A Quiet Simple Life | Sallie Borrink

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23

A Quiet Simple Life

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Our Family Life

Taking My Own Advice & Doing Real Things


About a week ago I started feeling a great desire to spend time fluffing and enjoying my nest. I wanted to follow my own advice and make real things, read real books, and do real things with real people. So that is what I’ve been focusing afresh on doing. 

I’m currently reading a book I purchased with a Christmas gift card – Mother’s Book of Home Economics by Mrs. Sharon White. It’s a collection of some of her blog posts and includes some of my favorite posts from her site. I’m looking for inspiration to make the most of what we have during these challenging times. I’m sure many of you are as well. I always seem to find it in the things Mrs. White writes. 

I’ve been methodically working my way through various cupboards and drawers, cleaning out things we don’t need and tidying them up. 

I’ve organized all of my ebooks in Calibre with the exception of my Kindle books. That will be my next project. I need to move copies of all my Kindle ebooks I’ve purchased over the years into Calibre. Caroline was a little shocked when we were discussing how Amazon or Apple can basically delete anything you’ve purchased licensed from them because you don’t technically own it. I told her this is why we keep a hard copy of music, movies, television shows, and books that are important to us. I’ve also been downloading quite a few books from Project Gutenberg to make sure I have copies of ones I want to keep. 

Speaking of television shows, Caroline and I are just about done with the Downton Abbey series. We watched the third episode of the last season yesterday. I think I previously mentioned the fact that we are watching them, but it’s been a great learning tool in so many different ways.  

Caroline learned how to crochet at youth group so we’ve been spending some time exploring that. She wants to crochet sweaters and animals right now when she’s only learned how to almost make a kitchen cloth, but I’m hopeful she’ll keep with it. My crocheting skills are minimal because I never had a great desire to really go all-in on it as a hobby. (I was an avid counted cross stitcher.) I’m curious to see what she’ll do with her new interest. She’s been doing a lot of crafting lately which has been very nice to see. 

Caroline decided she preferred to do her crafting in her room instead of the unfinished basement area we set up for her a number of years ago so that opened up some new possibilities down there. We moved things around a bit and now I have two large tables where I could spread out projects of various kinds. We still have not decorated the dollhouse we bought a few years ago. David has it almost done, but life has not moved in that direction at all. Maybe we will do it now. 

I reorganized my office several weeks ago. I removed the file cabinet which really opened things up. I moved books around in the bookcases and am happy with the results. Caroline and I homeschool at a table in my office (her choice) so we’ve put together a layout that works for us. I thought about doing a post about it, but wasn’t sure if it was interesting enough to fill an entire post. But we have a TV and DVD player we use for videos. We have the extra laptop I bought for learning Linux on a stand that makes it very convenient to look up things on the fly while we’re doing Bible or history rather than having to go over to my desk ever time we want to look something up. So we’re always learning better ways to do things. For people like us, I think it’s just part of how we’re wired. 

Overall we continue to live our quiet, small life. We like it that way (most of the time). We’re thankful that the Lord has us tucked under the shadow of His wing during these challenging times (Psalm 91). I hope you feel that same comfort and assurance. ♥

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Our 25th Wedding Anniversary


Today is our 25th Wedding Anniversary. We are so blessed. ♥

Many people told us that our ceremony was the happiest wedding they had ever been to.

The way we met was so unusual at the time, The Grand Rapids Press did a story about us. You can read it below.

The Grand Rapids Press

Those of you who read Grace Livingston Hill books will appreciate this observation. David’s great aunt said to his grandmother, “That sounds just like a Grace Livingston Hill story!” ♥

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Ephesians 3:20-21

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Why We Changed Our Mind About Celebrating Halloween – Twice


Update January 2022

I’ve decided not to write an additional post about why we are no longer celebrating Halloween, but I am going to push this out as a “new” post. I’m going to add a bit to what I originally wrote below, including the quick November 2021 update most people probably never saw.

If I had it to do over again, I would make the same choice and allow Caroline to celebrate Halloween. The reasons I explained below in the original post are all still valid in my mind for the time in which we made them. We made the choice based on the needs of the child we had for the reasons I gave below. Caroline is now 15. She understands why we don’t wish to celebrate Halloween any longer and why we did choose to let her celebrate for a number of years. She did trick or treating until she was 12 or 13. We passed out candy as well up until this year when we did not. I wish such a community-oriented holiday did not have such evil overtones but it does in our culture. It helps that there are a number of other Christian families on our cul-de-sac who also do not pass out candy so we are not the only ones. If you struggle with this question, I understand. But I am relieved we are past this part of our parenting journey and we can use the day for other purposes, in agreement as a family.

Update November 2021

We’ve decided not to celebrate Halloween any longer in terms of passing out candy, etc. I will update this post or write another one, but in the interest of full disclosure I wanted this on record.

Original Post October 2013

Caroline is seven years old and this will be the first time we’ve celebrated Halloween with her. I considered not saying anything about it here, but decided that it was important to me to articulate why we changed our minds in case anyone else might find it helpful. I know many Christians struggle with this holiday as we have.

There are four reasons we changed our mind about celebrating Halloween.

1. Not celebrating Halloween made me hate October

It really did. I just dreaded the entire month. I dreaded dealing with the questions from others. I dreaded all the displays and trying to avoid them from Labor Day on. I dreaded trying to explain it to Caroline. Not celebrating Halloween took one of the most glorious months of the year and made me hate it and dread it.

It should not be so. October is a gift from God, especially where we live with the glorious colors. To allow two hours of one day to ruin an entire month for me was not worth it. Now when someone asks us about how we’re celebrating Halloween, we just happily give an answer. No more feeling awkward or like we’re coming across holier than thou. That was never my intention when we didn’t celebrate, but I always felt like it came across that way. I felt like it was a bridge burner rather than a bridge builder.

2. Not celebrating Halloween would be more damaging than celebrating it

Ever since last Halloween David and I have struggled with what to do. Most years we were able to just ignore Halloween. We did our own thing and it worked out fine. Last year Caroline was fully aware of what was going on and she was miserable. She saw all the kids outside trick or treating, dressed up in their costumes, and it was very upsetting to her.

Caroline doesn’t see Halloween as evil. She sees it as a fun time to dress up which is something she loves to do. She’s an off-the-chart creative, imaginative child. From the creativity standpoint, Halloween is probably more her kind of holiday than any other, to be perfectly honest.

This past summer I had a long conversation with an experienced mom who has creative children like my Caroline. She didn’t celebrate Halloween with her children when they were growing up, but all of her children now do celebrate with their own. She said if she had it to do over again, she probably would celebrate.

I told this mom that I was coming to the conclusion that to not allow Caroline to celebrate Halloween would probably be more damaging to our relationship with her than any potential downside of celebrating. I see celebrating Halloween as putting money in our relational bank. She sees that we were willing to consider changing our mind about something and I think that carries a lot of weight with her.

In this case, we decided to opt for grace, believing in the long run it is better for our family to allow her to celebrate.

3. It’s not a hill I’m going to die on

Whenever I struggle with issues of Christian conscience, I ask myself if it is a hill I’m willing to die on. If you’ve read my blog any length of time, you’ve probably seen me state this before. There are very few parenting hills I’m willing to die on. There are very few theological hills I’m willing to die on. I save the hill dying for really big things (of which there have been some already). Halloween is not one of them.

4. We try not to base our theology on fear

Maybe this should have been the first point, but here it is. David and I try not to base our theology on fear. This is something we have not always done well in our life together. We have made choices out of fear in the past and have learned that is not the way to follow Christ. We’ve had people tell us that they choose to do something because they don’t want to get to heaven and find out they were supposed to do it and didn’t. In my humble opinion, that is fear. If I make a mistake, the blood of Jesus covers it. If we don’t have a clear sense from God that we shouldn’t do something, then we move forward in the freedom to do it. And if we get to heaven and find out it would have been better to not celebrate… God’s grace covers that. Nothing we can do will ever change our standing before our Heavenly Father because our standing is based on Christ’s righteousness, not our own. (See also this excellent article about the origins of Halloween. It’s rather eye-opening.)

So we go forward

We did lay down some parameters for Caroline when we told her this summer she could celebrate. Nothing evil and nothing scary. We won’t glorify evil and that IS a hill I’m willing to die on. She’s going as the princess from Tangled which is fine with me. I’m not a crafty mom so we just bought a costume from Meijer.

After we made the decision, I waited to see if I would have a check in my spirit that we had made the wrong decision. None came and so David and I move forward, glad to have this issue behind us. I don’t regret that we waited until now to let Caroline celebrate. I think before this she would have absolutely freaked out over much of the scary stuff she’ll see when she goes trick or treating. I think she’ll handle it well now.

So now we wait to see if the thunderstorms hold off so we can actually go!

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I Can’t Find My Lost Week


Three days before Christmas, I thought that it could not possibly be three days before Christmas. It felt in the rhythm of life that there had to be at least another week. My sense of timing was all off. Part of it was the late Thanksgiving. Part of it was missing Christmas-themed Sunday worship due to being in the nursery one week, staying home with Caroline the next week when she wasn’t well, etc. Part of it was the total lack of snow. Then we all came down with what I’m assuming was what they are calling Omicron and everything just went on from there. I barely turned on the Christmas music after we got sick because I had the never-ending Omicron headache and did not want to listen to anything. We never even made any Christmas treats although we did manage a very enjoyable Christmas Eve and Christmas Day together.

And Caroline was very happy with her gifts.

Christmas officially came and went, but I am still fighting that feeling that I’ve somehow lost a week somewhere and I can’t get it back. Our Christmas decorations are still up and I can’t use the Epiphany or Twelve Days of Christmas excuse any longer. But I comfort myself with the thought that our neighbor across the street had her Christmas tree up (and lit) until Valentine’s Day last year. I can still see a brilliantly decorated house and yard on the next cul-de-sac over when I look out my office window in the evening. So I suppose as long as we get around to taking care of them this week it won’t be too scandalous.

Even our annual January tax appointment is scheduled a week later than usual this year. Maybe I’m not the only one feeling like everything is off by a week?

Speaking of decorations… The picture is new ornaments. Caroline and David were out Christmas shopping when Caroline found these ornaments at the Hallmark shop. She was thrilled to find one with her name since it isn’t one of the always available names. There are NEVER ornaments with my name, but they bought an extra white one and David repainted it so I would also have one. I have a pretty great husband and daughter.

How was your Christmas? Do you feel like you lost a week somewhere?

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