Mothers Were Entrusted To Be Makers Of Homes

This has been one of my greatest delights as a mother. Home can be one of the most deeply transformative places in the world, a refuge where lives are touched, hearts are shaped, 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.​

God has entrusted mothers to be the makers of homes, the cultivators of beauty, and the givers of life.

Read more about this in 10 Gifts of Heart.

Godly Endurance: The Gold Key to a Well-Lived Life

Regularly scheduled tea times with teens or young adults can become a useful tool for mentoring and discipleship. I  do it with my boys and girls, usually alone with them for deeper friendship. I pass on a legacy of faith and encouragement over tea and either cinnamon toast, chocolate chip oatmeal cookies or a cinnamon roll, even a light meal. Great discussions have come from our planned tea times together.  

***

Godly Endurance is the key to a flourishing life, especially during times like today..

Sitting in the dark shadows of my small cozy library as the sun went behind the mountain, found me and one of my older children talking quietly of struggles, challenges, battles of life, and long term endurance. The deep friendship, shaped over years of shared life, had knit our souls quite together.

I wasn't expecting this moment to be a memorable one. Just a normal moment in the dusk of day, that shaped a soul-satisfying memory.

"Mama," my grown child tenderly whispered, "One of the greatest things you have ever accomplished is to keep our family together through love, faith, laying down your own life, and enduring with as much grace as Jesus could give you, so that our lives could be whole, healthy and strong.”

“I know that only God will know the ways you have chosen to give and serve and forgive,  when you had to make the choices to do so. But all of us kids have benefitted because you were willing to weather the storms of life for us and hold us together. I want a spouse who knows how to be strong."

Sometimes, I think mamas hold the whole world together. Their work is that important. Much of our lives as a family has been a battle through raging storms. But, there are some amazing graces on this side of motherhood, when my fourchildren have reached adulthood---I don't have to go back through any of thestorms we barely weathered and much of my labor is behind me. And from all of it, I see four healthy, strong, vibrant adults who are also my beloved friends.

Join me at AthomewithSally for a new Tea Time Tuesday podcast: Summer salad, books, music, scripture to give you hope.

Trusting God To Care For Your Children

Knowing the limitations of my responsibility as a mother has actually been quite freeing to me. I can be God's agent for cultivating the hearts of my children; in fact, I'm supposed to fill that role. But only God can give them life, strength, and divine guidance.

This means my success in life or in motherhood or as a Christian is not dependent on my being perfect, but on my allowing God, in the Person of the Holy Spirit, to work through me to accomplish his purposes. As I depend on him, he who began a good work in me will perfect it (Philippians 1:6). He will do the same for the precious ones he has entrusted to me.

That understanding is one of the finest gifts of faith I can ever give my children. Even as I depend on the Lord, I must help them learn to depend on him. I must use as many ways as I can think of, as Christ did, to convey to them that none of us has to live the Christian life alone. We have Jesus' promise on that, and the Lord is always faithful to keep his promise. He will always be with us—mother and children alike—even to the end of the age.

Read more about this in The Ministry of Motherhood.

Your Trials Can Become Your Greatest Accomplishments

God has shared with me his wisdom along the way. He has shown me that with him I am stronger and more capable of accomplishing more things in life than I ever would have imagined. Even though I don't desire trials, I can enter into them in anticipation of how they can become my greatest accomplishments.

Joy, then, comes in embracing the opportunity to be a part of his world of righteousness and preparing to live with him in that kingdom for eternity. Joy comes in following where he leads me, choosing to believe that his way is good and that he works according to his will. I quench this joy when I resist him and fight against the dance he is trying to teach me. I experience the grace of the dance when I follow his direction and his lead, even when it seems to be the opposite of what I might have done.

To grow in this joy, I have to move where he leads. When dancers attempt to turn in different directions, there is no beauty, no synchronizing of movement. But when they learn to read each other's movements and move as one body, there is a beauty, a grace, and a skill of step that grants the joy of unity and elegance to the dance.

Read more about this in Dancing With My Heavenly Father.

Tea Time Tuesday: Allowing Pleasure to Influence Your Days

Click here to play today’s new podcast episode.

In almost everything that touches our everyday life on earth, God is pleased when we're pleased. He wills that we be as free as birds to soar and sing our maker's praise without anxiety.

- A. W. Tozer

As it happens, I hide birds all over my home for my sweet grandchildren to discover. And of course, to make tea time more fun, I might just place one on my tea table to create and tell a “bird adventure story.” This is my bird, Daniel, who had so much to say.

I love this quote by Tozer. To know and believe that God “wills us to be as free as birds,” and cares that we we are pleased is oxygen to our hearts that long to know His love. Just a little thought to ponder this week as we seek to show our children His gracious, generous love toward us.

I have been over the top busy this week, so decided to share some short interviews I had with a couple of dear friends. Jennifer Pepito is a dear friend, seasoned mother through many stages of life. Her book gives such scope and life to building home. I know she will be of great encouragement to you.

And Lyndsey Mimnagh, another sweet friend, had so much to say about creating life, beauty, wonder in a home education environment. Both are cherished friends. Enjoy!

Join me for today’s Tea Time Tuesday podcast for more ideas around delight.

Loving As Christ Did

As I consider some of my most committed "love" relationships — Clay, who has stuck with me through thick and thin; a few close friends, who have loved and accepted me unconditionally for decades; my children, who are the closest of friends and beloved of my heart — I realize that it has been in my relationships with them that I have had the most joyful memories, the deepest intimate encounters, the greatest celebrations of life.

I have felt deeply loved and accepted in the common life experiences that have knit our souls together. And it all came through committed, "I will be loyal to you and love you no matter what" love.

Jesus said, "Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you." How has he loved us? He gave up his throne in heaven and came to the earth as a simple, humble man. He lived and loved and served and healed and poured out his life and died on the cross to pay for our sins. So that becomes the standard for what he means when he says, "Love one another."

If our relationships are built around serving God and obeying Christ by laying down our lives for others, then our giving love will be about pleasing God — regardless of how the other person responds. Every relationship becomes meaningful in light of doing what God wants us to do — to love — so that our joy can be made full.

There is something very freeing about loving in this biblical way. I can always succeed. I can always be at peace no matter how the relationship goes. If I please Christ by laying down my life, then I have done what was expected of me.

Read more about this in Dancing with My Heavenly Father.

Tea Time Tuesday: A Legacy of Love

Click here to play today’s new podcast episode.

"Tea, though ridiculed by those who are naturally coarse in their nervous sensibilities, will always be the favorite beverage of the intellectual." - Thomas De Quincey

This made me giggle. Yet, intellectuals love to discuss ideas and issues. Tea time is a perfect place to cultivate great discussions about interesting thoughts.

A while ago, a friend surprised me and invited me to a wonderful tea time, as you can see.

Often, you we don’t know we need someone to notice us. Yet, on this occasion, I deeply felt the love of my thoughtful friend. Shared memory and the time we talked as friends filled up places I didn’t know were empty. On my podcast today, I share a bit about the classic tea sandwiches I was served at many a tea while I lived in the United Kingdom, as well as traditional food in a proper English tea.

* * *

Each of us encounters friction in every relationship. All of us are selfish and self-centered at heart. We will fuss and be petty. God’s word became to me a guide for how to find peace in relationships, how to invest in them with God’s word as my guide. I still have conflict along my pathway, but I have been straining forward in learning how to avoid as much of unnecessary conflict as possible—and how to love better.

1. A great lover of people is mature in keeping their approach to others Biblically thoughtful. “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:12) The golden rule is my starting point in parenting, marriage and friendship. How do I want to be treated? With compassion, sympathy, generous love, kindness. I strain to grow in this way towards others.

2. When Peter asked Jesus how many times we should forgive, Jesus replied “Seventy times seven,” (Matthew 18:21-22). We must forgive endlessly, always. Holding bitterness, unforgiveness in our hearts poisons and hurts our hearts.

3. “Love is patient.” So much to unpack here.

For the rest of these principles, listen to my podcast, At Home with Sally. I will also be sharing about coronation chicken, why attachment is essential for parents with babies, favorite music, a homeschooling planner, and much more more. Join me, and share with a friend.

When God's Reality Comes Alive

Mothers particularly feel the pressure to provide the best of everything for our children—training, education, lessons, activities, friends, even meals. We want our kids to have character, clean their rooms, excel in school, have the best music lessons, be in all the activities they want, and to never be lonely.

You can fill up your child’s life with good people, good activities, and good things, but that will not be enough. What your child needs most is a heart that knows the love of God. The greatest gift you will give your children, a gift they will carry with them into every relationship and situation of their lives, is a heart deeply centered on loving God and loving others, and a mind formed and filled by the habits of faith.

Your first priority as a mother is to introduce your children not just to truths about God, but to His reality in their lives. You are helping them understand what it means to seek His kingdom and His righteousness every day—to love Him, to know Him, to believe in His presence, to see His work in the world around them, and to form their lives according to His truth and will.

They won’t learn all that in Sunday school or Bible club. It is in your home and in your presence that your children will learn what it means to be a follower of Christ and a seeker of God and His kingdom. They will believe what they see in you.

Read more about this in 10 Gifts of Heart.

Taking Responsibility For Your Well-Being

Life is draining, every moment, all the time. We have bills to pay, work to do, meals to make, people to care for, tasks to complete. When we are constantly emptying our hearts, minds, and souls, it is essential that we take responsibility to keep filling them up. What we feed our inner beings will determine what we can give to those in our spheres of influence. What we have stored, cherished, and valued in our lives is reflective of our true selves.

One of the most important lessons I learned over the years was that I needed to take responsibility for my own education, for filling my soul and mind with excellence and inspiration, and for caring for my physical well-being so that I would maintain emotional, spiritual, and physical health.

Invest in reading and memorizing passages from the Bible every day; read biographies of heroic people to be inspired and great stories for pleasure, which will fill your personal imagination with courage and healthy sentiments; read spiritual classics every day, and feed your soul on deep devotional concepts that will stretch your understanding of spirituality or theology.

When you learn to take responsibility for your own well-being, you will produce a harvest of influence and grace in every other area that is influenced by your heart health. You and I shall answer to God for what we fed our minds, how we treated our bodies, and what we celebrated in life. May the fires of our souls burn brighter with each year.

Read more about this in Own Your Life.

Tea Time Tuesday: Tea, A Friend, And A Soothed Spirit

Click here to play today’s new podcast episode.

“Today is a multiple cups of tea sort of day made better by the presence of a sweet friend.”

A stark memory rests in my mind from when I was a little girl that remains, from a woman in my life (I’ll call her Frau Grumpy).

She followed most of life with clouds hanging over her demeanor — complaining, carrying around an Eeyore sort of "chip on her shoulder." She never ceased to sigh deeply. Supposedly she had been a "committed" Christian since childhood. Yet, she always made me feel discouraged when I would go to her home as a child. Her spirit depleted those of us who had to spend time with her and made me feel that it would be easy to disappoint her because everything around her did not meet up to her standards.

Recently, I was having a quiet time with the Lord. He brought her to mind. I realized that this woman had high ideals, but her ideals did not include having a grateful, contented heart. The spirit she cast was one of complaining, whining.

In this fallen world, it is easy to become disappointed with much around us — the media, the television shows, the movies, politics, disasters, lack of morality in our leaders, economic crisis, people who compromise or are immature, disappoint us, and on and on. Many of us have difficult circumstances to bear. Others have an ill child. Marriage can be a place of strife and loneliness. Christians and family members can be our harshest critics. Life can be extremely taxing. Working through these obstacle courses of life can deplete us. These caused me considerable depression at times.

But what we practice daily when we face these trials will determine, to some degree, the legacy and memory we leave to those who know us well.

We must come to the conclusion at some point, that this is the "broken" place. This is the sphere in which sinful ones have separated themselves from God's original design. Here, Satan prowls around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may destroy. We should live to expect this as the place of warfare for the kingdom of God, and take up our arms as His soldiers to fight our battles with courage and faith.

More on today’s Tea time Tuesday podcast: gratitude and grace, a Bee Keeper book, recipes, fun!