Sally Clarkson's Blog

Whether it be a baby patting his mama’s chest as he gurgles milk, or a toddler giggling at the sight of a frog; a little girl pretending to be a princess, or a little boy who spilled the milk one more time and longs for the gentle voice of grace from his mom; a hormonal, reactionary teenager growing up and straining toward adult life; all of these moments and passages have the mystery and grace of God in them, just waiting to be unpackaged as evidence of His love.

Our shoulders often falter under a constant weight of performance and duty. We get caught up in the hectic cycle of endless tasks and often end up finding our lives to be a barren wasteland of burdens. We ask half-heartedly for a sip of His grace, never fully expecting Hint to listen and answer.

Yet Jesus wants us to come for a bottomless lake of His mercy, joy, fun, love, forgiveness, power, beauty, adventure, and freedom. He desires to give us eyes to see every moment from His perspective, looking out with a view over all of eternity—and seeing the stark difference between what really matters and what will soon pass.

Over the years, God has taught me to celebrate the infinite possibilities of what each day might hold. Choosing to look for the very fingerprints of God in every part of my world, as evidence of His love, has become a central life goal.

Click here to play today’s new podcast episode.

“Autumn…the year's last, loveliest smile”

— William Cullen Bryant 

Autumn is my favorite season of the year.

The chill crisp air washed with the golden light beams smiles at my child heart that still hopes for excitement and possibility in my days. The vibrantly painted leaves wrap a love song around my heart and whisper of His playful invitation to find Him while he dances about in the light and shadows of my late afternoon walks.

As I breathe in the beauty and take time to look and hear, signposts of life are surrounding me everywhere. The leaves that were so green and flourishing a few weeks ago, are now drying and falling to the ground to make room for another year, another harvest in the future. The changing weather whispers, “change is coming, your days are shorter than they used to be.” With each leaf swirling delicately toward the ground, are reminders that we all have limitations to the story we live in life, I see the autumn more clearly than ever before.

You will not have this season ever again to invest in, to pour out your life, to store up wisdom, to patiently serve others. This is the message of fall, time passes.

My life is changing and I must recognize the way that time marches on.

I don't have as much time left to invest love, kingdom messages, and worship of God as I used to have.

My children are grown and I cannot take them into my lap, tell them a bedtime story or have them come to me for all their needs, questions or decisions.

We are very close, best of friends, by God's grace, but now, they help me, counsel me. I wait for their calls — they do not do my bidding anymore, they make their own choices of how to invest their time, love, and messages.

Join me today on my podcast and celebrate this season.

A​t this stage of my life, I can look back and see the preciousness of the dance Clay and I have choreographed with our lives, choices, and commitments. It has given both of us great joy and deep satisfaction.

We have only felt this sweet reward because we determined we would endure together with a focus on growing in the direction of unity, humility, sacrifice, and unconditional love.

Our unique dance gained more value with each year's mutually shared life events and experiences. Love is a legacy over a lifetime that creates a beautiful story worth remembering for generations to come.

Many years ago, Clay and I dreamed up the idea of Our 24 Family Ways as we discussed our desire to disciple our children. As parents of young children, we wanted them to have strong foundations of godly character and an understanding of what it meant to please God so that they could develop integrity. It was one of the most important ideas we wanted to convey, as we knew Integrity is something that is developed over time. It must be taught, practiced, and lived over many years in order to grow strong and vibrant.

Our 24 Family Ways as a book grew out of that foundation of working through a simple way of teaching the most important ideas of Christian discipleship to our children.

Paul spoke of his need to remind believers again and again about the same truths so that they could keep afresh in their hearts those truths from the Bible that would never change, hold them fast, give them direction and a way to flourish each step of the way. Because of the turbulent nature of cultural storms, I feel this series is something that will encourage you and has kept me going forward through many seasons of life.

Click here to play today’s new podcast episode.

“Let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:1-2

Many years ago, when I was first married, I had an experience that was both devastatingly sad and eternally impactful in helping me to always have in my mind, “This is not the end. This is not my final home. I need to live for the kingdom to come.”

The puzzle for me has been understanding how to personally deal with suffering and yet have joy at the same time. This is a big subject and hardly one I can deal with comprehensively in a short post, but I do want to at least touch on this important question.

Being born with a strong sense of justice has made it difficult for me to understand why so much suffering happens to good people at the hands of a broken world. In reading Scripture and pondering life, I realized that in order for me to have joy and hold God's hand in this dance of life, I have to mount up over these questions. The seeming inconsistencies of unanswered prayer, sickness, broken relationships, sin that corrupts, destroys, and all the consequences of life that tear our hearts apart, will be satisfied when we are with Him. If I am to dance, I do so by holding God's hand in faith, celebrating that he will, in time, bring justice to our world, to all of His children.

As I began to examine joy in this context, I was not seeking to deal with the "why" of difficulty. That was a given. Instead I was seeking out the reality of how to live with joy amidst of the sadness and death. The writer of Hebrews compared our lives to a race of endurance, a race in which joy is connected to what lies ahead, not to what is here right now. In chapter 11, he called us to remember all of those who have gone before us who ran their race and finished well. We are to ponder Jesus, who for the joy before Him, endured the cross.

Join me today on my podcast as I pursue joy in the darkness.

I love coming into the presence of Jesus. I am usually in my wrinkled pajamas, with​ sleep breath, no makeup, tousled hair, and a fearful ­ heart—I am naturally a fearful​ person. But I light my candle and have my tea, and in His presence I find love and​ acceptance and hope.

I may not give​ perfection, or maturity, or prowess, but I can give Him my ​little-girl heart. The heart​ that sees His beauty, His unconditional love, the freedom He gives me to be me, just as​ I am. And that makes me respond with such love, appreciation, and gratefulness! How​ very glad I am that Jesus does not compare me to anyone else. He is my justification.​ He is my badge of honor.

Do you sometimes forget that the King of kings is “gentle and​ humble in heart” (Matthew 11:29), not waiting to slap you​ on the wrist but rather to draw you close and embrace you?​ How can you offer Him your own little‑girl heart today?

Hope is not natural​ — it is supernatural. Hope comes welling up from deep inside because of a belief that God is good. That He will win in the end. That there is always hope when God is present.

Women who choose hope and who choose to trust God are those who, instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle.

The God-given gift of hope is the best possible medicine for any hardship in life. Hope is the physician of each misery, and God has given us this gift to heal so that we may have a future that is full of joy and light.

Do your children watch you in your tests of faith and see you walking in hope and trust as an example to them of how they will need to live their adult lives?

Read more about this in Help, I’m Drowning.

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I am sitting in a coffee shop, ear buds in, reading my Bible, pondering what messages really need to be said. This one pictured is a memory—but it represents what I do each week when I prepare Tea Time Tuesday—coffee (tea was earlier!), music, focus!

We live in a world of social media that tells us what to do. But that does not mean the voice is one of truth. What voices do you listen to?

Jesus said, “If you love me, obey me.”

Obedience is a theme in my spiritual life—learning to bow my knee before God, His word, doing what He asks, regardless of my feelings.

“Mama, why do I have to obey you and Daddy? Who said you were right?” (From a child who wanted to do something we didn't allow.)

Obedience is the action of authentic faith; “Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.”

I said, “God loves us so much that He gives us principles of wisdom to teach us what is right and wrong, what will lead us to a godly life. God protects us from making painful mistakes in our lives by giving us instruction. But parents are God’s representatives to teach you how to obey Him. If you learn to obey us, you will want to obey God when you are an adult. We are God’s representatives to help our precious children learn to love wisdom, how to be righteous. You practice with us so that you will be ready to follow God’s leading when we are not there to help.”

We cannot please God unless we cultivate a heart that wants to obey Him. It is not about being religious, works oriented, or “churchy.” It is having a heart to ponder His words, stories, ways that He dealt with people, and then do what we can to obey His heart lessons. We grow as we learn to obey, even when it is a challenge. Without a heart to do what God tells us, we cannot please Him.

To obey: to act according what you have been asked or ordered to do by someone in authority, or to submit to instruction.

More on my podcast, Life With Sally.

This week, I pray you will be sensitive to listen to the Holy Spirit, to obey what God tells you to do in His word, to show His truth, His love because of your heart to obey Him in the real and now.

From the time our children were wee ones, we gave each of them time to speak at our conferences. We said, “God has made all of us stewards of His messages of love, redemption, and His hope and life because He has entrusted us with this light that the dark world needs. What would you like to share with all the moms to encourage them this year?”

By faith, we kept writing and speaking and our children grew with ministry. Their self-image was, “I have something to give. My personality is a gift from God to use for His glory. I have an arena in which to bring His light that no one else on earth will ever have.”

A drive for purpose and a desire to impact others for the kingdom of God does not come out of a vacuum. ​A vision must be in your heart, growing, deepening.

It comes from seeing deep inside of your children's hearts and drawing out the greatness that God has built there and giving them a dream for how God will use them in the world.

Children, in spite of their bundle of immaturity, strengths, weaknesses, and varying personalities are exactly what God crafted them to be to fulfill their purpose in His world.

In what ways would you like to grow personally so that you may pass on the life you have intentionally cultivated?

Read more about this in Awaking Wonder.

Even in their adulthood, I continue to be a faithful friend to each of them who cares about the intricate details of their lives—their pressures, finances, relationships, faith growth, and overall heart issues. I keep their secrets and seek to be a “safe” person in whom they can confide. I am determined to continue in that joyful role for my whole life.

Being a friend of adult children has required adapting to a new way of interacting with them. I’ve learned to accept their unique choices of how to live their life, their ways of relating to life, and their faith decisions.

I have learned to love them even as I trust them to God and pray that they live their lives well.

I have made myself an open conversation partner in hearing them on their individual choices as adults, and as such have become a sounding board for them when they are open to it, a persona of wise counsel if they request it. And if there is conflict, I listen and apologize when appropriate.

And in that context, I learn so much from them as well, benefitting from their stories and enjoying their companionship with all my heart. Read more about this in Uniquely You.