At Home With Sally

I so enjoy having friends who inspire me and who have messages that fill my heart. Ruth Chou Simons is such a friend. Her art, her words and her friendship always help to fill some of the dry places of my spiritual heart. We recently recorded a podcast together of some of the issues we have both experienced in this long journey of life as a woman, a spouse, a working writer and a mother. I hope you will be encouraged by our time together. I also am excited to share her new book with you because it is so beautiful and so encouraging.

No matter how hard we try, how many achievements we make, or how many ideals we keep, we will never be able to do enough to earn God's love. Such attempts lead us down a dead-end road paved with feelings of life-depleting guilt and condemnation. Only the grace and love that God gives freely through his merciful nature can provide us with that which we long for: peace and joy.

When these tests come upon us, it is our one moment when we can look at our circumstances, feel our feelings of despair, and then choose to say, "I don't understand, but I believe and I will wait, and I will rest, as an act of my will, because you are the Lord of Hosts and you are my Father."

Five years ago, my friend Ainsley Arment started a community of mothers who want to give their children a quality education, but also a childhood full of wonder, freedom, and curiosity. This community, called Wild + Free, began on Instagram but has spread into real-life gatherings all over the world. I’ve spoken at several of her conferences, and she’s just written a book called The Call of the Wild + Free: Reclaiming Wonder in Your Child’s Education.

To build anything great and strong requires time. But a hedge of strength, protecting, guarding the beauty inside is a safe-guard from destroying the sacred trust. Marriage is one of the most profound ways God designed for us so that we could slowly learn and develop in our own lives, the very character of Christ, learning to serve, love, and give ourselves as He did for us. We hope you’ll enjoy this podcast today, as Kristen and Misty are again joining me to talk about marriage!

I hope you will give yourself time to really ponder the podcast today and to breathe in the beauty of this story. We only have this life, today, to choose to celebrate the reality of God in the presence of others and we never know when this opportunity will be over. Let me know your thoughts after you listen.

Marriage is meant to be a picture of the love Christ has for the church; His commitment and persevering faithfulness to us. He said He would never leave us or forsake us. He laid down his life for us.  Jesus treasures marriage because it is the holy place where His love for the world is modeled by how we practice giving to one another and staying the course of our commitment. What might you do to strengthen your own marriage, today?

I have had several podcasts lately about friendship. I almost didn’t play this one today because I wanted to be sure you had not heard too much about friendship from me lately. Yet, in this podcast, I realized that there have been crucial dark moments in my life when I would have floundered or fallen apart if I had not had friends to carry me, to comfort me, to guide me when I couldn’t see where I was going. So I hope that you will listen to this podcast today and be encouraged once again about how vitally it is to understand that much of our joy is sustained through relationships with people who have chosen to love us, to help us, to be committed.

Sometimes, we need to just stop life from invading every moment of our day and sapping all our energy, and take the time to make a new plan. Rest, rest, rest. We all need to regularly rest to keep ourselves alive. But we need more than rest: sometimes: we need something fun.

My friend, Glen Packiam, has written a book that will refresh your understanding about how Christ comes to you to satisfy your life, to validate your story and to show you how to become His life and light to those He brings your way.