Sally Clarkson's Blog, page 2

Crafting A Place Of Beauty And Comfort

There is always a cost to building intimacy with others. Giving comfort to one who is ill requires time and practical labor (attending to physical needs). Listening to the feelings of a teen or young adult usually involves lost sleep because the deepest conversations take place at night. Buying groceries, cooking meals, making cups of tea, providing snacks requires the sacrifice of time and energy.

Love is indeed a choice, an obedience, a service and a sacrifice, an initiation. But love is also the most powerful source of joy. And it is the means through which God would have us extend His hands, His words, His redemption to our world, within the walls of our homes.

Read more about this in The Lifegiving Home.

The Lifegiving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming By Clarkson, Sally, Clarkson, Sarah Buy on Amazon

Tea Time Tuesday: Living In The Moment

Click here to play today’s new podcast episode.

What a week! High tea in London, many subway rides amongst masses of people everywhere, a Sunday roast, miles and miles of walking, talking, having fun and making memories. I didn’t know how much I needed to “feel loved,” cared for, filled up. I am heartfelt grateful for a week I didn’t know I needed and for the precious ones who made me feel so very “seen” and special. Join me today on my Tea Time Tuesday podcast and hear all about it. 

Through it all, I was thinking about how very important it is to make space and to planned time with loved ones so that our hearts can be filled to overflowing. Sometimes we don’t realize how much life and duty have drained us and how much we need filling. But it isn’t the activities, “things” or accomplishments we need—it is the real live moments of relationship and loving one another well, to be heard, to feel close and understood that create the type of relationship we all long for. And for this week of such filling and belonging I am most grateful. 

Loving The Ones Right In Front Of Us

Is there anything more important than the building of a righteous soul?

Love is given through lighting a candle and serving a special breakfast one more time on Sunday before church as we open the gospel together, giving up what we wanted to do or the job we hoped to have in order to build a soul, looking into a child’s eyes with true interest and compassion instead of looking at a screen while only half- listening.

These are the sacrifices of our love, the ­ moment-by- moment giving up of ourselves, the constant, year- in, ­ year-out practice of worship as we serve those in our home in order to please His heart. It is for Him, for His Kingdom that we serve with willing, generous, lifegiving hearts, building His Kingdom one heart and one sacrifice at a time.

Thank you for loving your children well today. It is the very best way to show the world true love.

Read more about this in Mom Heart Moments.

Mom Heart Moments: Daily Devotions for Lifegiving Motherhood By Clarkson, Sally Buy on Amazon

Give Your Children The Gift Of Play

Too often today,children are starving for real life and drowning in the midst of an empty one. The ­old-fashioned way seems to be the healthiest way to raise emotionally, intellectually, physically, and spiritually resilient children.

Children need to be outdoors. They need time to be bored. They need to be around books, have lots and lots of imaginative stories read to them, and then have time to act out the stories. They need lots of time with adults so that they can pattern their values and manners and relationships after mature people.

Read more about this in Mom Heart Moments.

Mom Heart Moments: Daily Devotions for Lifegiving Motherhood By Clarkson, Sally Buy on Amazon

The Wisdom God Wants You To Know

As I look back, I wish I had been even more intentional about enjoying each season and celebrating the joy of having my precious ones in my home.

A friend reminded me of this once. As we talked, her eyes filled with tears. "I finally got to the point where I was enjoying my children, their home education, and all of us being together. And now it's all changing, and we will all go our separate ways, and I don't like it at all. As a matter of fact, I hate it! I am not ready, but that doesn't really matter, does it? I might as well just accept it and move on."

I have to agree with her. A difficult "move on" time for me was the transition away from the elementary school years when I had my little Clarkson Club that did everything with me. We pretty much did all of our activities together—we read our books out loud, took our walks together, and every foray into town was a group trip.

But suddenly, and with little warning, my kids began to pursue their own lives and activities, splitting up our little club and scattering us all in differing directions.

I see these seasons of change as times of resolve for me as a mother. I have learned that it is God's will for me to resolve, in my heart and spirit, to accept the seasons of my life as he brings them. If I fight against them, and resist receiving them as gifts from my gracious heavenly Father, then I will miss what God intends for me to experience from them.

I can either resolve myself to being faithful and joyful, or I can let that opportunity pass me by. If I resolve to be faithful, I will be able to celebrate all of life as God gives it to me, without regret. I have only this one life to "get it right," and I am resolved in my heart to accept each season by faith.

Read more about this in Seasons Of A Mother’s Heart.

Seasons of a Mother’s Heart: Heart-to-Heart Encouragement for Homeschooling Moms By Clarkson, Sally Buy on Amazon

Tea Time Tuesday: Choose to Be Joyful, Learn to Be Content

Click here to play today’s new podcast episode.

This is one of my favorite photos from last year. I was walking in Christ Church Meadow in Oxford with my son Joel and I found this beauty. It delighted me, I felt like a child who had found a precious new toy. It is a picture to me of “Stopping to smell the roses,” or in this case, “Stop to find the biggest leaf and don’t miss the beauty in the moments of your day.”

Every day, perhaps every hour, our lives are filled with potential stresses, irritations, pressures that tempt us to grumbling, anger, irritation. Life is fraught with so many little details that can tend to overwhelm. As a young woman, I had to learn over time to accept the small constant limitations of my normal life and the minor irritations as a part of life, but to not allow these moments to steal my joy.

Instead I made small goals of learning to be thankful and choosing to be content. It is a lifetime quest. I am not there yet. Now, though, my habits of years of practice find me not giving in to being bothered by the little things, not to waste time fretting on all the small details, but instead learning to practice gratefulness for the moments of my days.

On my podcast today, I tell a story of when grumpy mama me had to retreat from a bad attitude so that I could fully enjoy a precious moment to experience joy and laughter with my young children. Join me on Tea Time Tuesday on the Life with Sally podcast. May you have many large beautiful leaves in your autumn days this month.

Seek To Attain His Gentle Ways

If there is anything that makes me want to quit, it is conflict or misunderstanding. And yet, if I am honest, I know it is in the times of conflict or difficulty He has worked most deeply in my soul.

It was in falling or being accused of falling that I learned more about the need to give people the grace I wanted. It was in being unjustly accused that I became more humble and in need of Him. It was in struggling through the conflict that has evolved over years in our family circle that I learned to have compassion on other women who struggle with their own backgrounds.

So, when there is conflict, I know running away is not an option. Bringing love and gentleness and courage into darkness heals and brings light.

If I want my soul to be made into the likeness of Jesus, I must seek to attain His gentle ways, His sacrificial love, His peacemaking heart.

Read more about this in Mom Heart Moments.

Mom Heart Moments: Daily Devotions for Lifegiving Motherhood By Clarkson, Sally Buy on Amazon

God Lives In Your Home

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.

Tea Time Tuesday: Autumn Whispers That Time is Passing

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.

Love Is A Legacy

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.

Well Lived: Shaping a Legacy of Gratitude and Grace By Clarkson, Sally Buy on Amazon