Life with Sally

I hope you'll enjoy today's podcast as Misty Krasawski joins me to discuss parenting our children from toddlerhood through the teenage years!

Contemplating the hearts of my own children and seeking to teach them about the grace of God, I realize my love and service to them must come before any of my great words, my teaching and training. My time, my attention, my "soft-tickling"--even when I am tired or have other "important" things n my mind--is what builds our relationship and prepares them to listen to what I have to say. Only then, once the wells of their need are filled with the grace of being loved, will my words to them about God's grace finally make sense."

God ordained this friendship and we mark the time we met every year when we all attend Hutch Moot, hosted by Andrew Peterson, and finish our time together at the end of the weekend, eating too much, talking as fast as we can and enjoying the sweet fellowship of families that love one another without expectation or reserve.

Sam and I talked about so many things in the podcast today and I hope it encourages you as it did me.

Today, Joy and I had fun talking and just comparing notes. We shared our restless thoughts, our comforts, our complaints and the funny things happening in our lives. I promised to try to keep podcasts going during this time and we had lots of fun recording this one for you.

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.

This is a time for us to act in light of our hope, that He is preparing for us a place where all of life will be redeemed. A time to show others—our families, children, friends, that our hope is sure—not false. It is a time we can write the days of our sequestering as ones of growth, strength, love, beauty because He is "God with us," and He is a rock, immovable, our refuge.

Over the years of our lives, our family hosted hundreds, if not thousands of people. Yet, to make sure each one felt welcomed and cared for meant that we had to prepare our children's hearts, (and our own), to know what to expect, how to treat each who came through the door. It's one thing to want to tell people about Christ. Yet, it is quite another to know how to reach out, start a conversation, put people at ease. Manners are the vehicles through which we act out honoring others, to grant them the respect they deserve as a fellow human being. Manners give the confidence to know how to act towards someone.

We can all move forward from where we are--with great hope, because of Him. So, I give you a part of my heart and how I have kept from staying in the mire of guilt and disappointment with myself over the years.

When a child learns to wait on his mama and on circumstances, he is practicing learning to wait on God--and that is just the person God uses--the one who looks to God and waits expectantly on Him.

We no longer live for ourselves, but for the glory of Jesus, who bought us with a price, that we might live for Him every moment, every day.

I am "the mama," the one who helps right the wrongs, listens to hearts, prays, laughs, gives all of myself, even on a "stormy day" or "stormy season," because it is part of my learned role--to care for those in my charge as Jesus did--even in the midst of the unexpected storms of life like the one we all find ourselves in currently.

This Good Friday, I pray you will know His grace, His love, His help as you join Him by laying your life down. Have a beautiful holy weekend, and a Happy Easter!