Creating traditions over the year with your family will cultivate a family culture unique to your own heritage. Each of us has agency to decide what is a priority to our own family with consideration of our unique values, personalities and preferences. Yet, when a celebration is practiced year after year, together, pathways of security are roughed out in hearts and minds to remember these practices as moments that speak of love, home and intimacy shared to build life-long community.

There are times in life when we all long for the world to be a place of rest, only beauty, good news and hope. Have you ever wished that just for a small, brief time, life could be happy, without burden, without guilt, without struggle? Just happy and easy and free to enjoy? I have. As a dreamer, romantic, idealist, I sometimes wish life could be as lovely as I can imagine it to be in my heart.

Take time to regroup today--Go eat some chocolate, and don't feel guilty as you are eating it (that would certainly be a waste of good chocolate!) Listen to some beautiful music, watch a heart-warming movie, take a nap, eat off of paper plates to save cleanup! The rest of December is still coming and you will be the better for it. I'll be praying for you!

I hope you will enjoy my podcast today as I share about tea time discipleship with you and I know you will love the chapter. It could change your relationships as it has mine—such a treasure, such a simple secret. Enjoy!

As you prepare to cultivate a people, a place and a community within your family and at table, remember, it is the daily celebrating of life together, that will prepare for you a heritage and deep friendships that will satisfy the deepest places of your soul the rest of your life. It is a gift to inherit and one of the greatest works of your life.

True discipleship must reflect the fact that God values our voice, thought, and will. Dinnertime discussions reflect and enact this value, making a place where everyone can be heard, be exposed to truth, and have the space to develop convictions in the context of community. Through dinnertime discussions, convictions can be formed, confidence can be gained, conversation can be practiced, and consideration can be taught.

I am so excited to share this Mini-Podcast with you. We sat down quickly together and recorded this conversation after a quick breakfast the morning I left for Nashville. I know you will enjoy hearing his lovely accent and his insight about stories, an inspirational poem and thoughts from C.S. Lewis about table time.

The story of the Clarkson family has been written at tables. Not with pen and paper, but with words and people, food and fellowship, talk and time. Whatever kind of table it might be—breakfast, lunch, dinner; picnic or deck; plain or fancy; small, tall, wood, metal, or rock; bare or cloth-covered; even the ground—it becomes our family table when we sit down together to eat and drink and be and belong. The delightful fruits of God's creation we share together fill and fuel us as God's life- breathed and image-bearing creatures, and our shared story grows from the table's Spirit-infused life coming alive in us.

What does it mean to be transformed, changed, and reshaped as an antidote to being conformed to the world? In this episode, Sally ponders these ideas as she discusses chapters four and five of the Life-giving Table and teaches us about how family culture has the distinct and grace-giving power to both change and protect us. She inspires listeners to instill a sense of "this is who we are" and "this is what we believe" into the hearts of her children as they gather at the table, and gives tools to not only create a vision to define our own family culture, but to practically cultivate a legacy.