You Are Loved, No Matter What!

“God’s unfailing love for us is an objective fact affirmed over and over in the Scriptures. It is true whether we believe it or not. Our doubts do not destroy God’s love, nor does our faith create it. It originates in the very nature of God, who is love, and it flows to us through our union with His beloved Son.
JERRY BRIDGES”

We named our younger daughter Joy, and she ended up living up to her name. To our family she is a total joy. Perhaps because I never thought I would have a child again, I did not mind the sleepless nights, her cries, or her baby needs quite as much as I did as a younger mom.

Joy moved from a crib to a real bed when she was about two and a half years old. Often, at the crack of dawn she would climb next to me in my bed, squeezing and snuggling tightly against my body. After settling in, she would fall back asleep for a while longer.

Her feather-soft hair would tickle my cheek, and her warm pudgy body, soft to my skin, was a delight to me as I wrapped my arms around this tiny gift and held her tight.

“Mama,” she said thoughtfully early one morning, “this is where I most belong, as close as I can get to you, because I can feel your love better when I am closer.”

Then a smile crept across her little face as she breathed out a sigh and settled into a few more minutes of “love.”

Because Joy was my beloved, prayed-for little girl, I loved having her next to me. I cherished the times I still had a little girl who wanted to be so near me, one who would trust me utterly. As her parent, I was so thankful she wanted to be near her mama. When she crawled into my bed and cuddled next to me, I was filled with happiness and appreciation of the gift she was to me. I loved it that she loved me! It didn’t matter what she had done the day before—

if she had cried a lot

or broken a mug full of juice

or fought with her brother

or disobeyed me

She did not have to promise to be more mature, or confess her faults, or stay away because of having a bad day the day before.

At any time, she could just snuggle up next to me, because as my daughter, she belonged there! I delighted having her near me. She was my own little girl. I loved her with my whole heart, and I loved knowing that she wanted to be close to me and that she depended on me for her security, protection, comfort, and love.

My love for her had nothing to do with her performance. My love was committed, solid, and constant because she was my beloved one.

This is a human picture of God’s parent love for us. The very nature of God is to love. He can do nothing else. His love defines Him, so His love for us is settled forever and cannot be changed.

Of course, we will never come close to the perfection or holiness of God. We are selfish most every day! We often say things that are harsh, do petty things, and act in a stingy or angry way. Yet still He loves us and wants us to be close to Him! It is almost impossible to believe that He could love us even when we are not loving to Him.

In the same way that I did not expect Joy to behave like an adult but accepted her limitations as a normal little toddler, so God is mindful of our own limitations and yet still loves us.

God sees us as toddlers, so to speak. Understanding our fragility, our humanness, He responds to us as I responded to Joy. He is mature even when we are not. He is constant in His love toward us, His commitment, His care for our needs, and His compassion for our heart’s cry. As our heavenly Father, no matter what we do or how we fail Him, He is the constant one, the responsible one. He knows our frame—that we are weak, immature, and imperfect, but He doesn’t require us to perform before we come close. He just wants our heart to trust Him, and He wants us to depend on Him as our loving Father.

When we come to Him as a child—innocent, dependent, trusting, and humble—He welcomes us into the place right next to His heart.

Do you know how much God truly loves you? I pray today this truth washes over your heart.

Giving Our Children the Gift of Being Inspired & Podcast

"Our chief want is someone who would inspire us to be what we know we could be."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Giving our children the gift of an inspired heart, mind and soul teaches them to dream about how God will use them in their lifetime. 

Part of our purpose as moms is to inspire our children.

This month, I have loved having my adult children in and out. Sarah had long talks with me on the porch about what is burning in her heart to share from her studies and readings while charming baby Lily When Nathan was home, he and his friends,  gathered around our piano and played guitar and wiled the evening away singing and making music together. They inspired me with their conversation about bringing story alive through movies.

Joel and Joy have both cooked great meals for us in the past couple of weeks. We have celebrated life with a many dimensional flare: food, outdoor firelight talks, music, listening to stories together, movies, sitting outside and watching it rain, gazing at the starry dark Colorado nights, going on hikes. I have been deeply inspired myself just listening to all of these as they engage in conversation about how they want to use their lives to bring inspiring, light-filled messages to their world, to write, sing, create movies, pursue projects by using their imagination and agency to create these works of life. 

I have realized again that as parents and women in ministry, we have a call to inspire others to live into their God-given potential and to live out the story they were created to tell. How are you building this into the moments of your own life?

"As mothers and fathers, it is so easy to get distracted by the details of our lives. We have so much to do! We must feed our children and take care of their health. We must oversee their education and their training to make sure they will be able to take care of themselves and live in a civilized society. We train them in righteousness so they may understand how God wants them to live. We try to relate to them in mature ways and help them learn to have healthy relationships.

Yet often, I think, we get lost in these mulitudinous tasks that rule our lives, and we lose sight of the underlying purpose behind all those tasks, which is to prepare our children to go into the world and make disciples for our Lord.

Each of our children has been given a specific personality and a particular set of circumstances that will give shape to God's purposes for his or her life. It is our privilege and responsibility as parents to help our children understand their particular fit in God's plan. This means pointing out special skills and talents. It also means helping children realize that God didn't give them such skills and talents just to use on themselves, but to glorify him and bring others to Him through the stewardship of their lives. In other words, we are to help them see themselves and their potential and then to inspire them for God's purposes:

Joel, you are so musical. Maybe you will write great music that will encourage others to worship God and want to know Him!"

Joy, you are so compassionate. I love the sweet cards you make! I can see the Lord using you to comfort and encourage many lonely or hurting people."

This quote and more about the gift of inspiration are in my book, The Ministry of Motherhood.

When our days are busy and so many demands on our time cry out for attention, it can be easy to start seeing our children as if they are projects to be perfected; always needing more correction, more training, and more and more work. After awhile, that sort of focus leads to resentment on both sides. Over many years of mothering, I've learned that reminding my children of the things they do well and encouraging them to bless someone else can do more to turn a negative attitude, a really bad day, or a hopeless cause completely around than the longest, most eloquent lecture I could have mustered.

I think that's a pretty good job description for a mom, don't you?!

Giving Our Children the Gift of Grace

Dear Lord, So far I've done all right. I haven't gossipped, haven't lost my temper, haven't been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish, or overindulgent. I'm really glad about that.

But in a few minutes, God, I'm going to get out of bed. And from then on, I'm going to need a lot more help."

Ever felt like praying this prayer? I have! A candle, cup of tea and my Bible get me started off right. I've laid my burdens at Jesus' feet. I've read His words and they have ministered to my heart. I've worshiped Him. I have asked Him to change me, to help me grow, to bless my family and lead them. I'm sure it's going to be a wonderful day, and all is well with the world.

And then I get out of the chair.

And sometimes, it feels as if all is downhill from there!

Wouldn't motherhood, wifehood, even Christianity be much easier ... if there weren't any other people involved? But I suppose then we have the problem alluded to in that scene from It's a Wonderful Life, when the family's help says, "That (the noise happening upstairs) is why all children should be girls!" and then the elder Mrs. Bailey says, "But if they were all girls--oh, never mind!"

God loves relationships. He, Himself, exists as a relationship--Father, Son and Spirit, three in One--a mystery we can't wrap our minds around. We bear His image, and part of that is this need we have for relationships; to know and be known, to love well, to draw strength and learn from one another. Yet relationships are not easy. Sinful people, living together in a broken world, sometimes hurt one another. We misunderstand and are misunderstood. We struggle with pride and envy, greed and deceit. So do those around us--and our children are no exception.

We need God's grace.

"Giving the gift of grace to our children is actually a two-part process. First, we need to help our children receive grace. We do this both by extending grace to them and by teaching them about God's grace through salvation. After that, by our teaching and example, we must train our children to give grace to others in turn.

Jesus summed up this two-part process when He was asked to name the greatest commandment. He said we are first to love the Lord God with all our hearts (receiving grace) and then we are to love our neighbors as ourselves (giving grace). This commandment, therefore, sums up the first gift we can give to our children--the desire and ability to understand and receive the grace of God and to give it to the rest of the world.

Understanding the importance of the gift of grace has really helped me respond to the daily dilemmas and frustrations of life in a household of four children. As we go through our days, for instance, I try to be mindful that, to God, relationships are always a top priority. I try to think of ways I can model for my children the redemptive grace and love of Jesus--and also influence them to extend grace to others through their actions and their attitudes." ~ The Ministry of Motherhood

We will always be pressed by our relationships. My prayer is that they press us all closer to the heart of God, Who loves to extend His grace to us, and teaches us through His example to do the same.

Jesus examples to us to influence our own. 

The Ministry of Motherhood: Following Christ's Example in Reaching the Hearts of Our Children

By Sally Clarkson

Buy on Amazon

Be sure to get your copy of Ministry of Motherhood where you will find this story and so many more with practical ideas of how to disciple your children as Christ did 

I hope you will join Joy, my daughter,  and me today on my podcast as we talk about how grace was given through the moments of our family life together. 

The World Needs Gatekeeping Mamas

“For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.” Hebrews 10:36

This is the vision I see: If mothers rise to be gatekeepers, making their homes places of excellence, cultivating love for each other as well as reverence and worship of God, spending personal time teaching and discipling their children, serving them through this training and nurture and giving up of her own time, there will be hope. 

When mothers abandon this great and important responsibility, there is a greater tendency for children to become the kind of adults who can be self-centered and self-serving; who can overlook unrighteousness without any pang of conscience—because that conscience has never been developed. They become the kind of adults who can passively let others take responsibility for our government and country--to accept and validate those who would promise the moon even though the moon isn’t available in reality.

For this gatekeeping to occur there must be hundreds—thousands—of dinners made, laundry loads run, backs scratched and cookies baked. There must be watercolor projects and messes, hikes and games of hide and seek, money spent on wonderful life-giving books and concerts and the theatre. Time spent ministering to our children is time well spent, because that investment grants us the door to their hearts. When their hearts are soft to us because we have ministered to their needs, their minds will also be softened to hear our values, our convictions, and our guidance.

Moms, the way you invest your life today will indeed have a great impact on history. The cultivating and raising of great souls is of the utmost importance.  Your life is making a difference. Take time in the word, read those books which call you to excellence, spend time praying with friends of like mind–and don’t give up!

Our culture doesn’t put much value on endurance. Yet life requires it! Determine that you will endure to the end regardless of situations. Just making that decision goes a long way toward accomplishing it!

Jesus: Our Model for the Ministry of Motherhood & New Podcast

From the very beginning of their time together, Jesus called his disciples to a life apart from the crowd. He called them to great purpose and meaning, promising to make them "fishers of men." But even before that, He called them into a relationship with Him. He extended to them the grace of His fellowship, His love, His instruction. With them He was patient, encouraging, loving, and forgiving. His whole relationship with them was built on the foundation of intimate friendship. He gave them the gift of Himself. And then He asked them to pass along that gift to the world.

We see this more and more clearly as Jesus' relationship with the disciples progressed. He wanted them to be His representatives on earth, to tell everyone the gospel of the kingdom of his Father. But He wanted them to do it through His strength and grace, not through their own power. And this was where Peter got it wrong.

Peter was a strong, active man. He was used to making decisions, being dependable. It was natural for him to assume that by his great effort he would "help" the Lord get his message to the world. Yet Jesus, knowing the need of Peter's heart, allowed him to find out differently. He allowed Peter to fail spectacularly so he would finally understand that grace was the key to serving God and his kingdom. Not by his own strength and courage, but only by God's constant grace and mercy would Peter be able to deliver Jesus' message to the world—a message that would then be wrapped in the grace and mercy he had come to know so well.

As mothers, I believe, we are called to take this lesson of grace to heart. Like Jesus, we are to draw our own children to a life apart from the rest of the crowd. Each of us is designed by God to whisper his words to the hearts of our children so they will feel the call of God in their own lives to become fishers of men." Yet we must always remember that our children, like Peter, will never be perfect. Each of them needs for us, like Jesus, to extend to him or her the gift of constant love, grace, and forgiveness. And we can only do this by relying continually on the grace of our own relationship with the Lord.

When we do this, we will live out the definition of grace and love in such a way that our message will be written on their hearts. They will understand that the God who calls them to a great task will stay with them as they strive to complete it. They will know He gives them the strength and encouragement they need—and the grace to pick themselves up when they fall. And they will know all this in part because of the hands-on grace they have experienced at home.

Sometimes I Hide, Sometimes I Feel Like Giving up & Podcast

I have thought a lot lately about the nature of a child. A child, who is cared for and loved, generally trusts his father with all of the details of life. As a matter of fact, a secure child doesn't even ponder the issues of life, but just lives into the moment, because he has not ever had to carry the issues of life.

And Jesus says,  “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

Innocence, trust, pure in heart.

There are times I wish I could be more like a child. How I would love to be free, to feel the rest of having no burdens, to not be unsophisticated so as not to worry about big problems. 

Life is so hard sometimes. Mothering is hard. Marriage is hard. Paying bills is hard, Dealing with people and life can be hard. 

Sometimes I feel like hiding, running away or just giving up--even though I don't always know what that would mean. 

Just to be unburdened and be able breathe the deep sleep of a toddler who isn't even aware of pressures and problems.

Today, my assistant and friend, Misty, and I want to share with you the stresses and problems we have lived through. We hope no one who reads this blog and listens to our podcast feels alone or like a failure. We just covered y book "Mission of Motherhood" and I spoke of many ideals, goals, vision. But I also wanted to acknowledge that we live somewhere between the tension of ideals and the reality of daily life. We want you to know we understand.

I am constantly in and out of demanding stresses, difficult issues. Yet, I have to practice going back to what I know to be true so that I don't crater. I look to my rock. I remember that He has promised to be with me. He is my shepherd to carry my burdens.

And sometimes I just need rest--to play, to sleep, to eat something "forbidden" and to enjoy it, to be with friends who are uncritical and "get" me, to just be a normal person that no one knows or has expectations of.

I think that as I look back over my own life, I can see that God has intervened, provided, taught, comforted and held me up even in the stormy times, even through the "dark night of the soul" times. .

Not all of the moments of my life in this world have been easy, many have been devastating. But I wish I had spent less time worrying, less time fretting or telling God my will. I know that He is good. I also understand that we live in a fallen place where evil abides and where Satan tempts and accuses and has stirred up people to turn away from God.

But now I see that nothing separates me from the love of God. Nothing. Even when I think He doesn't love me because I have failed.

How much easier it would have been if I had just released all of my own "carrying" of these burdens. It would have been so much better if I had understood that it was not for me to "figure out" all of the "whys," but I so wish,  I had just left it up to Him, His will, His ways, His wisdom. My life would have held more peace, and I would have heard more of His whispers of comfort and felt more joy in living and resting in His strength and abiding love.

“God’s desire is for us to experience true joy and deep fulfillment. It must start, however, with the journey into the recesses of our heart. It is only as we release our hold on the things that we think we need to be truly happy, when we open our hands freely, that we experience true joy. We yield our demands and expectations to Him so that we may take His hand and let Him lead us into the dance of joy. He is the One who will teach us. But it requires a total relinquishment of self and a simple trust in a great God, simple faith to understand that He who created joy will lead us on the pathway that ends in the joy that will last forever.” ~ Sally Clarkson, Dancing With My Father

I hope you will in some degree enjoy our conversation today about the seasons of challenge in our own lives and know that you are not alone. God does see you and He indeed loves you.

The Winding Road of Parenthood ...

“All the paths of the Lord are lovingkindness and truth
To those who keep His covenant and His testimonies.”

Psalm 25:10

We, like most parents, had little conception when we started the journey what we were doing, and even less what it would require of us. We agreed that parenting was the best of all the ministry we’ve done in our lives, but we had no idea what that investment in our children would cost us physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially. It is only now that we can begin to observe the dividends. Whatever lifegiving we did is now paying out in the rich life of faith we see in each of our children.

However, did I also mention the speed bumps, potholes, blind curves, and other road hazards we encountered along the path of parenting? It was not a smooth ride. After all, every Christian family, ours included, is inhabited by sinful, selfish human beings called parents and children. The idea that Christian parenting should be a purely joyful journey through life is misguided at best and an illusion at worst. And yet, despite our own immaturities and weaknesses, we made it through with no casualties and with faith intact. We’re all stronger than when we started.

But Christian parenting is more than just getting from one point to another by faith. We know intuitively we’re made for something more than just crossing the finish line. We’re made to be part of God’s epic story of creation—the story He is writing not only for all of life but for each of our lives. As lifegiving parents, one of our most important tasks has been to help our children discover themselves in the story God is writing, to find their place in the unfolding tale of God’s grand purpose and plan and to know that we are all, as a family, in that story together.

When you first became a parent, did you feel confident in your choices? How can you see Gods’ hand in teaching you?

The Lifegiving Parent Experience: A 10-Week Journey of Parenting for Life

By Sally Clarkson, Clay Clarkson

The Lifegiving Parent: Giving Your Child a Life Worth Living for Christ

By Sally Clarkson, Clay Clarkson

Faithful & Persevering Mother MOM 12 & Podcast

"And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock.”

Matthew 7:25

When I was a young single missionary living in Austria, one of my favorite retreats was a village in the lake district in the Austrian Alps. Hallstatt is a thousand year old town tucked between a towering mountainside and a deep lake. To get there, I had to take a train from Vienna. I would step off the train onto a small platform standing all by itself on the other side of the lake, then walk a few steps to a dock where a boat would take me the rest of the way to Hallstatt.  As I stood at the back of the tiny boat, with the soft spray of the lake blowing in my face, I always noticed the remains of a small rock castle built on the side of the mountain.

One weekend I had taken my mother and a friend to visit this favorite retreat. We dined on a lovely deck outside our quaint hotel, which fronted the water, then retired to our rooms. Within an hour, however, a ferocious storm engulfed the whole area. The electricity in the town suddenly went off. We looked out our third-story windows and saw, in the darkness, that the deck where we had recently eaten was now flooded with violent, tossing waves.

As we peered fearfully across the lake, everything seemed to be moving sideways and up and down. The high winds were blowing the torrents of rain sideways, the trees were bent over, and everything seemed to be caught up in the violence of the storm. An enormous flash of lightning illuminated the black sky. And suddenly I saw the outline of the stone castle, standing constant amid a storm that was shaking everything else to its core. 

I have never forgotten the sense of strength and solidity I felt, gazing at that old structure that had not been daunted by centuries of such storms. It has become to me a picture of what God has created a home to be.

Women are created to be home-builders, (Prov. 14:1, The wise woman builds her house,). But the reality is, there are so many storms that come our way trying to destroy our homes and tear them apart. 

A faithful mom is not someone who is perfect in following all of her ideals but one who is willing to believe that God is good and that He will help us through all the ups and downs. A mama who puts one foot in front of the other day after day, year after year. 

And when she gets to the end of her journey, she finds that building on the rock of God's word, enduring by faith through all the storms, she will find her house standing strong with faith alive because of the way she was willing to build. 

May God grant you to see that your faithfulness matters and that He wants to keep us safe through the journey. He wants, even more than we do, to have us find His blessing as we faithfully follow hard after His leading. 

Does your home feel this way—sturdy, founded on a rock? What might cause it to feel (and be) more so?

Modeling Ministry From the Heart MOM 11 & Podcast

Run with endurance the race that is set before you, the race of faith.

Hebrews 12:1-2

"We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."

Ephesians 2:10

What a crazy, mixed up, secular world we live in. Traditional values that have held for thousands and thousands of years are questioned. We find Christian leaders are now also suspect and can find no leaders to trust. The political world is going awry. In such a world, we long for anchors and for boundaries to show us how to live, how to make decisions.

Spending time with my adult children the past few weeks has convinced me even more to understand that we all need to feel a sense of purpose in this world. We need to know that living righteously matters and is not a waste of time. We need to feel that we are a part of something bigger than just the mundane day to day tasks.

God created us to have purpose and it is what we need for our own lives and to give to others. We were made for kingdom work, for helping bring light to a dark world. Christianity is not about moralizing others or living by the right rules, but instead about knowing the present Christ, experiencing a real relationship with him in the midst of such confusion.  We need to feel that we are participating in purposes that bring meaning to our lives. Helping our children understand that they were designed uniquely by God to serve the needs of others helps them to realize their position in God's kingdom.

There is a tendency to leave the work of serving others in the hands of the "professionals" or to those who have chosen as their life's work some sort of a  ministerial vocation. Significantly, Jesus chose no professionals as his disciples. He chose common, ordinary men to do the work of God's kingdom. Spiritual qualifications in the mind of Christ are not determined by the degrees a person has earned at a university or a professional resume but by the anointing of his Spirit and by a willingness to serve in obedience to God's commands.

I believe that parents too often fail their children in this regard. They give a wrong impression about serving the Lord through the slight hypocrisy in their lives. We go to church as a family and listen to a sermon. On the way home from church we might comment to the kids, "That was a great sermon. There certainly are lots of needs in the world. God really has called us to share our faith."

And then we say, "Where should we go for lunch?" And the teachable moment turns into words of a platitude without action. 

God will hold us all accountable for the wonderful opportunities we have to minister to others, the freedom we have to choose how to give his love and light to others. The level of materialism in America, combined with the availability of Scripture and the freedom to invest our lives for him, provides us with a heavy weight of stewardship for our own spiritual heritage.

And we need to pass this message on, to pass on the baton of serving him to others as they run their life race.

For what good works has God created your family? Sit down together and talk about it.

Feeling Invisible As a Mama? Cheering You On!

 

"For the ways of a man are before the eyes of the LORD, And He watches all his paths." Proverbs 5:21

I think one of the things that can make me feel weary is feeling as if I'm invisible. And of course, most of our mama-life is invisible. This noble cause we embrace is often fraught with relentless repetition, exhaustion, draining of our emotions, and spiritual challenge. Yet it is also the very place we are called to worship. This is the place faith is being forged and character is being modeled and love is going deep into the hearts and minds of your children. This is why I champion the cause of motherhood. What you are doing matters so much. And Jesus, who sacrificed His time, emotions, and ultimately His very body, sees you and is so very pleased, cheering you on from the heavenly realm.

No one said to me, "Yeah, Sally, you chose to be patient with one more ear infection and sleepless night! Congratulations, you are the queen of children with mental challenges, three asthmatics, and even one with some learning issues! Of course all four are sinful and fuss and make messes and want to eat and wear relatively clean clothes every day. Congratulations, you are so very patient with those hormonal teenagers, you just waited for your toddler to get over his tantrum and you handled it patiently--you a hero!"

One of the strengths and profound work of a woman, as I have said many times before, is to bring civility and order out of chaos and to bring beauty, intelligence, and excellence in subduing her kingdom of home into a life-giving haven.

My home and all the little choices of each day became my sanctuary of worship, my sacrifice of praise. Bringing light into the potentially dark corners of our lives together, singing and dancing and celebrating God's reality in the mundanity of dishes, late nights of Winnie the Pooh and ear infections and steamy showers to alleviate croup, these are the places my children felt the comfort and grace of His touch through me.

It is indeed the glory of a woman when she chooses to love and embrace her precious child as a gift and as a work from the hands of God.

Today, I pray you know how much you are seen and loved by God!