Life with Sally

Parenting can feel like climbing a mountain with high peaks and low valleys in between, especially with the onset of hormones, emotions, and changes — of them and of us! On today's new podcast, my friends and I discuss lessons we've learned and how we have walked through and are currently walking through life with our teens.

Sometimes the circumstances of life are like our home -- messes and joys, fears and blessings all in the same breath. But it is what we see and how we perceive what is happening that will determine our comfort or our despair. Today, join me and my friend, Jane Biel, as we have a conversation about beauty amidst messes.

Often, people will ask me: How did you raise children who think and who are articulate? Who engage and add to the discussion of truth, beauty, and goodness in our culture? Today, Nathan and Joseph and I discuss how to raise deep thinkers. It was so inspiring to me to hear them discuss what shaped them to become deep thinkers. I hope you will be encouraged as I was.

Life for all of us is filled with anxious moments, yet, it really is possible to gain perspective of life in a fallen world, to learn how get stronger at being courageous and better at walking with God.

Growing takes time. Growing and waiting for the ripe moment requires hard work and patience. We are so used to instant gratification that we often quit on something before it has had proper time to grow -- but character building and training takes time.

When darkness falls, especially on our emotions and thoughts, we can feel lost, moving toward depression or a cloudiness of soul. Today, two of my friends and I share our own stories of depression, dark seasons, and walking through these times with faith.

As I look at the landscape of our times, I see a need for hope, strong faith, foundations of good character and integrity. All of these needs have been a part of humanity for generations. Women who caught a vision of becoming civilizers, life-givers, shapers of souls, were the ones who instilled these attributes through their homes. It was the conversations at the meals, bedtime blessings, morning prayers, that created human beings who learned to thrive in real life.

This time filled with anxiety and fear could, from God's eyes of history, be one of the finest hours for Christians to stay true, to be faithful until the end, to endure hardship, to rejoice in His reality, to live by faith, "assurance of things hoped for, convictions of things not seen."

Whatever we pursue and cultivate will determine what we are able to pass on to all who we encounter. As stewards of our souls, we must seek to cultivate a garden of beauty -- it must be a regular habit, a discipline, to expose ourselves to great minds, musicians, artists, & theologians so that our souls will indeed reflect a museum of His great character and nobility.

I challenge you to walk with courage and faith through this season, no matter how disastrous the voyage may appear to be. Your words of hope and faith will give you the strength and courage to keep going. You will leave a legacy of faith and faithfulness that will help generations to come.