Sally Clarkson > Quotes

“One of the marks of a godly woman is that she takes responsibility for her soul's need for joy and delight. A woman is a conductor, who leads the orchestra of her surroundings in the songs and music of her life. God is a God of creativity and dimension, and so He is pleased when we we co-create beauty in our own realm, through the power of His Spirit.

It was a profound realization when I understood that I could become an artist with my very life.”
― Sally Clarkson, Desperate: Hope for the Mom Who Needs to Breathe

“In the absence of biblical conviction, people will go the way of culture.”
― Sally Clarkson

“Today when you nurture, love and meet the needs of your beloveds with beauty, it will make a difference in how they face their whole day.”
― Sally Clarkson

“I always wanted to be a hero--to sacrifice my life in a big way one time--and yet, God has required my sacrifice to be thousands of days, over many years, with one more kiss, one more story, one more meal.”
― Sally Clarkson in Desperate

“If the precious, limited hours of my day are used bit by bit in scanning information, I will have less and less time for the attentive, slow, good work of creativity, conversation, and connection that real people and real homes require.”
― Sally Clarkson, The Lifegiving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming

“All people need a place where their roots can grow deep and they always feel like they belong and have a loving refuge. And all people need a place that gives wings to their dreams, nurturing possibilities of who they might become.”
― Sally Clarkson, The Lifegiving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming

“Every day in each inch of space, each rhythm of time, each practice of love, we have the chance to join God in coming home, in living so that we make a home of this broken and beautiful world all over again. Love is enfleshed in the meals we make, the rooms we fill, the spaces in which we live and breathe and have our being.”
― Sally Clarkson, The Lifegiving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming

“It is natural to quarrel, to be selfish, to live a small-minded life. It is supernatural to love unconditionally, to serve others, to live a life of vision and faith.”
― Sally Clarkson, Own Your Life: Living with Deep Intention, Bold Faith, and Generous Love

“Sometimes celebrating, enjoying, and laughing seem almost inappropriate in a world as broken as ours. We look around and see panic on the faces of everyone we see. Tragedies become ordinary. How, in good conscience, can we laugh and celebrate and eat pizza? I believe we must celebrate - because celebration is one of the most effective weapons we have against the darkness of our day. The real grief of the state of our world is the pervasive fear that settles in our hearts.”
― Sally Clarkson, The Lifegiving Table: Nurturing Faith through Feasting, One Meal at a Time

“Home is to be a safe place, a refuge for all who enter, a protection from the harm and storms of the world. Yet often or even daily we open our doors -- usually via television or the internet -- to ideas and images that can damage our faith, abuse our hearts and minds, sear our psyches, and tear apart our peace. Home should be a place where, behind its doors, one should expect to find protection and safety from all the harms of life, including voices that do not speak truth or wisdom. Only the foolish would invite just anyone to enter the door of their home.”
― Sally Clarkson, The Lifegiving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming

“I often must sacrifice my own needs and desires for the purpose of giving my children what they need and modeling for them the depths of Christ's love.

"...make myself available in the routine tasks and myriad interruptions of daily life b/c I believe it is God's will for me to serve my family through them.”
― Sally Clarkson, The Mission of Motherhood: Touching Your Child's Heart for Eternity

“There is no single way to serve God, but the point is this: We each have only one life to live to tell a story about Him, about His ways, about His love. And if we are Christ followers, then God calls us to use our gifts, to exercise our faith, and to become salt and light right where we are.”
― Sally Clarkson, Own Your Life: Living with Deep Intention, Bold Faith, and Generous Love

“The most important gift you can give your child is to help them begin a walk of faith with the God of the universe. From the moment your children arrive in your home, you are teaching them how to see the world, what to consider important, what to seek, what to love. As a mother, you have the opportunity to form your home and family life in such a way that God’s reality comes alive to your children each day.”
― Sally Clarkson, 10 Gifts of Wisdom: What Every Child Must Know Before They Leave Home

“God sees you. He made you, knows you, and loves you. You can trust Him. Part of our issue with not fully surrendering our lives to Jesus is because we don’t really know if we can trust Him.”
― Sally Clarkson, You Are Loved: Embracing the Everlasting Love God has for You

“When I look into her searching blue eyes, I am filled with wonder and an urgent sense of desire. I want to be a better woman, to walk this path of life well beside her, to point her towards God’s fingerprints and kindness, to live a full, abundant life so that she, too, can know that she is free to live into hers.”
― Sally Clarkson, Girls' Club: Cultivating Lasting Friendship in a Lonely World

“Always, my only hope and my only strength and my only way to cope has been an utter abandonment to God, knowing that if He doesn't work, if He doesn't move in the midst of us through His Holy Spirit, if He doesn't take my paltry fish and loaves and make it into more than it really is, I do not have a hope of making it. I relinquish my desire to control and yield this moment, this day and hope that He will show up.”
― Sally Clarkson

“From the moment we take our first breaths, our days are numbered, so how we live matters. The decisions we make—the important ones and, yes, the mundane ones too—they all matter. Everyday decisions add up to form the life we live and the legacy we leave behind.”
― Sally Clarkson, Own Your Life: Living with Deep Intention, Bold Faith, and Generous Love

“When someone once asked me just what it was that my parents did that made me believe in God, without even thinking I said, “I think it was French toast on Saturday mornings and coffee and Celtic music and discussions and candlelight in the evenings . . .” Because in those moments I tasted and saw the goodness of God in a way I couldn’t ignore.”
― Sally Clarkson, The Lifegiving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming

“God desires to work supernaturally through normal people who are willing to follow Him wholeheartedly and reflect His glory.”
― Sally Clarkson, Own Your Life: Living with Deep Intention, Bold Faith, and Generous Love

“But my parents understood that the world that they made within the walls of our house was what constituted home. So I grew up in spaces framed by art and color, filled with candlelight, marked by beauty. I grew up within a rhythm of time made sacred by family devotions in the morning and long conversations in the evening. I grew up with the sense of our daily life as a feast and delight; a soup-and-bread dinner by the fire, Celtic music lilting in the shadows, and the laughter of my siblings gave me a sense of the blessedness of love, of God's life made tangible in the food and touch and air of our home.
It was a fight for my parents, I know. Every day was a battle to bring order to mess, peace to stressful situations, beauty to the chaos wrought by four young children. But that's the reality of incarnation as it invades a fallen world....What my parents-bless them-knew...is that to make a home right in the midst of the fallen world is to craft out a space of human flesh and existence in which eternity rises up in time, in which the kingdom comes, in which we may taste and see the goodness of God.”
― Sally Clarkson, The Lifegiving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming

“How we need more “homemakers” so that all who live in this transient, contemporary world might have a place to belong, to feel loved and valued, to serve and be served, to give and receive and celebrate all that is good. So”
― Sally Clarkson, The Lifegiving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming

“If you have time for television but not for personal time with the Father, then you don’t understand the value of your relationship with Him. If you spend hours on the Internet each week but rarely open your Bible, you are not committed to the honor of knowing and listening to Him.”
― Sally Clarkson, Own Your Life: Living with Deep Intention, Bold Faith, and Generous Love

“it is easy for parents to pass on unnecessary guilt, shame, and insecurity to their children because we fear the rejection of critical and judgmental people in our lives. So if I can help other parents understand the profound importance of accepting children as they are, perhaps I can save those children from some of the anguish I felt for many years.”
― Sally Clarkson, Different: The Story of an Outside-the-Box Kid and the Mom Who Loved Him

“Keeping house—picking up those messes one more time—is a service of worship to God as we craft a place of beauty and comfort for all who enter our sanctuary of His very presence.”
― Sally Clarkson, The Lifegiving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming

“Our individual personalities are a gift of His design so that we might add color and variety to the world. And He can use our unique combination of circumstances—even the painful ones like mental illness—for our good and His glory.”
― Sally Clarkson, Different: The Story of an Outside-the-Box Kid and the Mom Who Loved Him

“Owning your life—your actions and decisions, and their consequences—must begin with a healthy view of yourself that is based on what God thinks of you. Once you listen to His voice, your self-perception will change.”
― Sally Clarkson, Own Your Life: Living with Deep Intention, Bold Faith, and Generous Love

“Have you ever felt a stirring in your heart as a touching story brought tears to your eyes or as you heard a soaring symphony or a captivating song on the radio that opened a new window in your soul? Maybe you have felt a similar exhilaration while watching a sunset, camping out under the night sky, or holding a newborn babe. Something inside of you quickened, and for a moment, some heavenly beauty connected your inner self with the divine. C. S. Lewis referred to such experiences as joy. These are remnants and reminders of the perfect world God designed for us to live in—the shadow of places He longs to take us to, the reality of the other world He’s preparing for us.”
― Sally Clarkson, Own Your Life: Living with Deep Intention, Bold Faith, and Generous Love

“Managing our stress and our rest is a sign of living wisely. Refueling as a way to find joy, to create pleasure, and to celebrate life in the midst of all its demands fills our hearts with renewed hope. When we take the time to breathe, listen, and rest from the daily grind to see miracles bubbling up in our lives.”
― Sally Clarkson

“Although our culture seems to worship being busy, constant activity will slowly undermine our perspective on life and kill our souls.”
― Sally Clarkson, Own Your Life: Living with Deep Intention, Bold Faith, and Generous Love

“Own your faith. Take responsibility for the miracles God wants to do in and through your life. No one else can faithfully show the people He has entrusted into your care what it means to live by faith. No one else can accomplish the work He created you to do.”
― Sally Clarkson, Own Your Life: Living with Deep Intention, Bold Faith, and Generous Love