At Home With Sally

Francesca has won one Grammy and had four career nominations, two K-LOVE Fan Awards, six Dove Awards (including being named the Gospel Music Association’s Artist of the Year) and seven No. 1 singles! I hope you will enjoy our chat together. I love her heart and her desire that we all find our roots in Jesus to hold us through all seasons of our lives. Be inspired.

This week's way is crucial to the core of our children's character and will even help them to learn to stay faithful in times of doubt. When they learn to be diligent in one area, it spills into all areas of life. This is why it is crucial that we train this attribute into the very core of our children's values about themselves. We do it by gentle, daily, little by little, consistent training over a young lifetime at home.

Why is it so important to us? Why did I go to the extra trouble of yet another special meal on yet another morning—especially when church offered doughnuts? Because we are building pathways in our hearts and brains that connect us to thousands of hours spent over years in this way, reminding all of us what we believe and cherish together, what we hold dear, what keeps us faithful through one more table and one more pancake shared over many times of consuming pancakes and French Toast.

Sometimes, when we have piles of responsibility on our plate, we start to place a lot of energy, worry and fear into the issues of our lives and fret. The last thing that seems productive when life is busy is to rest. Yet, rest may very well be the most strategic thing to do if we have a busy, full and demanding life.

Nathan and I have recorded a podcast for you that we hope will encourage and inspire you to breathe in the peace of God while you exercise the hope and faith that He is at work spinning great hearts and lives while you are living and building values and messages in your every day life. This week, Nathan’s new movie, The Unlikely Good Samaritan, comes out in a debut in a theatre in Colorado Springs and you can pick up your own copy on Amazon or in your local Walmarts. Hope it inspires you—and look for Clay and me as we play a tiny cameo appearance. So fun.

When we capture the reality of God's nature being extravagantly generous on our behalf, this character quality born in our lives and trained into the lives of our children, reflects a wordless picture of a love that will reach hearts.

Throughout life, it is in resting in His presence and strength and power and goodness that will put our hearts at rest. It is only when we patiently face the storms confiding, "This is too big for me to handle, but I am asking you to handle it for me," and then learn to wait--and sometimes wait and wait and wait!--that we will see His purpose, ways and yes, salvation from our storms. I wish I had learned at a much earlier age not to struggle so and worry and fret--it did me no good, and now I see how very faithful God was--He just didn't always do it my way!

I’ve been a fan and friends of Elizabeth Foss for many years. She is a faithful, kind mama to nine, a true lover of Jesus, and an encourager to many, for many years now through her blog and writings. I know you’ll be encouraged by our conversation! You’ll definitely want to follow her, so find Elizabeth here: www.elizabethfoss.com www.takeupandread.org Twitter and Instagram: elizabethfoss Elizabeth is also so kind as to offer our readers a copy of her new study on friendship, plus a beautiful mug! Comment below to enter to win.

Today we’re joined by Bailey Hurley as we continue our discussions about Girls’ Club! You can find Bailey at her website: Bailey Hurley She also has wonderful friendship journal prompts that are free for download from her website! These journal prompts redirect you back to Scripture to help you define friendship for your current season. Here’s the direct link:  https://baileythurley.com/friendship-journaling-prompts/

So grateful that Mackenzie Koppa was able to join me for today’s podcast! She says … “I'm MacKenzie Koppa and around the interwebs I'm known as Bold Turquoise- or the gal who attempts to cultivate loveliness in her life and tries to encourage other women to as well (I'm an ENFP, I can't help it!). I'm a single mom of four sweet kids, voiceover artist, podcaster and speaker. I love Jesus, my kids and chocolate- in that order.” We hope you enjoy our podcast! Find Mackenzie here at Mackenzie Koppa She also podcasts at Cultivating the Lovely! And here’s the podcast that Sally specifically asks about toward the end of the episode~ thesamepagepodcast.com Instagram- @mackenziekoppa

I am so very thrilled to be sharing this podcast with Gina Smith today! Gina is a wonderful mama and friend to many, and her husband is the author of the Green Ember series. You can find his information here … Audio book! https://sdsmith.net/freeaudio/ Newest book! https://sdsmith.net/book/the-wreck-and-rise-of-whitson-mariner/ Sam on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/sdsmithereens/?hl=en

Whew! Sweet Friends, We love you so much. I am probably on a plane from Dallas to England as you read this. We have all been so very inspired by meeting so many at Dallas, Raleigh and Wild and Free. We are already getting letters from so many of you who say this book is inspiring you to embracing your capacity as a woman, to seeing the need to cultivate excellent accountability and community and we are thrilled. Thanks for sharing this book with so many. We have a few more wonderful recordings with our friends but wanted to give you a look into some of what we have been talking about together. I hope you enjoy our chat today.

So glad to be with Emily Thomas today! Emily’s first job was teaching juvenile inmates in the prison system.  That job didn’t kill her so she thought she’d try parenthood.  Before kids she was a teacher, nurse, and world traveler. Now she mostly travels around her house picking up toys. Motherhood proved much harder than Emily anticipated so, in an effort to not run away from home, she started a podcast.   On her weekly show, Emily interviews other women who are struggling WELL in some area in hopes of figuring out how to be less of a mess herself.  She uses humor and honesty to share the encouragement from God’s word and her personal misadventures in an effort to build up worn-down ladies everywhere.   Find Emily here at her website: strugglewellproject.com and on instagram: instagram.com/strugglewellproject I hope you’ll enjoy our talk today!

Renee Swope : Word-lover, heart-encourager and grace-needer. Wife of 25 years, mom of three (ranging from 10-23), former radio co-host and executive director of Proverbs 31 Ministries and best-selling author of A Confident Heart and A Confident Heart Devotional And … she’s joining us for our podcast, today! I so enjoyed our conversation and I know you will, too! You can find Renee here: https://www.ReneeSwope.com  https://www.facebook.com/aconfidentheart http://www.instagram.com/reneeswope 

So glad to be hosting Erin Loechner today on the podcast! Author of Chasing Slow and founder of Design for Mankind, Erin Loechner has been blogging and speaking for more than a decade. Her heartfelt writing and design work has been showcased in The New York Times, Lucky, Parenting, Dwell, Marie Claire, Elle Decor, Huffington Post, and a two-season HGTV.com web special, garnering over one million fans worldwide. She has spoken for and appeared in renowned international events for clients such as Walt Disney World, IKEA, Martha Stewart and Home Depot. Now nestled in a Midwestern town, Erin, her husband, and two kids strive for less in most areas except three: joy, grace, and goat cheese.   Find Erin here: Design for Mankind Her book, Chasing Slow, can be found at Amazon!

What fun it was to speak with Lara Casey! She has a wonderful team of women she works with in business as well as her lovely family, and she’s a fantastic encourager— have you seen her beautiful life planners, the PowerSheets? She’s blessing so many people and I’m so glad she’s joining me today! Not only is she wonderful to talk to, she’s also offering one of our readers a Write the Word Journal—and one for a friend! To enter, please go to this poster on my Instagram feed and tag a friend!

Sarah Mackenzie is familiar to many of you as the spunky, delightful leader of Read-Aloud Revival. I so enjoy Sarah’s heart for her family as well as reading, and we had such a delightful time talking today! Sarah is an author herself, and lives in the Inland Northwest with her husband Andrew, where they homeschool their six kids (including identical twin boys). And she’s been so kind as to offer one of our readers a copy of her book, The Read-Aloud Family—plus a second copy for a friend! Be sure to go to my Instagram page to tag a friend in a comment and enter. Sarah also has a wonderful podcast: Read-Aloud Revival. And you can find her on Instagram, too!

Many of you are probably familiar with the beautiful work of today’s guest, Ruth Chou Simons. Her gorgeous watercolors remind us all that God loves us, and has surrounded us with a beautiful world. She claims she is "an unlikely mom to six young boys” and wife to Troy, with whom she leads GraceLaced's small but mighty team. When not painting, writing, and casting vision for GraceLaced.com, Ruth is usually busy eating chips and salsa, sorting laundry, cooking for large crowds, not finishing her sentences, and discovering off-beaten paths in the wild with her guys. She is a devotee of pho, a recovering perfectionist, a converted four-wheeling enthusiast, and a grateful beholder of redeeming Grace.” I hope you’ll enjoy our podcast today—I know we enjoyed creating it for you! Dear Ruth is offering a wonderful gift for one of our readers, today! Go to my Instagram page and leave a comment on the poster pictured below, to tag a friend in order to enter!

I so loved talking with both Emily Ley and her dear friend, Kristin Winchester, today! They have supported one another through very difficult, lonely times and the vulnerability with which they shared their story touched me. Both are mamas of twins and they came to deep friendship because one of them took initiative and the other responded. Their story is what our lives should hold—initiation, kindness, acceptance, support, and the willingness to be there for one another through many seasons. Kristin and Emily got to the heart of what life is like for most of us as we try to live well the challenging stories we all live within. Kristin is mom to toddling twins. Emily is mama to three lovely little ones, and runs her company, Simplified, in all her spare time. Ha! She knows the power of friendship and teamwork, and we know you’ll be blessed as you listen. You can find Emily on Instagram, too! And she has a surprise for you: She’s giving away one copy of the 2019 Simplified Planner plus a copy of each of her bo