At Home With Sally

I look back to my childhood years as the time I learned all about making my home a place of life and food and fun--to my mom who taught us to work, to greet, to serve little trays of food around the house and to learn to love serving the life of Jesus, to enjoy celebrating the breadth of life well in the walls of our home. This Christmas, I pray you’ll find ways to spread Christmas cheer first to your own home—and then maybe invite someone in to enjoy it with you!

Because I wanted to be of encouragement to women who are choosing faithful work day after day, my team dreamed with me about having a membership site where women could fill up spiritually, emotionally, be inspired, feel supported. Life With Sally is a site you might be interested to join so that you can also find something just for you to fill your cup so to speak and to keep inspired along the way. Each month, you will receive an email that connects you to our site. There are already many recordings of Bible studies, (like the one we are sharing with you today on my podcast), studies of books for children, art and composter studies, recipes and cooking demonstrations, and much more. If you are interested in joining or looking into it, please go HERE to have a look. I hope you will join our community soon. And I hope you will enjoy this podcast which is a sample of what you would hear on my site each month. Happy Weekend.

There is no absolute solution or formula to calming every angry quarrel. Yet, wisdom from Proverbs has often saved the moment for my family. A hormonal teen, an exhausted toddler, an exasperated school-aged child, or a husband who is angry—all of these long to be treated with focused attention, an understanding heart, and a loving response.

Today on my podcast, I am introducing you to my friend, Malcolm Guite, a scholar in Cambridge, a Poet and very winsome and informative teacher. You will love hearing about why and how we celebrate Christ throughout the church year.

May we all bring a smile to God's face today, because of the appreciation in our hearts and on our lips and in our deeds for His faithfulness, righteousness, generosity and love. I pray you have the happiest of Thanksgivings!

There is so very much to be thankful for as we prepare to embark on another Thanksgiving holiday. I hope that you have a blessed Thanksgiving day with your family, and that all of your senses are delighted.

God has used the humbling circumstances of having a family and being married to bring me to my knees. He has used these very circumstances to humble me, and to thus develop more compassion for others who also struggle. Join Misty and I here, as we discuss the ways life has been difficult, and what we’ve learned along the way.

Our children are watching our responses as we walk through difficulties. They want to know if we really believe the things we teach them. They need to see us lean into Jesus in those times.

Having moved 17 times, 6 times internationally, I have learned that friendships really don’t usually just happen. Most of the community I now have, have happened as a result of me calling people, having gatherings in my home, making memories with women who inspire me. It is like planting a garden. When I till the soil and plant the seed of love, encouragement, thoughtfulness and reaching out, the seeds of friendship just naturally grow.

I had the privilege of talking with Emily last week to discuss why we all need to constantly take a step back, to plan what really matters, to invest in the real—in real love, real conversations, real food, real rest, real faith. I hope you will be greatly inspired by our conversation, but even more, I hope her book will be of great help to you as you seek to live sustainably, peacefully, joyfully.

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.

I hope you will enjoy today’s podcast, another in the Best of Sally series, all about training our children to be virtuous. A number of women have asked me to speak about the area of training children, so hope it will be of encouragement to you. Of course, same principles apply to us grown up children. Enjoy!

We hope you’ll enjoy this podcast about the importance and joy of feasting, and how it complements a home focused on living in grace!

Serving a holy God, living for his glory is our goal. If this is not built into the warp and woof of your life, then when it comes to adulthood and worshipping and reverencing God, there will be no pattern, no practiced understanding of what it means to love and obey our Lord with wholehearted devotion.

Today, Nathan and I talk about what it looks like to be a good man and how to shape your boys’ hearts so that they will grow in their self-image to wanting to be a good man in their generation—a good man who is willing to be a part of bringing God’s goodness and light and morality back into a culture that longs to be led and taught.

Nathan and Sally wrote a book called Different: The Story of an Out of the Box Kid and the Mom Who Loved Him. In this episode, they discuss the long term pathway of walking through all the stages of life with a child who will always deal with his or her issues and how to live this life with grace, patience and sustainability.  You will find encouragement and sympathy for your own life and inspiration about how to live this puzzle of life with contentment and Peace. 

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. 

Why do I focus on God's love and grace so much? Because Love is the source of all life. It is Him reincarnated through us. Love fuels faith and hope and inspires to overcome. And so I speak of love--the acting out of love which brings light to darkness, satisfaction to a starving heart, comfort to a lonely soul, sympathy to hurt feelings. Love never fails. May our love muscles grow stronger and stronger until we see Him, Love incarnate, face to face.

I hope you will enjoy our podcast today and the importance of having a heart, and seeing inside of all of those God brings into your life. And I pray you and your children will have the privilege of reaching out to share the love of Christ with them.

Crafting a culture of love requires that I as a mom become the conductor of a loving and generous heart that leads all of my children to understand gracious, generous, sacrificial, validating, forgiving love. To create such a culture requires planning, intention, mature responses, words of life and affirmation, patience, and just lots and lots of unconditional love.