It is not getting the rules right that will make our children want to serve God. It is laying down our life for them, serving them, listening to them, loving who God made them to be, that will secure in them a desire to love God with all of their hearts. By seeing our love, they will more easily understand and receive God's love, as it will already be familiar to their hearts.
The reality is that all marriages are filled with challenges. How a woman responds to her marriage will determine if it is a place where the light and beauty of God’s love will be shown. One of the glories of women is the opportunity to spread the gracious spirit of love and peace in her home. It is a beautiful grace of godly women to behold -- the fragrance of unconditional love and the art of spreading light, even in the dark places.
When you first hold a baby in your arms, you can't even imagine the talents, personality, and strengths they will have as an adult. The miraculous and mysterious process of loving, training, cultivating skills, inspiring your children over many years results in a full-fledged adult that you could not have perceived in their earliest moments.
Those who wait for the Lord, who patiently follow after Him, will indeed gain new strength, they will run and not become weary, they will walk and not faint. And their work and their reward will be sure.
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.
The dreams inside us point to the destiny we were created to fulfill. We each want to know that our lives matter, that we are not invisible. When we see them only as a series of mundane days, become consumed by busyness, or dwell on hurts, we become prisoners to the circumstances of our lives. Ignoring the eternal purposes God has designed for us leads to emptiness.
To create a life where the hours and moments can be filled in satisfying interaction means that we must choose to fill the time our children could be engaged with machines or other entertainment with planned personal time that satisfies to the depths of their hearts, minds, and souls.
"A Joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones." Take good medicine, and even in the midst of draining circumstances, plan on lighting a candle in the darkness, playing music through the pain, eating avocado toast, dancing in the midst of the mess, and smiling often as it is truly good for the heart! And above all, give yourself sweet grace!
A drive for purpose and a desire to impact others for the kingdom of God does not come out of a vacuum. Vision of the heart is what empowers all of us, as God's children, to follow Him in faith and purpose in becoming fishermen in the world. It flows from inspiration, not from moralistic rules or laws to be kept.
We know we are called to follow Christ, to take His message to the world, to raise our children to heed Jesus' call. But sometimes we fail to consider that following the Lord means leaving behind the familiar, exchanging a temporal view of life for an eternal goal.
Life as a woman, mom, and wife can sometimes be stressful, overwhelming, exhausting, boring and demanding on many levels. Sometimes moms feel guilty admitting the variety of feelings they have. Feelings are natural -- they neither define who we are or take away from our righteousness. They are just a reaction to the situation we are in.
The longer I am a parent and grandparent, the more I understand how God feels about us. We are irresistible to Him. We are His own, he made us to be like Him. He champions us and celebrates us. He gave everything, even His own life, to redeem, heal, bring us back to the infinite fullness of life as He created it.
Celebrating is a part of God's nature. The birds chirp to God, the sunrise and sunset sing of His glory, the stars declare His beauty. There is a life and hope and energy in this celebrating. It brings all earthly struggles into perspective, a baby bringing life that would conquer all ills, calm all storms, heal all wounds.
Resting in Him, choosing peace and putting off responsibilities is sometimes such grand medicine for my soul, that after choosing to rest and to invest in fun and love and ease of life, my strength is renewed and all issues are able to be faced with grace. I know busyness is coming, but I will face it with courage later if I rest today.
Today, I talk about making your life whole in mind, body, character and actions so that those who listen to you have a virtuous, good, right model to follow. Jesus said, “The student when fully trained will be like his teacher.” Those who follow us, and our children who look to us as teacher, call us to become our best selves out of the accountability they hold us to as we model truth in front of them.
Join me on my podcast today as I speak about why we choose to live with our hearts on fire, with our weary souls seeking one more day to worship, to sing, to be alive with His truths. We live with the end in mind, that our stories will be told throughout eternity, that He will wipe away every tear, He cares that we care for the children, friends, husbands He has entrusted into our hands.
This is the fallen world, and we will never be able to control ourselves, our circumstances, our children, or the world the live in. Living in the grace and knowledge that God forgives, knows our limitations, is not surprised or disappointed, but wanting to give us hope is crucial. Of course you have fallen short -- you are a mom and you are human.
Weariness and just plain sick of the constant day in day out work day inside the walls of our home had drained me. And so Joy, in honor of her name, announced, “Tomorrow night, we shall have a Girl’s Spa and Play night. I'll set the menu, the activities, and the entertainment.” And so she did. Listen in to hear how we had a fun night in.
We live in a world that values conformity. We want to use our force to make people, and our children, fit into the box. Be good. Be tame. Be moral. Come up with the right answer. Don't bring attention to yourself. And yet, after many years, I learned that who I was was exactly who God formed me to be, and suited my own story well. Live in the freedom of your own design today and cultivate your own life story as you live into your own unique part of His greater Story.
As women, mothers, and wives, it is absolutely crucial that we learn to breathe, relax, and focus and center ourselves on what should be prioritized. Today, I explore the idea of managing the elements that add to the chaos of our lives, and the ways forward to finding peace and centeredness.
The vision of the heart, the cultivation of wonder, is what empowers all of us, as God's children, to follow Him in faith and purpose. Now is a time to awaken to the wonders around you and to celebrate them with all in your wake.
