Vanessa

“It took me a little while, but I learned to see my "time-outs" as necessities, not luxuries, and to be vigilant about making room for them in my life. Without them, I found it almost impossible to provide the kind of welcoming, accepting home experience that Nathan and all my children needed.”
― Sally Clarkson, Different: The Story of an Outside-the-Box Kid and the Mom Who Loved Him

“When children understand that their parents accept them whether they are behaviourally perfect or not, that they can trust the grown-ups with anything, then they will be more likely to seek their parents' help when they have engaged in more serious misbehaviour.”
― Sally Clarkson, Different: The Story of an Outside-the-Box Kid and the Mom Who Loved Him

“We must learn to desire the light God offers more than the safety and comfort of the darkness where we already live.”
― Nathan Clarkson, Different: The Story of an Outside-the-Box Kid and the Mom Who Loved Him

“I had to learn that God never intended me to judge my children's value by how well they fit the assembly line of cultural expectations or my own dreams of what I thought motherhood should look like.

Each of them was an individual, one-of-a-kind design. Each had a special purpose in the world. And each had a special set of gifts and challenges that affected the way they operated in the world.

God had ordained that I would be the mama of these unique children, tasked with shepherding them through life and teaching them what unconditional love meant. It was my stewardship to parent my sweet little ones with all the faith and joy I had chosen as my foundation for the other areas of my life,”
― Sally Clarkson, Different: The Story of an Outside-the-Box Kid and the Mom Who Loved Him