Tea Time Tuesday: Building A Life Of Vision For Our Children

Click here to play today’s new podcast episode.

Did you see the beautiful tea cup in the photo above? My tea tasted especially good in this cup today because Clay, my husband, gave it to me on my birthday. It is from Scotland — a piece of Dunoon fine china — and if you look closely, you might even see the bird he chose just for me. Tea tastes better in a cup with a story!

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“Oh, the comfort — the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person — having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.” -Dinah Craik, A Life for a Life, 1859

Building virtue, character, and righteousness into the life of a child is a lifelong commitment. But influence always starts out with a relationship with someone who is trustworthy, one who has integrity, who is gracious and kind. Once the trust is built, the measure of the relationship goes deep and grows with each year of friendship and companionship. Without a foundation of love, as scripture says, we become a noisy gong, a clanging bell.

Join me on today’s podcast as I share 3 foundations for building and cultivating virtue in relationship to children or adults you mentor.

Also on today’s Tea Time Tuesday podcast:

  • Fish tacos, anyone? Today’s recipe

  • A movie about the Olympics a hundred years ago in Paris that you must not miss

  • My birthday story

  • Living Well, and so much more!

Be sure to listen in. Have a lovely week!

Mothers Are The Conductors Of Their Homes

From the beginning, the vision Clay and I had for our home was to reflect the reality of the living God — to embody His sparkle, pleasure, artistry, fun, and intimacy. God’s truth was to be taught, cherished, obeyed daily within the boundaries of our home. His love was to be the oxygen that each one of us breathed.

I began to understand that a servant’s heart would be required to adequately meet the needs of those who stepped through our doors — whether those needs involved friendship, a place to rest, forgiveness and grace, guidance and instruction, a safe haven from the stresses of the world, or just a place to retreat from the mundane or the burdens of life.

My home has been decades in the making. It did not come together all at once. It all began with the decision to begin — to envision, plan, and build. But it didn’t end there. Having a home that tells a great story happens over time as we mature, refine, create, and love.

Read more about this in The Lifegiving Home.

Depending On God's Love Every Day

How is your soul today? Be reminded that He is walking alongside you, ready to pour life and love through you everywhere you go. Love is there, waiting to strengthen the soul of a great woman who depends on His love flowing in and through every day.

Today, choose to become a co-creator with Him who is the source of all that is beautiful and good, celebrating His reality in the midst of this puzzle that is called your life.

Read more about this in Mom Heart Moments.

Tea Time Tuesday: All About Legacy

Click here to play today’s new podcast episode.

My life is all about legacy.

“Every day of your life, you have the potential of leaving a godly model to follow, a kingdom message to believe, an integrity that is holy and a purpose that is eternal. God has allowed you the opportunity to touch eternity with your life by giving these gifts to those children he has entrusted into your hands. Live into your legacy and you will change your world forever.” (from Well Lived)

When I became a believer, I was challenged to ponder how I might bring the light of Christ to my world in my lifetime. I was taught to invest in people by serving them, showing them the love of God by my words and actions, inspiring them with messages of Jesus. Discipleship at its core, I reached out to others to do what I had been taught — to pass on a vision and passion to fulfill the eternal purposes for which I had been created.

And then I had children...

Light dawned in my heart that my children would be the most important disciples I would have. I would answer to God for building a legacy of faith into their lives. I would be responsible for reaching their hearts with the love of God; teaching His truths and moral excellence, giving them the ability to think profoundly, encouraging them to become educated in order to use their skills and calling for God, and to pass on the purposes of God which alone would fulfill their longings and desires to live meaningful lives.

Mentoring my children into godly adults met deep needs in my heart to connect to what really mattered and shaped my own virtue and faith.

Leaving a godly legacy takes a lifetime, creates varied emotions — sometimes joy, or feelings of failure, exhaustion. Taking responsibility to mentor my children called me to my best self — to grow intellectually, in character, in virtue, to grow deeper in faith. God designed parenting so we would grow up, become more like Jesus, more mature.

Perfection is not the goal, but a willing heart to partner with Jesus, to live in His grace, to dwell in His unconditional love, to pass that intimate knowledge of Him on, that hearts may be lit to live a legacy in their own stories, through their own lives.

More on today’s new Tea Time Tuesday podcast.

Becoming A Lifegiving Parent

As I’ve partnered with Clay in that bigger picture, it has been my privilege to do my best to be a godly mother to our children—to nurture their faith through my love, grace, discipleship, encouragement, instruction, and inspiration.

I have found purpose and meaning in trying to be the kind of mother I believe was in God’s heart at creation—a lifegiving mother, one who brings the life of God to my children.

I won’t pretend it was always a wonderful journey with no difficulties, but the blessings far outweigh the burdens as I see now the influences of my life on each of my children. They are, as God promised, the blessings.

Read more about this in The Lifegiving Parent.

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.  

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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.