Hello, my friends, and welcome to Life with Sally podcast. I'm so glad you're here, so please make yourself a cup of tea and come on in.

Hello, my wonderful friends. I am so glad that you joined me. I'm Sally Clarkson on my podcast today.

I'm sharing with you today one of the favorite podcasts over all the years that people have commented to me about.

It's about Advent, and it's with my wonderful friend Malcolm Gite,

who many of you know as a professor from Cambridge in the UK, as a poet, as a writer, as a really wonderful, encouraging person. But I just thought it might be worth it to focus on some of his message

again today. And after all, he has that great accent and lots and lots to say to encourage us.

I hope you're doing well. We've had our first big snow. It still hasn't melted here. I'm getting so

excited because my son Nathan and his wife,

Keelia, are coming to stay with us for several weeks, and we always have a lot of adventures

and fun together. And I hope that you are having some wonderful things to look forward to.

You know, there have been a lot of difficulties in the lives of many people that I love

lately. And so I just want you to know that as I consider how blessed I am to have this

wonderful network of friends in this podcast space, in this podcast space, I just wanted to pray for

you before you start the podcast. And so this time,

my newest prayer will be right here at the beginning. And I hope most of all that you know

that even as God had such a heart to come to the world, to bring light and to bring his life and beauty and love and goodness.

So he still has a heart and a desire to bring that to your life today.

And it is my prayer that you feel his presence and that you know that your life matters so very much. Dear Heavenly Father,

thank you so much, even for this week showing me that you are engaged in my life, that you care

about my thoughts and my heart and my dreams, even as you care about these same things of my friends

who are listening. Lord, I pray that you will bring light.

Jesus said, I am the light of the world, that you will bring light of truth and of nurture

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