Today’s guest, Sally Clarkson, is the author of several books. She shares about her parenting her “outside-the-box” child, creating space for yourself, and how finding beauty in the everyday struggles of parenting in hard places requires radical acceptance of your situation. Sally’s prayer at the end is for you. Don’t miss it.
July 12, 2022; Ep. 94
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If you enjoyed our podcast, please...
Today’s guest, Sally Clarkson, is the author of several books. She shares about her parenting her “outside-the-box” child, creating space for yourself, and how finding beauty in the everyday struggles of parenting in hard places requires radical acceptance of your situation. Sally’s prayer at the end is for you. Don’t miss it.
July 12, 2022; Ep. 94
Timestamps & Key Topics:
Episode Links & Resources:
If you enjoyed our podcast, please...
Amy J. Brown 0:00
Hi and welcome to Take Heart where our goal is to offer encouragement, give hope and insight, so you can flourish in your journey as a special needs mom. Each month we explore themes, share inspiring stories and practical tips. Our desire is to continue to serve you and new listeners. You can find resources and connect with us at our website www.takeheartspecialmoms.com. Sara, Carrie, and I want to thank you for joining us today.
Welcome today to Take Heart. I'm so excited to share an interview with my friend Sally Clarkson. Sally Clarkson is the author of more than 20 best-selling books in multiple languages including The Lifegiving Home, Educating The Whole Hearted Child, The Mission of Motherhood, The Lifegiving Parent, Awaken Wonder, and Different which she wrote with her son Nathan. We will be talking about the book, Different, today. Sally and her husband, Clay, have four adult children, each of whom has followed in their parents' footsteps as published authors themselves. She divides her time between her home in Colorado, New York City where one of her sons lives, and the UK where three of her children have pursued advanced degrees at the University of Oxford in St. Andrews. You can find Sally at www.sallyclarkson.com, or at www.wholeheart.org. You can also find her on Instagram. We'll be sharing all those links in the show notes. I'm so excited that you will be able to learn from my friend, Sally Clarkson, today. I'm so pleased to welcome my friend Sally Clarkson to the show today. I've known Sally a long time, and I was thinking this morning, Sally, that I can't remember how we first met. But I honestly think I stalked you on the internet.
Sally Clarkson 2:42
I think we met before the internet.
Amy J. Brown 2:45
I have a very vivid memory of listening to (this is gonna show how old I am) cassette tapes of your teaching on my cassette walkman.
Sally Clarkson 2:54
I mean, we still have those around. I don't think we have a cassette recorder anymore.
Amy J. Brown 2:59
Well, thank you so much for being here today. I want to say at the very start, because I don't want to forget to say this, but you have been my main mentor in parenting, from your books, and from your gracious encouragement. I want to say thank you for that from the beginning.
Sally Clarkson 3:13
It's an honor to know you and to be your friend.
Amy J. Brown 3:18
For our listeners who don't know you, could you just tell us a little bit about yourself and your family and what you do?
Sally Clarkson 3:26
I am the mom of four adult children, and they are 37, 35, 32, and 27. We are all word nerds. We all love to write. and we love messages. We need other people to do our medical accounting, bill payer, all those sorts of things. I'm a writer and podcaster. My real love is to mentor women so that they might walk in the peace, goodness, strength, and health of the Lord. I try to write things that encourage women.
Amy J. Brown 4:05
You do a really good job.
Sally Clarkson 4:07
I love house, home and place, and education and a lot of other things. I live in Oxford now most of the time, Oxford, the UK, Oxford, England, where three of my four children live and three of my grandchildren live. I also have a home in Monument, Colorado.
Amy J. Brown 4:27
Thank you Thank you for that. First of all, how many books have you written?
Sally Clarkson 4:32
I just finished number 20. It's either 25 or 26. I've got four more to go.
Amy J. Brown 4:39
Well, I want to start talking about it because we talk to special needs moms, your book Different, which you wrote with your son Nathan, was really interesting because you get Nathan's side too. I read your viewpoint and thought I can totally relate to this. Could you talk a little bit about Nathan and parenting Nathan?
Sally Clarkson 4:58
Well, the interesting thing was Nathan came to me and he said, "I think we should write a book about the fact that I was different, and how we made it and what you did." I said, "Well, honey, I'm gonna have to tell the truth." I think all children are complex, and being a mother is harder than I ever thought it was or would be. Nathan came out of the womb, untameable and he is ADHD, depending on what you think is okay, these days or ADD, OCD, ODD, or dyslexic. There are so many letters that go by his name. But at the time that I had Nathan, I didn't know any of these letters. I didn't know any issues. Of course, everyone in the world was saying to me, you really need to spank him more, or you need to stop giving him sugar. But, as I look back now, I think that the Lord really gave me him as a gift. Maybe he gave me Nathan so that I could have compassion and understanding and humility from all my mistakes and patience. For other women who don't feel seen or heard who have children who are out of the box. He's definitely out of the box in more ways than I even mentioned a minute ago.
Amy J. Brown 6:24
Right, right. I love that. Because you're writing the book, and initially you're trying to figure out what's going on with this kid. There's a story that I related to. It's at the very beginning, where he just loses it at a restaurant and you walk out. I love that you were honest, because you were done, and that was when he was little. I mean, you have a lot of time to go still. I would like for you to talk a little bit to those moms who are at that moment because you said you felt guilt and shame and all those things. I related to that because I've had many moments like that where I was just done. I know you didn't walk out of that, and the next day thought everything was okay, and I'm gonna peacefully gracefully go through life. What would you say to the moms in those moments who are done? It's so hard. I would love to hear your thoughts on that.
Sally Clarkson 7:23
Well, we had been flying from California to Texas, where we were going to visit Clay's parents; We lived in California and stopped by Albuquerque, New Mexico to visit my parents. I remember you're always kind of holding your breath hoping that the child (he was three years old) that has the difficulty who cannot contain himself, or the girl who does that; you're always kind of on edge. I am the main person, I was Nathan's main person. I had been holding him, kissing him, hugging him, talking to him, trying to distract him, and walking him around the New Mexico airport. I had done all that all day long. I think we had been on the road for about 18 hours. When we got to this place that we were eating our lunch, or whatever it was whatever meal it was, maybe dinner. He was lying on the floor screaming, kicking He threw a chicken leg at his brother and sister. I thought I am done, so I just walked over to the counter. This very southern man said, "That boy needs a strong hand." I said, "Yes, he does." I didn't know who he was. It was a bakery counter in this big place. I think the thing that I would say I didn't understand was that every day was going to be a challenge...every single day. There was no magic formula. There was no ritual. I hadn't done anything wrong. In other words, Nathan was who he was. It's a fallen world. There are consequences to our health and our lives and our brains and our bodies. Poor little Nathan had some consequences that were very difficult in his life, but God had entrusted him to me. Eventually, I would learn this: this is God's will for me. This is my story, and I want to make it a beautiful place.
Amy J. Brown 9:22
Yeah. I think there's such an emphasis on we've got to figure this out. I used to think...I remember one time getting six pages of therapies for my child with reactive attachment disorder, and I thought, okay, I'm gonna start at one, and I'm just gonna bust 'em out, thinking then we're all going to be okay.
Sally Clarkson 9:43
Some magical time it's going to all be different. Nope.
Amy J. Brown 9:46
Nope, nope. One thing I love, and I'm going to read something you wrote in the book because I think this is important because I think we could just wear ourselves out trying to fix it. You said, "I realized that correcting everything he did wrong and getting upset about it was not productive for me..."
Sally Clarkson 10:03
Or for him. I can't remember what I wrote.
Amy J. Brown 10:06
Yeah, I'll tell you. "...or for our whole family. So instead of worrying about what others thought, about what I thought children should be like, I tried my best to focus on Nathan's true needs, his actual capabilities, and what he needed most to learn." I love how you talk about you went from. I mean, obviously, diagnosis is important, but you went from almost, (I'm not gonna put words in your mouth), but maybe not control to an acquiesce, but rather I have to figure out his strengths, and the things that make him Nathan, because Nathan is not just a little boy screaming under the table, There's so many wonderful things about Nathan. I think as special needs moms, sometimes we look at the problems and think okay, we gotta fix this, especially in behavioral problems, where the child looks typical. Everybody just thinks as you said, they need good, they need vitamins or all the things that people think they need,
Sally Clarkson 10:57
Things that will not help them.
Amy J. Brown 10:59
I'd like for you to talk a little bit about that journey, and how you can encourage moms to kind of make that shift. I mean, I know it's not a one and done, you have to continually be making that shift.
Sally Clarkson 11:10
It's not a one-and-done. But I do think there are some aha moments where you decide, this is the story that I have been given to live. I deeply believe in love as a power in the lives of children, of all human beings. I thought, you know, he needs my unconditional love, probably even more than my other children, because he would always get in trouble if he was ever in any normal situation, whether it was a class or a Sunday school class. People always had advice for me. Nobody ever understood. They didn't understand that every single day (maybe there were a couple of exceptions), but every single day, in general, was hard. That it was a disruption to the rest of our family We almost never had a meal that there wasn't some argument or debate coming from him. But there was a point at which it was as though I realized, oh, okay, so I have been given Nathan, I am his shepherd, so to speak, the one taking care of him. It is going to do no good, and it's going to wear me out to fight against this every day of my life. There needs to be a point when I have radical acceptance. When I say I don't know how it's going to turn out, I am going to dedicate myself to as much as possible, understanding his context, loving him, touching him, scratching his back, doing the things that he wanted then. I can remember one day. My other kids were at Awana or something at church. Nathan had a little cold, so he couldn't go. I was worn out. He was sitting with me in a big overstuffed chair. He talked, I think, maybe for almost an hour without stopping. He looked up at me and he said, "You know, Mommy, when you when you listen to me and pay attention to me, it makes me want to obey you, and when you don't give me time, I'll do whatever I need to do to get your attention." I realized, okay, it's gonna be a lot of time, a lot of talking, a lot of back-scratching the rest of his life.
Amy J. Brown 13:31
How did you juggle the other kids with Nathan's high needs? I know, that moms feel guilty about the kids that don't have the struggles.
Sally Clarkson 13:42
People have different philosophies about this. Of course, I always had a philosophy of trying to take each of my kids into my bedroom by themselves once in a while with a cup of tea and a cookie or whatever, hot chocolate. I believe, and I told my children this, I said, "You know, my precious, if it's God's will for me and for daddy to have Nathan, it's God's will for you that our family has Nathan. If we submit to God and love God, and learn what we need to, that's going to be the pathway of blessing for all of us." I think that there's a point at which we can't. I did a lot of things and I manipulated my schedule in a way so that I could have time to really focus on those children. Thankfully, I had one, friend, who would invite Nathan over to play with her little boy on a regular basis for one or two years, so that I could actually have just some peace and quiet with my other children. I think that it was really important for my children to see this is just a part of our normal story and not only that but for the rest of our lives. Other people are going to be broken, and have a context have difficult situations. We're gonna work through this and focus on how to love unconditionally, how to be at peace, and how not to blame the other person for having issues. But once you learn this in your life at home, you will be able to live this way for the rest of your life. I do think some women try to...a woman told me that every day her little nine-year-old came aside to resent the fact that I have this person in our lives. She said, "I'm so sorry, it's my fault, and I can't do anything to help you." She prepared this child to be selfish, really. I mean, obviously, it's very difficult to have that disrupter or the children's abilities. I think that I wish that I'd known many, many years ago, at the beginning of my Christian life, that being in a fallen world means things will fall apart, people will become ill, there are disasters in the world, and they're really evil people in the world, doing evil things. It's kind of like preparing for battle. If you know what's ahead, you can handle it more. I wish that somebody had helped prepare me for the challenges, the difficulties, just of life, let alone children, let alone a child who is going to struggle most of his life, and it's never gonna go away.
Amy J Brown 13:48
I think that's a really good reminder, in our age of shiny, happy, everything on Instagram looking perfect. Then also, I think, in the church, sometimes we're not comfortable with things that aren't tied up in a neat, tidy package at the end of the day.
Sally Clarkson 16:42
There's so much for real, I just have to say that I didn't have any support. Most of my friends, mature Christians would say, "Oh, you're just having a hard day." I thought, no, there's something really going on here. They would say, "Oh, he's just having a hormonal day. He's just a teenager. " I thought, "No, normal people don't tape up wall sockets and turn off machines and refuse to talk to you." I mean, we had a lot of strange going on. I won't tell it all, but I just want other women to know that if that's happening in your house, it happened in my house.
Amy J. Brown 17:21
Right. You said that you had one friend that would take him, which I chuckled at that because I thought were you thinking the whole time, oh, I hope he's not bad. He's good. There's not a lot of support for moms, especially when you have children that look typical. One of the things that you've talked about, not just in this book, but throughout your life is, that you're really good at trying to make connections. I think you've talked very openly about how lonely life has been for you, and how you've had to make connections. As special needs parents, they're lonely. One thing I've learned from you, which I appreciate is, that I can't wait around to be invited. I have to create my own community, and I want to be invited. I want someone else to do it.
Sally Clarkson 18:10
Me too. I still want to be invited.
Amy J. Brown 18:15
Yes, sometimes I don't want to be invited. But my point is, there are times I think, I have to do the inviting again. I never regret it once I do it. Could you talk a little bit about the loneliness aspect of this journey and the lessons you've learned and how you've brought community into your life?
Sally Clarkson 18:32
Well, again, I think that's something I wish I had just known. Clay and I were talking about this last year. Both of us (if you charted out most Americans), are both one-percenters. In other words, somebody did some personality testing with us at one point, because they always do that when you're in ministry. They said, "Do you realize that probably only 1% of all Americans are as idealistic as you are." What that means is that he's a different one-percenter than I am. He said, "What that means is that 98% of the people in your realm, in your country aren't going to look at life through the grid that you look at life through." That really helped me because I used to think, why am I so different? Then add to that, your different child. Oddly, I mean, this is not going to help anybody who's a mother of a young child right now, but my children have grown up to be my best friends. We understand each other. We understand our situation, we have grown through hard times. The other thing I want to say, and this is not answering your question, exactly. I'm getting old and senile and the frontal lobe is going. As I look at Nathan, he has really grown into his capacity in ways beyond what I could ever have imagined by me treating him as a worthy human being and saying, "I know that he has a lot of intelligence there, I know that he has the ability to love and serve there." I trained him with the expectation that he was a miracle made by the hands of God. He's amazing. He's one of my best friends, and he still has issues. He had much more able to learn from me and to grow from me than I would ever have known at the time. As far as loneliness goes, I think that there is a part of me, that still has loneliness, because I've had to learn a lot of things: grow, read a lot, become academic, and work through things. A lot of people haven't had to work that hard, at cultivating their capacity. Even just from the point of view of learning self-discipline, by pursuing excellence, in a lot of areas that I needed to grow in, even in that, I've had very few people who have read as much or have understood as much of the issues. I would say if there are women listening to this, who don't have special needs children, it means so much to us, who have special needs children, if somebody will have compassion on us and give us an hour by ourselves, or bring a meal to, to play with our child or love them as they are. I literally can hardly think of any support systems, I had a woman who understood even the person who had him to play didn't kind of believe his issues. I do think that there is a sense that even if you never find that perfect person, I still started planning my Saturday mornings out at a French restaurant with my girls and Clay would take care of the boys. There was one night a week when he would take care of the boys, then I would have fun with the girls. I learned that I needed to have time away. I needed to have some pleasure, fun, artistic, or just special times in my life. because once you have given out everything that you have, there is no more to give. You have to be the conductor of your own soul's beauty in order to be able to continue giving out for the rest of your life. Even if nobody else ever understands you, or reaches out to you, you need to it's you have permission to take time for yourself.
Amy J. Brown 22:42
I'm so glad you said that, Sally, because we think that's selfish. One thing you do really well, and you've taught me is that beauty matters. I've taken that to heart. I've talked about on the podcast that having your tea, or your coffee in a pretty mug or sitting outside by flowers. It doesn't have to be like a big dramatic thing, the small little parts of beauty, feed our soul. If you can't get someone to take your kid for the whole day, even if you're just by yourself outside for a little bit with the sun on your face, or a pretty cup of tea, those moments are so restorative, and you do that really well. I think a lot of moms think, oh, that's not going to do anything; my life is so crazy, or it's just an extra that I don't have time for. But those little drops of beauty are like drops of grace throughout your day. I have loved how you've modeled that. Let me just say that I think people could look at your picture on Instagram with your teacup and think, oh, she's got it all together, but we know that your life has not been easy at all in any way.
Sally Clarkson 23:55
Not in any way. I've moved 19, actually, 20 times I'm about to make, eight times internationally, have two and a half mentally ill children and other mentally ill relatives. Plus, they're just normal, mean people in my life. I know if you're alive, we're living in a fallen difficult world, and I determined that I didn't want to be a victim. I also wanted to see that there was God in the world, there was good in the world. There's beauty in the world, but what you practice you become. I thought I need to practice rhythms for me that say I am a civilized woman. I want to continue growing, so I had to learn how to kind of build that within a very messy life. There are times when you can't do a thing. You're just living through that month or that year. You just keep trying, you just keep moving forward. All of us have those totally out-of-control times and the time is when we think, I don't even know if I like this person. If you set your goals to become the person that you think you have the capacity to become and follow Christ, you'll eventually make it. It's going to be hard, but it might give you more humility and compassion for other people than you ever could have had without it.
Amy J. Brown 25:22
Right. I think in the midst of it, it's hard to see that, but when we look back, we see God doesn't leave us in any of this. It's been hard, but God doesn't leave us. I don't always see it at the moment, but when I look back, I'm like, oh, yeah, he sent that person, or I had this moment of respite that gave me the strength to keep going. I think you have to pay attention to that.
Sally Clarkson 25:48
You really do. One of my favorite passages in Scripture is when Jesus, I think it's in Matthew 9 or 11. Anyway, he looks out on the multitudes, and it said, "and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd." Later on, I went back, and I thought, oh, my goodness, he was looking at parents who had children who were ill, who were mentally ill, people who are married to spouses who are mentally ill, people who were just oppressed by the Romans, by the taxes. I was realizing, oh when he looked out with compassion, he looks out with compassion on me. He didn't do something to me to make my life hard. The whole reason he had to die and redeem the world, is because he had compassion for all the difficulties that come with a broken place.
Amy J. Brown 26:39
That's lovely. I want to talk a little bit before we go about your latest book, I believe it's your latest book, Help, I'm Drowning. It's called Weathering The Storms of Life With Grace and Hope. I just was talking to somebody the other day, I had a moment of peace. I had a moment of not a lot of things going on in my life. I thought, okay, this is my moment, that I'm going to be on sabbatical, and like really peaceful, but my brain and mine is so trained to be on high alert with these children, that I couldn't do it. I was talking to a friend, and I said this sentence, "It's really hard to stop treading water when every time you stopped, you've drowned." That's the message, and then I have your book, which I've been reading, which I love called Help, I'm Drowning. So what would you say to those moms out there that think I can't stop treading, sorry, I'm gonna drown.
Sally Clarkson 27:34
You know, I think that there's a part of me even we were talking about how I'm trying to learn how God has been faithful to me. God has given me great houses in the past on my 20 moves. But there's this place that we go-between, okay, I just need to be at peace because God wants me to relinquish all of these issues to him. I cannot control life, I cannot do anything about it. Then there is a lot of work involved in taking care of life. I really think that for me, I didn't take destruction into my body because stress will kill us. Little by little, I've learned to put things as I've said before, in the file drawer of heaven. I will complain, I'll write in my journal, I'll write what I'm feeling, or I'll tell God what I'm feeling in my prayers, but then I have to let it go and say, "I don't know what's gonna happen. It might turn out badly. I know that you are with me, that you were faithful, that you care about me, but I don't think you want me to carry this." I think it's really important that women get in the habit, (and it's a lot of it's by faith and faith pleases God) is to relinquish the pressures that come with the consequences that come with the difficulty of living with people who are quite broken. I think everybody's broken, but I think some more than others. Now, before we leave here, though, I want people to know about you because you all were already our models. I mean, your husband would travel over to Romania mainly or to other places?
Amy J. Brown 29:14
We were in Kenya we were all over the place. Yeah.
Sally Clarkson 29:16
Tell us your story a little bit so that people can know why is so amazing that you do this.
Amy J. Brown 29:23
Well, most of our listeners know I'm a mom to six, three adopted, and three bio. My husband and I were medical missionaries in Kenya.
Sally Clarkson 29:31
Your husband is a physician. Were you trained medically?
Amy J. Brown 29:35
I'm a nurse. But when we went to Kenya, I was just trying to boil water and make sure everyone was eating, because you had to boil and filter all water. You had to make everything from scratch, and it was a whole thing. Then my husband traveled a lot of years on mission trips. He's an ophthalmologist, and so there were a lot of times I was home alone with our children. I remember one time, things were so out of control with one of our children that he canceled a trip. To this day, I can't believe that happened. He heard me. I mean, he's wonderful and supportive, but I just was like, I can't do this. You can't go. A lot of that kind of traveling, and I haven't traveled as much with him (I would like to when we are empty nesters at some point) because of the kids with high needs. Dave and I've really had to be a team. He's been very good about giving me space when I need it. He'd be gone for two weeks somewhere, and I wouldn't be able to get a hold of him, and always something would happen. Always. I mean, the microwave would catch fire. Every time, like some dramatic thing.
Sally Clarkson 30:44
You had to let it go. You had your three biological children. Why in the world then did you decide to adopt your other three children?
Amy J. Brown 30:52
Because I felt like God called us. I will admit to this that I felt well, you know, I feel like I'm a good mom and that we have a great family. I think I could do this, and I think God's calling me to this, not realizing the path I was about to go on. I've shared this before, but when you adopt you have to fill up this form of what are you willing to accept. This sounds bad, but what conditions are you willing to enter into your family (like a physically disabled child.) I remember at the time going, (this sounds so shallow) but at the time, we're a really active family and we hike, so I don't think I'm gonna pick special needs.
Sally Clarkson 31:34
That's really interesting. So your three children have?
Amy J. Brown 31:38
Fetal alcohol syndrome, reactive attachment disorder. My youngest probably has borderline personality. We've had a lot of suicidal ideation here, and a lot of mental health issues. You were talking about Nathan earlier. Moms ask me this all the time when I talk to moms. When I mentor moms, I say, "First of all, there's not one thing you're gonna tell me, it's gonna shock me, because listen, I've pretty much seen it and done it all." Secondly, because I think moms feel judged is how do you figure out okay, this is behavior, and this is something they can't control. That is so frustrating, especially in a Christian environment. We want our kids to behave and do the right thing. I have a child who consistently stole and of course, that's not the right thing. It sounds terrible to say she just couldn't control it. Finally, I had to let that go like, okay, she's gonna steal at school, and we know it. We have to put her in situations where she won't steal. If they choose not to, it's just that constant...
Sally Clarkson 32:39
Children cannot deal with having every single thing they do in life be a guilt-producing thing. I know a lot of kids who are compulsive, which mine were The compulsions mean they have a very hard time resisting the compulsions. I love that you're sharing your part because we aren't friends in this just because we have shallow lives. We have lives that have dealt with all these things, but we have seen some health and strength and goodness come out of our lives.
Amy J. Brown 33:11
I would say that mothering has been the hardest thing I've done. It's also one of my greatest blessings. I always say the Browns we're a heard. We come together. We are a tight-knit crew. For us, we don't have a lot of extended family, and so we just are a tight-knit crew. The kids in our life, that struggle, are in and out of our lives because of their choice at times, but we love them. Even though this is not what I thought when I signed those adoption papers (I had this idea), God has definitely been faithful to walk with me in some really, really hard moments. I just keep coming back to it. I interviewed a lady last year who had several adopted kids, and she said, "It's hard and some days, I don't want to do this, but I keep thinking I'm going to be faithful to what he called me to do." She told me that and I immediately teared up like, you're right, I needed to hear that.
Sally Clarkson 34:12
It's because if you worship and love God, then at every point every day, just one second at a time, you want to honor him, by honoring the human beings that he created. I feel like, for me, it might have become the platform of my life. In other words, I say your story becomes your platform. I feel like sometimes I get disappointed when I look at the overall evangelical world. I feel like by God's grace of giving me several mentally ill children. I have failed so many times. I have so much more humility than I ever would have had. I have so much more compassion. When people say they failed. I think you too, me too. I feel like I understand God's love for me and sacrifice more than I ever would have. Have if I'd had a perfect and easy life. That's why I love what you do. I absolutely love you, and I love what you do.
Amy J. Brown 35:06
Well, thank you, Sally, I appreciate you coming on today, I know that you're going to be an encouragement to our listeners. I will put any last word you want to say before we end, and I will put like where people can find you in our show notes. Would you want to tell us a little bit about where we can find you and any last words of wisdom?
Sally Clarkson 35:25
May I pray for everybody?
Amy J. Brown 35:25
Yes, that would be lovely.
Sally Clarkson 35:27
Okay, Lord, I am so grateful for Amy. I'm just so grateful for their whole precious family and all the ways that they have loved you and been faithful and strained in the direction of faith all these years. I pray that whoever's listening today will know that you care deeply for them, that you see them, that you understand their struggles, that you are not standing in judgment, but you are saying, "Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Give these precious ones the ability to find peace in their story, to rest, to love, even more, even one more day, and cause them to know that this story that they're living faithfully matters so much. We just pray for your grace and blessing on them. In Jesus' name, amen.
Amy J. Brown 36:14
Thank you, Sally.