You are invited to embark on a journey toward greater service, lasting significance, and wholehearted delight—a life truly well lived!
In this episode, bestselling author Sally Clarkson explores how God’s astounding grace empowers you to lead a joyful life loving and encouraging others. Drawing from her time in Oxford and years in ministry, she offers wisdom on the topics of discipleship, family, hospitality, and cultivating joy that will inspire you to invite God more fully into your own story.
Wherever you are in your life’s journey, Sally’s encouraging insights will call you to deeper faith and guide you toward a life filled with direction, meaning, courage, and contentment.
“Our way to this fruitful, flourishing, well-lived life comes when we willingly accept the mantle of devotion with a servant’s heart full of love for Him—creating beauty again and again, loving, forgiving, sacrificing, pouring our lives out to bring light and redemption to our world every day.”
Summary
Sally Clarkson shares her journey as a writer and her perspective on living a well-lived life. She emphasizes the importance of living with purpose and walking with God, finding one’s unique story and living it out. Sally also discusses her personal encounter with the Lord and the impact it had on her life. She encourages listeners to choose calm and trust in God, to love others wholeheartedly, and to cultivate gratitude and grace. Sally shares practical ways to live out love and create beauty in everyday life.
Takeaways
- Living a well-lived life means living with purpose and walking with God.
- Encounter with the Lord can transform one’s perspective and purpose in life.
- Choosing calm and trust in God can bring peace and rest.
- Loving others wholeheartedly and creating beauty in everyday life is a powerful way to show God’s love.
- Cultivating gratitude and grace can bring joy and light in difficult times.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Sally’s Journey as a Writer
02:35 Living with Purpose and Walking with God
05:48 Encountering the Lord and Transforming Lives
08:48 Choosing Calm and Trust in God
11:36 Loving Others Wholeheartedly and Creating Beauty
14:52 Cultivating Gratitude and Grace in Everyday Life
Transcript
Rachael Adams (00:01.467)
Well, hello, Sally. I am so happy to have you on the Love Operating Podcast. Welcome.
Sally Clarkson (00:06.501)
thank you so much. It’s a privilege to be with you. I think we’re kindred spirits. I’m pretty sure.
Rachael Adams (00:11.047)
I’m pretty sure too. And the listeners know, and I just shared with you that your daughter, Sarah has been on the podcast and hers is one of the top 10 of all six seasons. And so we already love her and I want to get to know you better. And you also have other children who write. So you, just have such a strong legacy of, of words myths in your family. So I’d love to hear as we start, when did you start to write yourself?
Sally Clarkson (00:38.861)
You know, it’s really funny, but I never get that question. But I remember even as a 14 years old is when I was on my journalism staff at my junior high. And I remember thinking then, there’s just so much that I want to say. And so I literally started writing when I was just a teenager. And I hoped and hoped that I’d get to write books someday, but of course I could never imagine could never imagine that I would do 32. And so it’s amazing for me to look back and see the fingerprints of God on the messages that he allowed me to be a part of.
Rachael Adams (01:18.639)
Yeah, you definitely had a lot to say and still have a lot to say and have lived a really lived your life well. And that’s actually the title of your new book, Well Lived Shaping a Legacy of Gratitude and Grace. So what does a life well lived mean to you?
Sally Clarkson (01:39.254)
Well, as I look back at my life, and I go on these long walks every morning, I was praying about it this morning, and I think that God has created each one of us with unique personalities, unique backstories, unique drives, unique fingerprints, and I think that he created us to live into just the potential that he gave us as a person and to live walking with him, to live in his word, to understand his ways, to have his wisdom, to feel his love. And then because of our relationship with him, to be able to plan and to idealize and to dream, Lord, what story would you like to live through me? What would you dream through my life? And so I think a life well lived is when we find him, find his purposes and his ways and have a sense of we are walking in the destiny that He created us to live with walking with Him hand in hand.
Rachael Adams (02:43.804)
You know, we started with talking about your, you first started writing, but I’d to hear the story of when you first met the Lord, because you’ve lived your life for Him. He’s been humongous for all of, know, of your life. Humongous is such a funny word, but that’s the first word that came out of my mouth.
Sally Clarkson (02:55.25)
Thank you.
Sally Clarkson (03:02.857)
Well, my mom used to say, why do you ask so many questions? I’ve been driven by thoughts and ideas my whole life and felt a little awkward for it. I don’t know. Why don’t you have questions? I was when I was I had grown up going to church, but when I was a teenager and it was a pretty difficult time in culture. And I began questioning things. thought, if somebody knew the God who threw the stars into place, wouldn’t they be different? Wouldn’t they somehow be more excellent or more dynamic or more loving or whatever? And I realized that most of the people I knew who called themselves Christians were pretty mediocre. And I was in an idealistic age. so long story short, I moved to the university where I went to school. I was on the 10th floor of my dorm and I didn’t tell anyone, but I actually sat in my room and prayed, God, if you’re really real and if you are the God who’s bigger than I am seeing in the lives of other people, then make yourself known to me. And sure enough, this sweet woman, she’s a very shy type and she came to my door on the 10th floor. Evidently, there was no one else on the floor that day or else she wouldn’t have gotten to my door.
I was at the end of the hall. She said, could I do a religious survey with you? And I thought, well, sure, know, whatever. And then she kind of was bashful and shy, but eventually she shared Christ with me. And it was as though everything that I needed to know made sense. She spent a lot of time explaining that God loved me, that he designed us for a relationship with him, a relationship of love that just our sin separated us from him. I always thought, well, I haven’t done anything terrible, but I knew in my heart that I was inadequate. I felt shame for some of the ways I had lived. And so anyway, to make a long story short, God sent an angel to share his love with me. And for me, it was like a sunshine in my heart. I knew I was all in. I said, this is what I’ve been looking for and questioning and asking people about and now I know who you are. And so from that moment, I felt like, okay, that was when I began to understand, what do you want to live through me because I am your girl? I’ll go anywhere and do anything. And of course I didn’t know what it would cost me. It costs a lot. That’s a very long answer, isn’t it?
Rachael Adams (05:48.867)
I loved every ounce of it. And now I’m just thinking like you’re so many people’s angel, you know, because you aren’t living a mediocre life. You’re living a life of excellence in so many ways. in your new book, you write that God had provided you with pathways to follow and treats to enact in order to live well, wisdom for the journey, so to speak. So can you please talk to us about how you were able to realize those for yourself and how others can do the same?
Sally Clarkson (06:17.445)
Well, as I look back, I just turned 71 this month, and I feel like people are kind of lost for direction. They want to have a life that’s meaningful. And I want to say that our relationship with God is not about moralism. It’s not about being as good as we can be or doing all the good things. Our God is Aslan. He’s wild, and he wants us to be able to walk in a way that is individual and in relationship to him. And so I feel like I wanted to write a book that talked about what is in the heart of God that is a legacy to live, a life to live. And I talk a lot about life giving. have three books that have life giving in the title. But I think that God intended that when we discover a deep and abiding and gracious relationship with him that he would say, gave you skills drive. I gave you, I start out in the book talking about a queen. A queen is someone who rules over her domain. And my kids, my grandkids call me Queenie because of a book that we read. And I think that I would love to see women live to their capacity. Your your home, your training, your desires are a part of what God uniquely gave to each person so that we could live a story in our lifetime for Him. So mainly I wanted to make that known to people. I wanted them to understand that they have a story to tell and it’s unique from everyone else. They don’t need to conform to cookie cutter images of somebody else’s standard of how to live, but that they each have this ability to live with all their heart into this wonderful, gracious God to bring his light and beauty and goodness to every moment of their life.
Rachael Adams (08:27.323)
Reminds me so much of the parable of the talents, you know, and what you were just saying, it’s like what’s a well -lived life for you, maybe a different life that’s for me and for somebody else, but God has given us each time and abilities and put us in specific places with specific people. So we’re love offerings, so to speak, wherever we are. And that will look different for each of us. And so not to compare our lives to what somebody else is doing, but going back to the parable of the five talents, like he’s given you some and me some, and what are we going to do with them? Are we going to live in fear and bury those? Or are we going to invest those and build those and grow those with his help of course. And so that one day he will say well done, good and faithful servant. And so when I’m thinking of you in this book, it reminds me of faithfulness. Are we stewarding well and using well as he’s the owner of all this but we’re just managers. We’re to live a life well. Does that evoke any thought in you?
Sally Clarkson (09:30.303)
Yeah, I really, I do think we are to be stewards of all of the things that our unique lives hold. And I think that you’re going to probably ask me a question about this later, but it dawned on me that every person that I know, it’s a fearful time in culture. It’s a time when there’s chaos and there are wars and there are lots of opinions amongst believers and non -believers. And I think that God has trusted us with his time. I feel like he said, Sally, this is the time in which I trusted that you would be able to live a life of love, of faithfulness, of virtue. And so I think I would say to women, when you steward your life, you don’t have to be afraid of the time that you’re in. God has a destiny and a plan for each of us to uniquely bring light and love in our own way. And I think that since I know in my heart that these times are the time that he created me for, that he created you for, that this is the time in which we can live such a story that we will be able to bring light right into the place that we’re living at this moment. These children, this husband, this job, these circumstances. And once I realized that, instead of being afraid of what might happen or what’s going on, I began to live kind of as a purposeful warrior, saying, okay, how can I take ground? How can I encourage women to not be fearful? How can I encourage them to live into their unique capacity?
Rachael Adams (11:14.885)
Yeah, so something that you talk about in your book is living with your whole heart. And you know, the Bible talks about even we can, we can so many times have a divided heart and I think about even just God is our, is our wanting to love us wholeheartedly and wanting us to love him wholeheartedly. So what does it mean to live in love with your whole heart?
Sally Clarkson (11:36.574)
I was, after a couple of years of COVID when I was living in England, I had the chance to go to New York to visit one of my children, my Nathan lives there, he’s an actor. And he took me to Funny Girl because he knew I loved it when I was younger. And I was suspicious that this person could ever be as good as Barbra Streisand. But it was funny because the actress who was the star, literally from the moment she stepped onto the stage until almost three hours later, she was fully in, she was singing, don’t tell me how to live. And she was fully smiling and on her knees and dancing. All of sudden it was like the Lord said, this is what it means to live with your whole heart. Put everything you have into it. And all of us have doubts sometimes, all of us have dark times, all of us have temptations.
And even in those places, I realized God wanted me to plant a flag and say, from this moment forward, I will trust you. When I don’t feel like trusting you, when I can’t see that you’re there, I believe that you are good, that you are God, and I’m gonna live this day, this moment, with this child, this weariness, with my whole heart. I’m gonna give it all, because I only have one life to live. And so it was kind of a picture to me of this is it, go for it girl. The play is gonna be over in two and a half hours and so give it your all. And it was just something that God put on my heart as a kind of a picture of what I could do.
Rachael Adams (13:14.019)
It reminds me of the idea of celebration and you talk about that in your book as well. How do we prepare for celebration ahead of time so that whatever season is coming we can face it well?
Sally Clarkson (13:25.295)
Well, I say that we need to be people of resources. We all have dark times. Our children have dark times. Our friends have dark times. And so I have put rhythms in my life and in the lives like when someone comes to my house, I automatically have teacups, tea, coffee. I have cookie dough balls that, you know, they can give a little bit of grace. I have candles. I like a million candles and put on music and I prepare my heart to give them words of encouragement. And I have ways to self -encourage. I walk, I do all these things myself. I think that I learned that preparing for delight during the dark times is something that’s really important. As a matter of fact, sometimes my children look back and they say that some of the most important moments in their lives where when they were tempted to be fearful or overwhelmed, and I always talked about lighting a candle in the darkness and let’s be together. And I am with you and I will help you and that’s a picture of how God is at every moment of your life, wherever you go. And so I learned to kind of build up in my mind resources and rhythms that would provide delight even in the hard times. Does that make sense?
Rachael Adams (14:52.707)
It does make sense. Gosh, that sounds like a whole other conversation that I want to have with you about what those rhythms are. But one of the ideas that you talk about in your book is about choosing calm and trust. So I wonder if this is even part of your rhythm. How do you rest in God by choosing calm and trust?
Sally Clarkson (15:15.417)
Well, I picture that God has a file drawer where he has all of the issues of all of my life. And so I love the Psalm that talks about as a weaned child. I will, you basically it’s a picture, it’s in Psalm 120 something, but it’s a picture of a child who leans against God with total rest and with total heart. And so when I come across, and I’m a real journaler too, journaling helps me write things and get out my thoughts. When I come to something that’s too difficult for me, because in the Psalm it says, I do not involve myself with things that are too hard or too difficult for me. Instead, like a weaned child, I will trust in you. And so I picture this vial drawer of heaven. And if it’s a financial issue, or if it’s a child that is struggling, or if it’s someone who’s ill, I just talk to the Lord about it. I put it in the vial drawer of heaven. And say, now this is yours.
This is not, it’s too big for me to handle. I’m gonna put it in your hands, close the drawer and you take care of it and work it out, And so it’s both a habit of already having determined that I wanna live to the end of my life trusting God, but it’s also a means I can write it in my journal, I can say it in my prayer and say, God, I believe that you care for me and that you’re going to take hold of this situation and that I’m going to be able to trust that in your time you will reveal to me how you’re going to meet my needs. And then I leave it there. You have to leave. You have to close the drawer. Leave it there and choose to take every thought captive, to say thank you that you are with me today. Thank you for this beautiful sunrise. Thank you, Lord, for the graces that you do give me. And I think a lot of it is a discipline of heart and a discipline of thoughts.
Rachael Adams (17:12.735)
And surrender, it sounds like. I was just thinking about, you know, that file drawer of all the prayer requests. It makes me wonder if there’s another file drawer on the other side of you where sometimes you will open up those prayer requests because he’s answered them. And so it’s like now you have a whole file drawer of praises and gratitude of how he has worked in your life, which I think helps us with our trust.
Sally Clarkson (17:14.91)
And surrender, yeah.
Rachael Adams (17:42.201)
If we know and see, we can see his faithfulness in the lives of others in the Bible and in our own lives, but it’s like a drawer of his faithfulness even to us. Do you ever, I don’t know.
Sally Clarkson (17:52.949)
Well, yeah, I do. As a matter of fact, I think that that’s why I put a legacy of gratitude and grace, because I think that we can spend our lives looking at a cup as half full or half empty. And I think a lot of spiritual disciplines are spending time on the word, putting that word in your mind, and then applying it to everyday moments of your life and then going forward.
One of my rhythms is before I get out of bed, I try to thank God for four things just that day. What do I know is going to be in this day? What people, what circumstances that I can thank him for? And I think that it talks so much in scripture about being grateful. But again, it’s a spiritual discipline that I’ve learned that it’s something I’m going to practice because thankfulness lifts my heart and gives me joy for the day that is ahead of me. And I’ve had many heartbreaks and difficult times in my life. And so it took many years. It’s not suddenly you know everything. It’s taken many years just to acquire this much wisdom and this much experience. And what I want to say is wherever all of these precious women, men, children are, in that place, God loves you and he will meet you wherever you are. I feel like oftentimes we’re toddlers and God isn’t surprised and he’s seen many toddlers before us. And so all we need to do is grow a little bit, take the next step, share our heart, learn to obey what the Holy Spirit is putting in our heart through his word. I’m giving you whole lectures and you’re my answers. So sorry.
Rachael Adams (19:46.307)
Listen, I’m grateful for the wisdom that you have and I’m hanging on every word and you mentioned the the glass half empty and or glass half full you kind of briefly touched on that but I’d love to hear why do you think our outlook on life really does make all the difference?
Sally Clarkson (20:06.64)
Well, I think that the spiritual battles take place inside of us, in our heart. Whether we’re going to choose to give in to our grumpiness, we’re all grumpy. And I think when I’m grumpy, I look at my heart and say, what’s going on? What is the real issue here? But I really think that being spiritually mature, I I look back now and I think even all the hard times that I had, had great purpose.
I like I’m much more humble than I ever would have been. And so I can be more humble with my friends and with my children. I know that I fail. I can be more compassionate to them. And the other thing I really see a lot is I love, I love, love, my adult children. They’re my best friends. And as they’re adults now, they said, you know, watching you be thankful made an impact on how we would face our day.
Watching you decide to go through that hardship and love the person that was unlovable gave us the grace to love people that we think are unlovable. And I never knew how much my children were listening, learning, watching, taking notes about how I was living my life. But I would do one day at a time, one more lesson, one more obedience, and then those habits helped me to form thoughts in my heart and values in my heart that gave me a way forward and gave them a pattern to follow. I didn’t realize how much other people were looking at me in the difficult circumstances of my life.
Rachael Adams (21:50.213)
That encourages me as a mother. You know, sometimes we wonder if there’s any fruit of our labor sometimes. That encourages me. Yeah. But in something that you mentioned, and I’d love for you to elaborate on if you have anything else is.
Sally Clarkson (21:55.182)
Yeah, does it matter? Yeah, it really does.
Rachael Adams (22:08.595)
You talk about God’s fingerprints in your life and it’s so so much easier to see in hindsight what what he’s been doing and I love to kind of trace those in my own life. And so how has loving others shown you God’s fingerprints?
Sally Clarkson (22:24.632)
Well, going back to when I was in high school and what I wanted to see in other people. And one of my biggest goals in life is to think through how can I love or leave a fragrance of love or an action of love with every person that I ever meet? Because Jesus said, they’ll know you by your love for one another. And we’re all limited. We’re all sinful. We’re all selfish. And so to love someone else in their unloveliness is one of the biggest attributes of God. While we were yet sinners, He died for us. He died for us when we didn’t deserve it. And He loved us, loves us every day when we don’t, when we’re not perfect. And so when I made that a goal, because I realized that there were some very bitter relationships in my life that really were poisonous to me.
I would rehearse what they had said and how unjust they were and how unfair they were. And then I began to realize that to hold on to, you know, it says forgive 70 times seven in scripture. And I thought to hold on to these poisonous thoughts were only going to hurt me. And so I learned that love covers a multitude of sin. Love is a perfect bond of unity. A gentle answer turns away wrath.
And so I just, another area that I grew in was learning to choose to see the context of people, to choose to forgive them and to choose not to hold on to offenses that would just poison my own life. But to again, father of heaven, to give people to God, to give unreasonable situations to God and to say, I just want to walk with you and be an innocent child and allow you to fill my heart with the love that I need to live my life well.
Rachael Adams (24:24.005)
What do you think happens when we are wholeheartedly devoted to living in God’s love? When we really understand and grasp how much He loves us. It changes everything.
Sally Clarkson (24:36.411)
It does. It changes everything. And that was my biggest need when I came to God because I had grown up with lot of expectations and I felt like I was a disappointment to people. And so one of the legacies I carried into my life when I became a believer was I want to understand that other people feel like I do. They feel inadequate. They feel maybe unloved because we aren’t perfect and none of us have a perfect family. God’s love is the most transformative concept for me in my whole life, my relationship with Him that I thought maybe I will quit sinning by the time I’m 70.
But that hasn’t happened. And so just to live in that grace to say, you love me as I am, you’re a mindful God that I am but dust and you still love me. And then to go into every single relationship that I have with people and say, and they were designed to know the love of God and I will be his agent to give it however I can to every person I meet.
Rachael Adams (25:50.523)
This was not a question I was planning to ask you but you have such a beautiful heart and you can just see the Holy Spirit and sense the Holy Spirit speaking through you. I mean you you really do have like His light and love and I’ve experienced that even before we we hit record and and so I’m interested in you said you take walks with Him.
What does it look like to spend time with the Lord? Like what does your quiet time look like with him or spending time in his word? just on a personal level, I would love to hear your wisdom on that.
Sally Clarkson (26:30.067)
Well, it changes through the season. Sometimes I get up every morning, make a cup of tea, light my candle, put on music, and then I spend time with the Lord. And sometimes I can’t even think. I mean, I’m distracted by all the different things that are in my mind. But one of the things that has helped me a lot in my quiet time, this is just an example, is you can go through the Psalms, like read a Psalm a day or whatever you want to do. And I look for God’s attributes and I circle. and it says, his loving kindness endures forever or great is the Lord, compassionate is God or whatever. And so I will look for his attributes and then I’ll think, that’s what God is like. And that’s what he’s like in my life. I’ll just, the more, whatever you water is gonna grow. And so I water, so to speak the thoughts of my mind and the meditations of my heart by just spending a little bit of time every day. What does Jesus say are the attributes of God? He’s a shepherd. I mean, there’s so many different metaphors that he gives. He’s the light. He’s a God of beauty. so I just spend some time thinking about wanting to know him better, wanting to understand him better, and how that applies in his relationship with me.
But I do look at a lot of different scripture as, is there an attribute here that is a clue to me of what God is like? So I think it’s just asking questions, writing down thoughts over a lifetime. And there will be different seasons of different ways to worship God.
Rachael Adams (28:17.617)
Well, it’s evident that you spend time with Him in our conversation. I have seen that. And so something in your book, you say, our way to this fruitful, flourishing, well lived life comes when we are willingly, when we willingly accept the mantle of devotion with a servant’s heart full of love for Him, creating beauty again and again, loving, forgiving, sacrificing, pouring our lives out to bring light and redemption to our world every day.
So what does this actually look like practically? That’s what we all want. I think that our heart’s desire is to do that. And so what does that look like practically?
Sally Clarkson (28:58.287)
I think that God gives us a whole lifetime to apply all of these minute little lessons. And I think that most of our lives are hidden. It’s the in -between time, I say. You’re praying to get pregnant, but you’re not pregnant yet. You’re praying, God, we need some finances here because we’ve got to send our kids to college or we just wrecked the car or whatever it is.
And I think that it’s just a moment by moment. Once you make a choice, once you practice saying, this is your day, this is the day God has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it. And I’m not that spiritual of a person. sometimes I have great and godly things to say and to think, and sometimes I just get irritated at how many dishes there are in the sink. But I think that the more I again write down my ideals. What do I want to be? What do I want to move toward? What kind of person do I want to be in friendship and marriage and motherhood? And the more I picture God’s ideals for me and the more I practice them when the dishes are dirty, when a child is screaming, when the house is blown apart, those are kind of the places where I build my spiritual muscle.
It’s mostly in the daily things of life. And it’s not a real serious spiritual thing. It’s delighting in the birds that I’m hearing right outside my door. I wonder if you could hear them. thought, they’re so loud. It’s noticing the seasons. It’s choosing to see the fingerprints. I unfortunately, deeply unfortunately, a friend of mine was killed a couple of weeks ago, and she’s leaving eight children. And just pondering how short our lives are sometimes that we don’t even know, and pondering that I still have time to give my children words of grace and to love the people around me, and it’s really had an impact on me just in this past week and a half. And so it’s just real practical. It’s leaving someone a note, tossing a grandchild’s head, kissing the cheek of my husband unexpectedly. We get to live out this beautiful, dynamic, interesting life in very beautiful ways.
Rachael Adams (31:35.131)
Yeah, we want to make the most of our time. And honestly, I’m grateful that you get a little aggravated at the dishes too.
Sally Clarkson (31:42.369)
Yes, I was made to have those women in proverbs, know, they would come around and wash my dishes so that I could do profound things.
Rachael Adams (31:54.561)
So we have talked so much about love already. so one of the questions that I’ve been asking all of my guests this season, is there a biblical concept of love that you think applies to this topic? Which the answer is yes, but I’m wondering if you have anything else to say on the topic.
Sally Clarkson (32:11.787)
Well, going back to my Oxford book, because it is my reflections from Oxford. It’s not just well lived here, it was my five years there. And I just, I lived in a place that was so much fun. My second, my third flat that I had while I was there, my third apartment. And it was near all these little cafes and stuff. And so I thought, you know, I’m gonna see if I can make friends with people. And I picked my favorite places. And so I saw this barista and I would say, you make the best cup of coffee you made my whole day. There was another little neighbor that was so shy she wouldn’t even look me in the eyes and she had a little dog. And so I would say, that is the cutest dog I’ve ever seen. How long have you had it? But I would look for ways to validate their lives, and ask questions. I take a plate of cookies to my next door neighbor, this older man who had just had heart surgery. It was kind of more like a game that I could figure out how in the world am I going to get these very introverted people to know me and to talk to me because I want them to expect that they should be able to be affirmed by me. So I don’t know if that helps, but love is pretty practical and it’s also a lot of fun.
Rachael Adams (33:34.725)
Yeah, well, yeah, I’m thinking about like loving your neighbor as yourself and you’re such a noticer and being sensitive to other people to just start the conversation. And I think that that’s really beautiful, great examples for us to apply in our own lives. And I actually lived, I studied abroad in England in college and I loved it. And I say now I’d love to go back now that I’m an adult, because I went in college and I think that I would appreciate it so much more now. So I’d love to take my family back, but I loved living there as well. So that leads me to my next question. Well, I lived in London, but we studied for four days, and then we were able to travel for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And so I went all over England and then to 13 other countries. It was one of my favorite parts of my life. It really, it absolutely did. So I’d love to go back someday, but I would be interested to hear about something you’re loving right now. It can be anything, a person, place, thing, food, Bible verse, whatever it may be, a product, whatever first comes to your mind.
Sally Clarkson (34:29.938)
It shaped your life, didn’t it?
Sally Clarkson (34:47.259)
Well, people think I’m crazy about this and probably you talked to Sarah and she is too, but one of the things that I implemented into our lives every day, and we still do it, is around at four o ‘clock, my son Nathan and Kealia, his wife, they come home and spend the summer with us because they’re actors and there are no roles in the summer. And so every single afternoon we have four people who work full time in this house.
But every afternoon we’ve been making oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I have a bunch of cookie dough balls in the freezer. And we meet on my back deck and I live where there’s just pine trees all around us on the deck. And we have a cup of tea and our oatmeal cookies. And every single afternoon, the whole summer, we get there as friends and we talk and we giggle and we share ideas. We avoid politics and we tell stories and we share movies. So what I’m loving right now, because they’re leaving in two days, but we made time four o ‘clock in the afternoon and I did it when the kids were little to be friends and to talk. And so I’m loving that because it’s going to end pretty soon.
Rachael Adams (36:06.123)
That’s such good encouragement. I think that I need to start a tradition similar to that in my own household. But Sally today has just been such a treat and I know that you’ve encouraged me in my own life and walk with the Lord and I’m sure you’ve done the same for listeners. And so would you pray for us as we close?
Sally Clarkson (36:26.837)
Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you so much that your whole desire is to make yourself known to us, that you care about friendship and relationship and that you gave us this beautiful world to live in. I pray that all of the people who listening today would know that you are with them, that you want to companion them, that you love them, that you understand them and that you want to give to them because you’re a giving Lord. I pray Father that you would take their burdens and give them joy and cause them to see your beauty and goodness in a real practical way in their lives today. We love you and we pray in Jesus’ name, amen.
Rachael Adams (37:12.575)
Amen. Well Sally, I know I want to stay connected with you. I’m sure listeners are going to want to stay connected with you and purchase your book. Well lived. And so tell us how we can do all those things.
Sally Clarkson (37:25.302)
The main places to get a hold of me are sallichlarkson .com, S -A -L -L -Y, Clarkson .com. And I have a podcast as well, and it’s called At Home with Sally. And I would just be delighted if people could find me in those places.
Rachael Adams (37:45.915)
Yeah, well, I have felt at home with you today. And so thank you for being my guest. Just appreciate how you have lived your life and encouraging us to live ours well, also. Thank you so much.
Sally Clarkson (37:59.161)
Thank you, and the Lord bless you. It’s so fun to be with you today. Bye bye.
Rachael Adams (38:02.161)
Thank you.
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