How to Create a “Rule of Life” for Your Home: Jennifer Pepito

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How to Create a “Rule of Life” for Your Home

Guest:                        Jennifer Pepito

From the series:       Sacred Home (Day 2 of 3)

Air date:                     April 8, 2025

Jennifer:         The face of God is always proximate—He’s always right there, smiling at me—He likes me. I think that changed the trajectory of my parenting; because it is so easy—and Christian parenting focused so much on behavior for so many years—but God isn’t up there always asking us to do something and kind of turning His back on us. He’s not just giving us a list of projects; He’s like with us.

Dave:              Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Dave Wilson.

Ann:                And I’m Ann Wilson. And you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Dave:              Alright. We started a conversation yesterday that I actually, Jennifer—Jennifer Pepto is back with us—I didn’t see us going where we went yesterday.

Ann:                That wasn’t planned, was it?

Jennifer:         We didn’t get into the habits.

Dave:              No; it was great! We didn’t get into the habits; but no, I thought sacred was going to be much cleaner. Even though I read your book—and I know you don’t say that—

Ann:                —or unattainable, do you mean?

Dave:              Yeah, almost like something that’s clean and tidy; and so I don’t know what it is.

Ann:                It’s so perfect.

Dave:              The temple of God: there’s no corruption at all. And you’re like, “No, I’m just a regular mom, with chaos going on every minute.” But sacred means set apart. Do you feel like that when you’re doing it? It’s like, “This is crazy.”

Ann:                We’re talking about Habits for a Sacred Home, her book.

Jennifer:         I think that’s the beauty of it—is that Jesus was perfect; His temple, Jesus Himself was perfect—so we don’t have to be; but we also have the power of God in us to keep making those steps towards more peace in our homes and more connection through these habits.

Dave:              So you’ve got the nine habits from the rule of life. Help our listeners understand: “What’s a rule of life”? We don’t walk around every day going, “What’s your rule of life?”

Jennifer:         I think it’s the same thing as a family vision, or a family mission statement, or your family essentials.

Dave:              Do you have a family vision or mission statement?

Jennifer:         Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, we do.

Dave:              Oh, we got to get that.

Jennifer:         Are you kidding me? When I wrote this book—and funny enough, we

wrote a family mission statement when my third-born, he’s 26 now, was a baby; he might’ve been a year or so—we wrote down: “What are our family essentials?” We loved being in nature; we were very interested in mission work; we loved being together. Our whole life, as a family, we really focused on those essentials that we wrote down 25 years ago. Maintained: we lived as missionaries; we paid off homes; we lived in the country so we could have nature. We said, “No,” to a lot of other things like big toys, or a lot of weekend structured or scheduled activities, so that we could pursue those essentials.

But the rule of life did come later. We would’ve called it something different, like a vision or essentials, until I started reading about St. Benedict and his rule of life.

Ann:                When Dave and I were in seminary, we were taking classes in how to help counsel people—he was going to be a pastor—but it was good for us to get into some of our own junk. In that time, I remember our prof asked us: “What were the family rules and habits in your home?”—which was just interesting for us to think through: habits. He said, “Every single family has those; they can be healthy or unhealthy.”

Dave:              Ours was sports—it was about that simple—it paid for college and did a lot of things. There was no spiritual [habits] in the home I grew up in, and really not in yours as well. So as we became married; and then, parents, we’re like, “We got to change a whole legacy/a whole heritage to something.” We had to come up with a family mission statement, and vision, and values.

So rule of life: you’ve got nine habits. You want to start with number one, or how do you want to do it?

Jennifer:         Well, there are habits of work, habits of prayer; and in some ways, they are more values. And then, the habits that you do are sort of how you live those values out in your life.

Dave:              Well, one of ours was work.

Jennifer:         Oh, yeah; that was one of the values that you had, raising your kids.

Dave:              We sort of took our name—Wilson—and the “W”: “What’s the ‘W’ going to be?” We’re like, “We want to teach our children: ‘Work matters; work under God; work hard.’” They were roofers; they were cement guys. It was like, “We want hard work, so you know how to do it.”

Ann:                But that’s a habit for you guys too.

Jennifer:         Yeah, for sure. I love that you mentioned that first; because it’s one of my favorite habits: “If we’re not willing to work, we’re not even going to have a spiritual life; because that, in itself, takes work.” You don’t necessarily experience the joy of His presence the first time you open the Bible. You don’t necessarily experience the joy of His presence the first time you sing or take a walk in nature.

But if you don’t put in the work to regularly be with God—whether that is talking to Him while you wash the dishes, or make the dinner, or change the diaper—you have to put in the work of turning your affection to God. Especially now, it’s so much easier to go on Instagram or to listen to a podcast. It’s so much easier to always be having someone talk at us, or entertain us, and not really talk to God. So right there, there’s a habit that helps develop our spiritual lives.

I love that you mentioned teaching your kids to work—because so many of us—our motivation is really: “How can I help my kids love God, and love us, and be responsible adults?” A lot of us, we’re not necessarily moved by even a sacred home—we’re just practical—we just need to get our kids raised. Work is a big part of that: “Can your kids pick up after themselves?” In my Peaceful Press homeschool curriculum, we actually include practical life skills.

Ann:                That’s so smart.

Jennifer:         It’s great because it develops the motor skills that kids need to be able to write an essay. But if a child can write beautiful essays—which, actually, AI can do too—but they don’t know how to make a meal, or do the dishes, or organize their clothes, they’re going to have a hard time in life. You can pay someone to do those things, but you can also pay someone to write an essay. Having a balance of skills for children, as they’re growing, I think is so important. And it teaches them to value—if you know how to work—then you value the money it costs to buy what you need. If you know how to work, then you will put in the effort to develop your spiritual life.

Ann:                That’s really good.

Dave:              Did you give your kids an allowance?

Jennifer:         Never; we never had a lot of money. By the time we did have a little bit more affluence, I was like, “They’re too old; they can just work for it.” I loved it when my kids got jobs early. My third child had a job working construction when he was like 14 years old. I’d have to drive him to the job sites, but it was a great experience. He’s an awesome dad and husband, and bought his first home at 25, because he knew how to work.

Ann:                Well, it’s interesting to me that you have added some great—like Edith Schaeffer—why did you happen to connect these great biblical teachers and influencers with each of your habits?

Jennifer:         Oh, that was so much fun, Ann. I felt sad for so many moms, who don’t know who these people are; those are the women who shaped me as a young mom. I was lucky to be in this community of really intelligent, loving moms, who were always reading. And so, as a young mom, I read Elisabeth Elliot, Edith Schaeffer, and Amy Carmichael. I was reading all those books. But so many of the young moms today don’t know who those people are, and those are our heroes. I feel like, when we have heroes, then we can have a vision for what we could be like.

During Covid even, when we were running out of supplies—it was like: “Where’s the toilet paper?” “Where’s the eggs?”—I would think to myself, “What would Betsie ten Boom do?” Because I’d read Corrie—I was reading The Hiding Place out loud to my children—and I knew that she wouldn’t sit there, whining about it. She would’ve given things for what they had. Those women became my heroes and really helped me become the mom that I wanted to be. I feel like introducing those women to moms today would give them more of a vision. A lot of very dismal heroes today; we don’t have a lot of people to look up to.

Ann:                Yeah. Why did you—you’ve included recipes, like that’s important—you have prayers; you have action steps. Why all of that, and why include recipes in it?

Jennifer:         I am probably, sometimes, more well-known for my Peaceful Press curriculum. What we do, as we’re learning together, is we make a recipe. If we’re reading about Edith Schaeffer in Switzerland, we make Swiss Zopf bead; or we read about Sabina Wurmbrand, or even Corrie ten Boom—read about what happened to the Jews during the Holocaust—we’d make challah. It was just a special part of learning together: baking together or cooking something together.

I feel like, when you’re in the kitchen, you’re breaking bread—I think you can see that in Scripture too—that Jesus, when He wanted to build community, and when He wanted to, in a sense, even show love to people, they would break bread together—it wasn’t just a lesson; it was a gathering, a celebration. I feel like cooking together or baking together with our kids; and then, enjoying something, makes it more of a celebration.

Ann:                That’s really sweet.

Dave:              You’re like the Christian Martha Stewart.

Jennifer:         Ooh!

Dave:              You’ve got an entrepreneurial spirit; were you like that as a little girl?

Jennifer:         Have you guys ever heard of that philosophy that what you played at, as a child, shapes what you’re supposed to do as an adult? I did actually start little businesses, which is funny. I was an all-in mother—I’ve been very careful to not over-travel or things like that—but I do actually love business. So yes, I did play store; I had restaurants; I sewed doll clothes and sold them—really, little side subject.

Ann:                It’s kind of great to watch your kids and see the things that they do love to play with.

Jennifer:         Yeah; absolutely. And to honor that, one of the things that my homeschool curriculum is based off is called the Charlotte Mason Method. One of her big sayings is: “Children are born persons.” I think that’s really important, also, for families as they’re thinking about: “What is our rule of life?” What’s important to us is to, also, take a little bit of time to get to know your children/to observe your children:—

Ann:                “What’s important to them? What are they passionate about?”

Jennifer:         we’re all created in God’s image. And so instead of trying to impose your image ideal on your children—and this is where there is a little bit of Holy Spirit intuition—because on the one hand, we have to have a vision for our family. But on the other hand, we have to recognize that our children are born persons and honor their unique calling and design.

In our family, because we valued our rule of life, our essentials were: missions or time with God. But if we saw our children interested in something, we would try to find a class, or a tutor, or a mentor to help them develop those skills so that we could have that balance.

Dave:              So are they all completely different?

Jennifer:         Yes, so different.

Ann:                Isn’t it fun?

Jennifer:         It is fun; it’s amazing. I love—it’s like a painting or something—there’s so

many different details and personalities.

Dave:              Do you feel like—a lot of them are adults now—because of this value of work, do you feel like they’re good workers?

Jennifer:         Yeah, they’re actually all really good workers, really hard workers. The 16-year-old just got his second job working construction for somebody, and I love seeing how they enjoy working.

Ann:                Well, as you look at these habits—and you have nine—what one do you resonate with the most?

Dave:              I’m guessing all of them.

Jennifer:         Well, for sure. Probably, the one that I resonate the most with is balance; and that’s the last habit I talk about.

Dave:              Wait, wait, wait, wait. You are one full-life schedule woman. Explain balance in your life, because you’re doing everything.

Jennifer:         Yeah, I’m really careful actually. Are you about, I was telling you before the show started that I love the philosophy of the Monk Manual, where they have you set your goals based on being and doing. With my restoration home community, the first thing we do is have women write down two things:

• “What do you want your children to remember about life in your home?”

• “What kind of person do you want to be?”

For me: I want to be present with my children; I want to be warm and loving; I want to be a good listener. So I pace myself with work; I don’t grow as fast as maybe I could. I’m just turning to figure out what SEO means after ten years in an online business.

I think that, when you have a very clear vision of who you want to be, then it’s easy to set goals that are sustainable. And the other thing—once we have moms write down their vision or what they want their children to remember—we actually have them start auditing their time. I think so many people don’t get much done, because they’re consuming way more than they’re producing.

Ann:                So first, they’re writing down their vision—this is what you have all these women do—and second—

Jennifer:         So then, we do a time audit. We actually spend a week, or even a month, just sort of tracking our time to see: “Okay, I want my children to remember that, when they talk to me, I listened,” “I want my children to remember that I was a loving, responsive, warm mother.”

But then—if the way we live is like we organize all day; or we have them crying over their math; or we are constantly shuffling them around to different activities, where they don’t even have any experience of us—then we realize, “Okay, my time audit says this…; my vision says this… How can I make them have more integrity? How can I make them align better?”

That’s something I still do now: I’m constantly looking, like, “Okay, here’s how I’m spending my time.” If I’m on my phone too much, I’m going to cut back; I have a phone-restriction thing, or I’ll put my phone in a drawer for a day. I’m working, constantly adjusting my own life; because my vision is to be a safe space for my family. But sometimes, it’s easy, if you go on Instagram, and you see what other people are doing or accomplishing, it’s like, “Oh, I got to do more of that. I got to do more bread baking,” “I got to do more podcast recording,”—whatever you’re looking at in the moment. It gets us off course of our vision.

But if we have the vision, and then we’re tracking our time, you can make those two things align through a lot of other little habits that we talk about in the book.

Ann:                Jennifer, I’m thinking of the working moms who feel so overwhelmed with their job. They’re coming home, and they feel like they’re exhausted; but they’re giving their kids whatever they have left. They feel incredible guilt about that. Are they overwhelmed by just all the things we’re saying?—“Okay, now I need to do this, and this, and this.” How could we simplify it for that person?

Jennifer:         Ann, a homeschool mom can be just as guilty of checking out, and not connecting at all, because we can get into our own little schedule.

Ann:                Really?

Jennifer:         Oh, yeah; for sure. But in The Peaceful Press, we have this thing called “The Connection Challenge”; and it’s four simple steps; there’s a free download. You look your children in the eyes for 20 seconds a day; you give them a 32^nd-second hug; and then, if you can, spend 15 minutes reading aloud or playing outside together. Those four little things—a working mom could do that—just carve out a half hour of your time a day to connect with your kids.

But sometimes, also it’s us taking a little authority over their time; because I think what happens more often is—we maybe feel guilty, or we feel tired—so we let them check out from us. Do you know what I mean? Because I think that’s happening a lot more even I think moms probably want to check in with their kids, but they are lacking the authority or the confidence to make those efforts. There was a book called Hold On to Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Maté. In that book, they talk a lot about how responsible adult behavior is the fruit of a connected family.

Ann:                I have to get my pen out to write all this down.

Dave:              You’re going to write this down?

Ann:                I totally am.

Dave:              We can go back and listen to the broadcast like other people.

Ann:                I want it now, Dave. I want it now.

Dave:              You’re going to do—even as you said, a 32^nd-second hug—

Jennifer:         It releases serotonin—a 32^nd-second hug releases serotonin—helps regulate you and your child. You guys just talked about that with Ron and Nancy Deal,—

Ann:                Ron and Nan Deal, yes.

Jennifer:         —that we’re all trying to get regulated. And yet, just something as simple as a hug and some eye contact—

Dave:              Look at you, listening to FamilyLife Today; way to go!

Jennifer:         It’s great; what a great show.

Dave:              What a great rule of life! Everything you just said applies to, not just parenting, but marriage.

Jennifer:         And it’s not unattainable. I’m not asking people to live in a monastery and pray all day; it’s just some simple things. Like even the nature aspect—if you could just put your phone down and look at the sky for a few minutes a day with your kids—that, in itself, would help regulate your body; help you connect with God; and give you some experience together that puts you in your relational circuits instead of in fight, flight, freeze.

Ann:                And it’s interesting too; because what we can do—when we feel overwhelmed and stressed with our kids—the easiest thing—and I don’t want you to feel guilty about me saying this, because we all do it—is to put the TV on or to give our kids a device of some kind. But I’m telling you: this is good for you and your kids to just hug them and hold them; they might even fight it. What do you do with a teenager with that?

Jennifer:         Oh, it was so sweet. We were walking in here, and my son was like—he just put his hand on my shoulder—and I was kind of like, “Do you need something?”—because that used to be our interrupt rule; he’d put [his] hand [on my shoulder]. And he’s like, “No, I was just praying for you. I feel like, if you start that, our teenagers want connection too.

Ann:                It’s their habits. They will take that habit into their own family in marriage. They’re going to touch you; they’re going to pray for you; they’re going to look you in the eye. If you are raising a son who looks his wife in the eye, and hugs her for 30 seconds a day, that’s victory, people! That is victory.

Dave:              And I’m telling you: every parent right now is doing what Ann’s doing—they’re pausing—they’re like, “I got to write this down.” And let me just say to you: if you want parenting help, we would love to help you—we have a site just for you—FamilyLife.com/ParentingHelp. It’s free; we put together resources. But I know what you’re doing right now—we’re all doing that—this is really practical life-changing parenting help, right?

Jennifer:         Yeah; one of the things that helped me recognize how important connection was—learning to attune with God—as I started processing through some of my own fears. I was molested as a child. My mom was a very busy farm wife; and probably didn’t know how to show love, because she hadn’t received a lot of love. In my childhood, there were a lot of moments, where I felt very alone. As an adult, I started just asking, “Jesus, can You show me where You were in this moment? Can You come and comfort me in this moment?”

Ann:                I’ve done that same thing; I think it’s super healthy.

Jennifer:         And the interesting thing is: my friend—Monk Manual founder—said, “The face of God is always proximate. And when you say, ‘Jesus, can You come and be with me?’ His back is not to me.” Maybe this is like me imagining; maybe it’s just my imagination.

Dave:              Well, God works in our imaginations.

Jennifer:         And so, when I have an experience with Jesus, He’s always right there, smiling at me; He likes me. I think that changed the trajectory of my parenting, because it is so easy—and Christian parenting focused so much on behavior for so many years—but God isn’t up there always asking us to do something and kind of turning His back on us. He’s not just giving us a list of projects; He’s with us.

Ann:                He wants to be with us.

Jennifer:         Yes. I just read, I think in the Psalms, it says, “The Lord is pleased with His people.” We are a joy to Him, and our children should be a joy to us. And if they’re not, maybe it’s because we aren’t experiencing any joy with ourselves even, if we can’t be with ourselves.

The habits of prayer, of work—they’re partly the fruit of attunement with God—and we talked about this earlier yesterday. It’s also, the more we—put in the habit of just being quiet with the Lord, or putting our phones down, or being in nature, or hugging our kids—the more we do those little sort of relational connection things, or attunement things, then the more we’re going to be able to attune with our children. It’s like we attune with God; we attune with our children. The habits start to fall into place; a lot of life does become more peaceful.

I understand how intense it is—we just had our whole family staying with us for Christmas—we had a two-and-a-half-year old toddler; we had an infant in the house. One afternoon, I babysat both of the little grand-babies so the adults could go out. And it’s intense; you can’t do anything but hold or take care of. I, thankfully, had an older daughter around to help me.

But even just the more we’re settled with God, the more we can actually enjoy that season; because it will be over—that intense season of feeling like you can never get everything done, or you’re always behind the eight ball—pretty soon, that’ll be over. No one’s going to look at you like your infant looks at you. No one’s going to look at you with those eyes of adoration like your infant will. No one’s going to enjoy you—like my little grand baby, the two-and-a-half-year old, patted me on the back the other day; we were saying goodbye—she’s like, “Grammy, you’re always so sweet to me.” No one expresses themselves like a small child.

Ann:                They’re free.

Jennifer:         You can complain your way through that season; or you could settle into it a little bit, recognize that it’s going to be short and just enjoy it. It will be over, and it would be nice to not look back and have a bunch of regrets.

Dave:              Yeah. Here’s what I’m thinking—as a man, and as a husband, and a dad; and it’s true for wives and moms—of all the things that we do in our lives, what we’ve been talking about the last two days are the most important. It’s our legacy; it’s a godly legacy that God’s called us to give to the next generation. It’s more important than the job; it’s more important than money; it’s more important than the house. All the stuff—that is important; that stuff’s important: redoing my driveway, the roof, whatever; that matters—but man, when I think of the things I think about so often, rather than pouring into my children to be men and women of God when they’re adults, and raise men and women of God, that’s all that matters.

Ann:                And Dave, I would say this: we cannot do it apart from Jesus; He is the foundation. He is the One whom we find hope from, whom we find life from. As you said, Jennifer, He’s always smiling at us. He loves us; He’s cheering us on every day. And so, to go to Him—and I know you’re thinking, “It’s too hard; I don’t have time,”—but you can talk to Him all day long.

I don’t know where you are in your relationship with Jesus, but can I just tell you that He loves you? You matter to Him more than you can even imagine. And so call out to Him for help—He’s always there—He’s always wanting to be with you to give you wisdom, discernment, energy, all the things you need. You might just need to pray that Jesus will help your kids sleep one night. It may not be every night, but one night; and He’s there. He’s with you. I think this is so good.

Dave:              And I know you’re thinking, “How do I get this life?” You read Habits for a Sacred Home; it gives you nine habits. You’re not going to be able to do them all today or tomorrow, but you’re going to learn how to live like Jennifer’s saying you guys live.

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