, to not allow ourselves to continually be in that place where deep wounds may occur again any time.

At a couple of our mom's conferences one year, we found well over half of the women who attended came from alcoholic, divorced, or abusive families. Astounding--a majority of the people around me, though it is not evident in their outside appearances, have wounds, scars, deep insecurity, pain from the closest of relationships in their lives. 

This world is the broken place--the place where Satan is the ruler of the world, and yet ... there is the promise of Easter. 

As I approach each Easter season, I ask Christ to show me what He wants me to know, to understand, and how to love Him more. Each year I am surprised at the outcome.

One year, a group of my girlfriends got together for our traditional meetup on Easter weekend. After spending time talking and giggling, we noisily tramped downstairs and squeezed in together on an over-sized couch and began watching the movie which was made using just the words of the gospel of John. We quickly became immersed in the middle-eastern world of Jesus.

His words penetrated our souls. The lakeside waves, the tumble of personalities and antics of the disciples, the amazed blind man who received sight, the broken-hearted harlot who was caught in adultery, the tousling of heads of children as Jesus passed through, the compassionate feeding of the 5000, and through it all, Jesus' patience and forbearance in the midst of what seemed constant arguing, questioning, and accusing. 

I was surprised at how hungry my soul was for His message. The crowds argued with Him, the Pharisees accused Him; twice they sought to stone Him, His authority was questioned, His miracles were questioned. He was accused of being filled with a demon. Haunted by constant, pushy, demanding crowds and the relentless needs of lost, lonely, hungry souls. And yet, from the beginning, He was ever moving toward his death, His cross, His sacrifice.

Jesus' divine meekness and His gentle spirit was so beautiful to me as I watched Him enveloping all in His pathway with profound, true insight, healing love, and soothing, soul-felt words of life. In his writing of the gospel, John sought to give us a glimpse into the compassionate heart of Jesus.

The Creator stooped that final night to wash 120 dirty toes. He gently touched, cleansed and dried the feet of His most intimate friends--even those of the one who would betray Him.

His remarkable words washed over my soul:

"Just as the Father has loved me, I have loved you. Abide in my love." 15:9

"Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down His life for His friends." 15:13

"They will know you are my disciples by your love for one another." (5 times!)

"If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you." 15:18

"These things I have spoken to you that you may be kept from stumbling,..., an hour is coming  for everyone who kills you to think he is offering a service to God." 16: 1-2

"You will weep and lament, but your sorrow will be turned to joy." 16:20

"In the world you have tribulation, but take courage, I have overcome the world." 16:33

And then, He went to the cross; willingly, humbly, generously, feeling all the pain and despising it, yet holding on for the joy ahead where redemption and healing and love would reign supremely for eternity.

With His dying breath: "Forgive them, because they do not understand what they are doing."

And so for me, the message from His spirit became clear. 

If I am to understand my God, I am to imitate His life, His love, His generous forgiveness and mercy, and His life of servanthood, of pouring Himself out for others so undeserving ... I have to change. There is no more room for the pointing of fingers or critical attitudes or the pettiness of hateful thoughts that rob my soul from grace. In order for a muscle to be built, it must be torn and then repair itself--and the end result will be strength. And so soul strength comes through the same process. 

When I practice love with irregular, irrational people, I am renewed as my soul builds strength, as I gain knowledge and deep understanding of the very nature of my Savior.

In this place, there is no room for bitterness, accusations, hate, or anger to overpower, because the light of His forgiving love overcomes all darkness.

In pondering, loving, and worshiping this man, my God; by exercising the same grace He lived when "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us," my soul is spiritually stretched in the fire of reality to begin to understand a little more of Him, and my heart is bowed down to worship more fully the One who is love, grace, and forgiveness. And in this knowledge, I, too, find generous, unconditional forgiveness and healing love.

A blessed Good Friday and joyous Easter to you all!

Storyformed Podcast, Episode #25 - Reading with Teens

Are you wondering how to navigate reading with teens? Today on the podcast,  Holly Packiam and Jaime Showmaker talk about how to stay connected with teens through books in this changing season of their lives.

Topics include:

• The kinds of questions teens wrestle with-- from identity to purpose
• The value in reading together in the teen years
• Practical ideas for creating space to read together 
• How to help teens recognize and choose good books
• Book recommendations for teens

Click HERE to listen to this Storyformed podcast and to view the show notes. 

Spring Fever, Once Again!

As I'm eye-recuperating, I thought it might be nice to share an older post about Spring fever!

It all began in St. James Park, near Buckingham Palace, a couple of weeks ago. Sarah and I were meeting on her spring break from Oxford to write a book together. I was sequestered in a small hotel room with a computer and was supposed to be writing a profoundly insightful book. It was just 38 degrees outside, but the daffodils were telling a different story. I had to take a walk to clear my poor little overworked brain.

Every year, spring fever hits me hard. So now, I just give into it, because I am a smart girl! :) Truly, there are times when I can't do one more responsible thing. I am a driven person, you see, and I can get a lot done--as all the moms in the world I know do most of the time, but.....

I may never write or blog or do anything productive ever again! Mounting up over daily life right now in order to be responsible just seems impossible and overly demanding.

My house needs organizing. Groceries need to be bought. Meals must be made. Birthday presents for Clay, Sarah and Joy who have May birthdays, need to be gathered. Commitments are piling high as I ignore them.

It seems my brain is empty and I just want to play, nap, or watch a movie! I want to eat something wonderful without thought of calorie or fat or sugar--or washing the dishes-- all by myself, with no one else to even taste my piece!

Right now, I do think I am desperate for about a year off, with a maid to wait on me while I serve everyone else. Perhaps a long vacation or journey to a new place, uninterrupted time with the closest of friends to some place beautiful and restful where someone cooks all of our meals and cleans up for us (probably a beach!) and no responsibility or calls or demands, and no one needing me for one single moment. Maybe we could kidnap our children and escape to the mountains for a few days.

So, is anyone else having spring fever? Anyone else out there need a mid-year adventure?

Just wondering............Want to play hooky with me today?

What would you do to escape if you could?

Craziness & Life in London & a Podcast

For a little while, I have been put out to pasture! Like my friend, here.

New friends who decided to say hello, on the edge of Port Meadow in Oxford. taken  by Joel

Dear Friends,

What an incredible couple of weeks this has been. My accident, the serious eye infection, the multiple trips to the emergency room, holding my precious new grand-baby-Lily in between, walking Sarah through young motherhood, and hosting our first Mumheart conference in London... in absentia! I was in a hotel room squirting eyedrops into my eyes! 

Through the ups and downs, I've been thankful for the graces of God to allow my sweet friends to be near me, my family to support me, and the thousands of letters from people saying they were praying. Your kindnesses often brought me to tears. 

Launch Team!

With the help of my friends, we are finally getting a launch team up for Clay's and my new book The Lifegiving Parent!

You can pre-order the book here...

The Lifegiving Parent: Giving Your Child a Life Worth Living for Christ

By Sally Clarkson, Clay Clarkson

You can join the launch team here...

Because I will probably be out of commission for another 6-10 weeks, I am so grateful for all of you who will help me spread the word about this book. These lifegiving principles will inspire you, give you practical ideas, and lead you in leading your children down the path of life with Christ. I think you will love the book.

It would mean so much to me if everyone could help share this book with your friends and community.

Daffodil Stroll...

I just had to share these lovely pictures with you. Joel and Joy took me for my first outing since the injury to St. James park opposite Buckingham palace in London. I can't tell you how much this beauty reminded me that Christ is the source of all returning life and beauty. 

“And then my heart with pleasure fills
and dances with the daffodils”

— William Wordsworth

Fixing hair... once a mama, always a mama! 

After being away from our new little home for five days, I returned to Joel's potato soup. And to hugs from Clay, Sarah, Thomas, and little Lilian.

Baby yawns are best...

Again, my plead! Help with my launch, go here. :-)

Lots of love and hugs coming to you!

Sally

Problems Sometimes Require a Change of Perspective ... & a Podcast

In the midst of dealing with this incredibly painful, discouraging issue with my eye, I am certainly finding it important to remind myself of times the Lord has spoken to me in the past. Thought I'd share one of those with you today ...

A number of years ago, I had been going through another extremely demanding season of life. Besides the normal needs of a family of six, little Joy had nocturnal asthma that woke the both of us up every night at just about 1:00 AM for long rounds of medicine and steam showers to help her breathe. Our church was also going through a split, and along with the exhaustion I felt from those long nights, there was a sense of pressure and trouble pressing in on all sides.

Now, I am not given to symbolic dreams and have only had two in my whole life. But during this time, on one of Joy's good nights when I fell deeply asleep, I found myself awake in a dream in which God was talking to me. In my dream, I was sitting in my living room considering all the problems that were in my life and in the lives of those I loved—and there were some huge troubles, many of which seemed beyond solution.

In the midst of this, God came to me, reached out His large hand, and asked me to climb intoit.I stepped into the palm of His hand and very slowly and gently He began to take me up into the stars and among the galaxies. I remember that it was unspeakably beautiful. He then told me to look down to the earth, where I had been stewing and fretting about all the issues in my life. God asked me a single question:

"How big do your problems look from up here?"

I remember glancing down, straining to see the earth and my corner on it. My house and the people in my neighborhood were tiny as gnats, so that I could barely even see. I told the Lord that they appeared tiny indeed.

"Indeed," He said. "That is how big your problems are to me. I want you to have My perspective and know that compared to the issues of eternity, they are tiny. I can take care of them"

Then the Lord gently took me down to the earth and placed me back in my living room. And then I woke up and realized I had been dreaming. But the sense of "all is well" was all around me, invading my soul and driving my petty worries into the oblivion where they belonged. Though not a single situation had changed during my amazing dream, my circumstances no longer seemed overwhelming. They no longer had their former potency because they had been so far surpassed by God's presence.

.....

I wanted to update you today about my eye injury, so my friends and I recorded a short podcast for you.  At the end, we briefly mention the new Lifegiving Parent Launch Community on Facebook.  I need many of you to help me as I walk through this valley and struggle through this eye injury.  Gretchen, Misty, and Jennie will guide you and provide ideas of how you can help me get the word out.  Since this is a book written for both mothers and fathers, I would welcome help from men on our launch team as well.  Come join us!  We will have lots of fun getting to know each other and strategizing how to change the world!  Expect the launch page to really get going after Easter.  Thank you so much, friends, I could not launch this book without you.

Fantasy Books for Teens

FANTASY BOOKS FOR TEENS

A Wrinkle in Time

OPD: 1962

I read this book by myself and aloud with my family and found new creative fascination and spiritual insight with each read. L’Engle’s classic tale of the stubborn Meg, her abnormally intelligent little brother, and their gangly, gallant friend Calvin is an adventure tale to begin with, as the children travel galaxies in search of Meg’s scientist father who vanished in the midst of an experiment. Guided by the amusing and rather awe-inspiring Mrs. Who, Mrs. Whatsit, and Mrs. Which into the depths of the universe’s beauties, and its darkness, this is a story exploring the power of love to redeem, heal, and resist the power of evil. A book with humor, a tale rich in affirmation of the world’s beauty, this is a classic to be read again and again.

At the Back of the North Wind

BY GEORGE MACDONALD

OPD: 1871

“…though I cannot promise to take you home,” said North Wind, as she sank nearer and nearer to the tops of the houses, “I can promise you it will be all right in the end. You will get home somehow.” 
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

One of my favorite fantastical children’s stories, Wind is the story of the little boy Diamond, and the night journeys he takes with the lovely and real North Wind. MacDonald, whom Lewis said was his “master,” imbued every story he wrote with his wonder in a God whose goodness will not leave us in the darkness. An exploration, through the adventures of a little boy, of suffering and pain and the promise of heaven, this classic tale is a fairy tale swift with the beauty of the marvelous North Wind woman, and rich with spiritual contemplation. One of my favorites.

Auralia's Colors

BY JEFFREY OVERSTREET

OPD: 2007

Jeffrey Overstreet (who I’m happy to say is a friend o’ mine), has created a fantastic, richly imagined novel about a world in which the glory of color has been dimmed and forgotten. Into this wintered land comes a girl named Auralia, gifted with the ability to find and weave color into a startling gift whose power could change the course of the kingdom.

Lilith

BY GEORGE MACDONALD

OPD: 1895

This is one of George MacDonald’s later books, the story of a young, leisured man who discovers a world within (or beyond?) his own where he is challenged to “die indeed” by a raven who seems to be the first man, Adam. Plunged into a fantastical world of little children living at peace with their beasts in the forest, giants, dueling skeletons, and an evil princess attended by leopards who terrorize the land, the hero must face not only the terrors, but his own capacity to act, choose, and love. A MacDonald fairy tale is a world of spiritual realities made flesh. Not direct allegory, nor yet mere fantasy, Lilith is a journey into the regions of the soul, into grace, sin, suffering, and the fresh-sprung waters that come when we learn to lay down what keeps us from dying in order to live.

The Book of the Dun Cow

By Walter Wangerin

OPD: 1978

This story took me by surprise. Here is an opening from Wangerin’s site: “At a time when the sun turned around the earth and animals could speak, Chauntecleer the Rooster ruled over a more or less peaceable kingdom.  What the animals did not know was that they were Keepers of the Wyrm, monster of Evil long imprisoned beneath the earth.  And Wyrm, sub terra, was breaking free…” I didn’t expect to be engrossed by a farmyard fable, or moved by the story of a slightly arrogant rooster who must learn to protect his people from evil, but I found this to be a powerful tale of humble, workaday hearts encountering evil and resisting its dominance. Fascinating. Excellent for discussion.

To continue reading on storyformed.com, please click HERE.

Be Still, He Says ...

“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 well 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.” -The Ministry of Motherhood

And yet! He reminds us ...

“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” Psalm 46:10

And of course, this being still and knowing is also part of what we are trying to impart to our children, perhaps one of the most important things we can pass along in the midst of such a distracted and hurried world.

It is a great responsibility to be a mother, a cultivator of beauty and nurturer of souls. If you are finding yourself overwhelmed in your mothering, in your homeschooling or with homework, consumed by anxiety, daunting tasks, and a serious lack of sleep, I invite you to take a deep breath at this moment. Relax, even for just a minute, and remember that while you may feel alone, God sees all of the work you do (the late nights, early morning, many meals, the lit candles and lovely flowers that no one else noticed). Don’t put unrealistic pressures on yourself, on your homeschooling agenda, or on your parenting, that God never asked you to do. Perhaps the most loving and healthy thing you can do for yourself and your children is to be still for a moment today and have a quiet time.

How can you prioritize your quiet time today and squeeze it into your busy schedule?

Find The Ministry of Motherhood, here ...

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

By Sally Clarkson