Life with Sally

As I look back through the years, I realize that what I needed as a young mama and wife is what I still need—friends and community. In this very strange time of unusual isolation and separation from our normal commitments, activities and communities, we have all felt hollow in our hearts. A longing for someone to understand, someone to celebrate life with.

God is looking for our heart-love for Him, not our perfection. In the midst of invisibility and times when no one sees or knows what is going on in our lives, the stresses from challenging children, the loneliness of a struggling marriage, the cleaning up of one more mess amidst the crumbs of our life. Yet, God wants to companion us through these places and show us His love.

Most of us are entering into the Christmas season and trying to figure out how to take care of the needs of our loved ones, keep feeding the masses, maintain our responsibilities and stay sane. Yet, there is a part of me, through the years, that has learned to "give in to the Christmas Season." I don't mean the commercialism or being too busy and over committed. But learning to enjoy the gifts given, however simple, the simple celebrations of home, the lights and the mystery of imagination that can be so much a part of the joy of life.

Sensing God is a discovery of Jesus in all of the sensory points embedded into each of us. It shows how the holiest acts in our daily lives are often the simplest: reveling in the beauty of nature; listening to our favorite music; eating a nourishing meal with family. These are potentially heartbeats of a living faith, and when we learn to recognize and respond to God's goodness in them, it draws us into redemptive participation with Him, the source of all beauty.

Long after each year's gifts have been forgotten, if we give to our loved ones a joyful, loving heart, we will have given them a gift that will be with them their whole lives. They will come to us again and again for the "Life" they need to feel, hear and be comforted by during every season.

"Miracle on Highway 34" is a beautiful modern retelling of the nativity set in a small town diner and the characters that find themselves there on Christmas Eve during a snow storm. After such a chaotic and tumultuous year, Nathan is releasing a movie that offers a little bit of hope, love, warmth, and joy. Nathan wrote, produced, directed, and is acting opposite his wife Keelia in the film. He is hoping it will be a blessing to you and your family this year, something that perhaps you can make a memory around.

Our brains and souls long for color, beauty, the crafting of words and ideas, the discipline of conquering a classical piece of music on piano or a contemporary song on guitar. Our palate are made for deliciousness, our longings are for traditions, celebrations with our people in our place done in our way.

Though many of us cannot be with our families for Thanksgiving, and we are inside our homes with no where to go for reprieve, and we wish the tumult of the election would go away and that Covid would end, we pick up ourselves, we bring beauty to choose, light to darkness and we breath in the peace that He is with us.

My dearest friend and daughter has such a perfectly timed surprise for all of us. I can't wait to share about it today with all of you. Sarah has joined me to tall you all about what is ahead that I know will encourage your heart. Here is a message from her.

Our idealism does make us vulnerable. May God give us grace to not be destroyed in the flow of darkness right now but help us to be light givers.