As part of our For Real This Time series, special guest author Zohary Ross will be sharing with us on the blog today. Zohary has created the most fabulous resource! If you have children at home, you will love it. I know I do! I'm thankful to have her as our guest. Please welcome Zohary. You will be blessed by her words.

Have any of you ever woken up with a kink on your neck? Or turned the wrong way and felt a shooting pain in you back?

Yes? You know what I mean.

When I was in high school I experienced my first back spasm. It hurt so bad that I couldn’t move or breathe. Unfortunately it was only the beginning of my life long struggle with “back issues”; the spasms continued into my late teens and twenties and the pain eventually got worse.

I’ve had to live with the physical pain that comes from a misaligned body. When my hips and back are “off” or kiddywampus (as my MIL would say) and my body hurts, I go in for an adjustment to get realigned and I feel relief.

But I’ve realized the same thing happens when our lives get out of alignment.

Even worse than physical pain is the pain that comes from a life that is out of alignment.

Life hurts or at the very least can feel really uncomfortable or “off” when our time, habits, and actions do not align with our core values, passions and priorities. We just don’t feel “right” until we are truly living what we believe with purpose and passion.

There is a soul ache that comes from a misaligned life. And a misaligned life can become a misaligned family.

I had my first child when I was 18, and by the time I was 21 I was a single mom of two boys. During my early years of motherhood I rarely thought of the home culture that I wanted to create for my little family unit. Life then was about survival --I was going to college full-time, working full-time and being a mom. I thought I had to do it all and I thought I had to do all things at the same time.

This year my oldest child turned 19, and as I looked back I was saddened by what I consider to be the years of missed opportunity. Because we were in survival mode I was not intentional about what I wanted our family to be about. I only did what I thought I needed to do; I didn’t know at the time how to make motherhood my own.

Eventually, I decided there had to be another way. I was not a “victim” of motherhood, destined to go through the motions and raise my children according to what society deemed right. I was the designer of our home, and our values were its building blocks. .

Just like our bodies can ache when out of alignment, our families will suffer when our time, habits and actions are not aligned with our core values, passions and priorities. Yet I know from working with so many families that when life gets busy implementing a plan where our values are consistently implemented in our home culture can be tricky.

So I decided to create a resource that would help families get out of defense mode and instead get proactive about the home culture they wanted to live out.

Basically, I created what I wish I had had as a young mom. The Aligned Parenting Workbook is a product of my own journey to create a home culture where our actions, habits and family traditions are all aligned with our core values -- those things we believe to be most important but also as a result of the need for a guide to help families address the question “what do WE want to be about”?

It’s not a how-to book but more of a “what”?

· What do we value?

· What skills and practical experiences do we want our kids to one day leave home with?

· What meaningful traditions to we want to establish in our home?

· What boundaries need to be put into place in order to protect our family time?

It’s a practical tool that will help families get serious FOR REAL this time and move beyond good intentions and into action.

Because I truly believe there is a better way to lead your family: YOUR WAY. The Aligned Parenting Workbook will help you define what that looks like and design a plan to live it out.

Zohary Ross is a writer, speaker and life coach. She is passionate about living authentically and equipping and encouraging women to live “all in” with alignment of values, beliefs and actions and she tries to live out what she coaches. Her background is in counseling and education. She has a mild addiction to mint chocolate, office supplies (especially pens), and personality tests (she’s a Nine on the Enneagram and a ENFJ if you’re into that sort of thing). Zohary lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her awesome husband and four children.

Connect with her on her web site at zoharyross.com

or on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

“Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who stood before his father Solomon while he still lived, and he said, “How do you advise me to answer these people?” And they spoke to him, saying, “If you will be a servant to these people today and serve them, and answer them, and speak good words to them, then they will be your servants forever” (1 Kings 12:6-7 NKJV).

I confess. Recently I’ve wrestled with this thought more than once:

“Am I too old for this?”

If you're in your twenties or thirties, you may not have that thought yet. But I've become acquainted with this crazy voice whispering in my ear:

“Time to trade in the trendy platform shoes for a pair of comfy flats. My feet just aren’t what they used to be.”

“Gotta be in bed by nine because my internal clock won’t let me sleep past five, even on Saturday.”

“Maybe I’ll buy that sheer under-shirt they keep advertising on TV. The one that makes the back of your arms look less flabby.”

“I’m glad the silver hair look is the new in thing!”

It’s so easy to look around and notice the younger crowd. But this shouldn't deter me from my mission or cause me to lose my drive! God has a special work for each of us – young, old, and somewhere in-between.

In 1 Kings, chapter 12, King Rehoboam consulted a group of wise elders who served his father Solomon. Solomon was known for his wisdom. Rehoboam, unfortunately, was not.

This passage of scripture highlights that there’s value in wisdom that comes from life experiences. These men served under Solomon and gained a wealth of experience under his reign. Unfortunately, Rehoboam did not follow the elder’s counsel. (That however, is a lesson for another post.)

Today, we need to claim God’s perfect purpose that He lovingly gave to each one of us. As we grow and mature, this purpose doesn’t fade or wither. It only grows deeper and stronger.

Our desire to serve never ends, no matter how old we are. Once God places it in our hearts, it’s there for good.