How I Became a Writer {Five MInute Friday}

April 4, 2014 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

When I look back at four years of blogging, I find that my best and rawest moments have come in five minute increments. Because like Lisa Jo says, sometimes writing time is stolen five minutes at a time. Linking up with the Five Minute Friday community right here and telling you why I’m surprised by motherhood and writing right over here.

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Writer

In a yellow cardboard box on the bottom of my bookshelf are the battered remnants of what made me become a writer. Their covers torn and worn from so many countless rereadings, I’ve boxed them away in their original packaging and bought new shiny gingham covers for my girls and we snuggle under a quilt and up against too many pillows and dive in.

Laura Ingalls and her pioneer family driving across a nation when it was still in the labor pains of birth. Those were the stories that made me want to find my story. Those were the tales that made me want to tell.

But I got lost. I got lost in criticism and thin-skin and rules and regulations and shoulds and shouldn’ts and I got so very, very scared that I had no stories worth telling. So I scribbled in a journal and on napkins and in the backs of notebooks and hid my secret until I felt ready to share.

I’m never going to feel ready to share. I’m never going to really feel like I deserve to be here, to write here, to be going here to learn and dive and swim in these waters that scare me to death with their beckoning call.

But I’m doing it anyway. Somewhere along the way, I got the courage just to put a little bit out there, just to chronicle some real life, just to write it down and choose to believe a few people might care.

You did. You do. You let me hand over my broken story while it was still breaking me and you received and loved and poured grace and encouragement back into me.

And I’ve become a writer.

Surprised by Motherhood {The Launch and the Giveaway and How I Stalk Lisa Jo Baker}

April 1, 2014September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

The first time I met Lisa Jo Baker she was totally cool about the fact that I was stalking her via twitter and the Dayspring booth at the MOPS convention. This incredible woman who put my heart into words on her blog about motherhood and how it can break us into a million little pieces and then put us back together in the best possible way looked straight into my eyes, recognized my twitter handle and my Five Minute Friday presence, and hugged me like a long lost sister.

Then she told me she loved my earrings and in the most real way exclaimed that she thought she had the same ones from the dollar clearance at Kmart.

Because she may be my writing hero and have thousands of followers and a real live book on the shelves of stores today, but really, truly, Lisa Jo Baker is a budget-conscious mama who knows the power of a great pair of earrings no matter where they came from.

So just like that, she took me in and talked to me about motherhood and writing and the balance and waiting for God’s timing and having a story that I’m not sure I’m ready to share and all the messy grace in between. We stood surrounded by waves of moms and people who I’m sure needed her time and attention, but she gave it all to me, and that’s when I knew that the internet may sugar coat some things, but this woman? She was exactly who I imagined her to be because she doesn’t write to make herself look good.

She writes to glorify Jesus and to pour out the love He’s poured on her.

ThatIsMine_Poster_web

Surprised by Motherhood is her offering to mamas everywhere. She wrote the back story, the before story, the story of how she went from being a civil rights lawyer rescuing women from sex trafficking to a mom with three kids who believes “motherhood should come with a superhero cape.”

She wrote a book for every mom at every stage.

To the mama with the screaming toddler in the checkout line at Target who just wants to get home and cry on her bathroom floor.

To the mama who has worn milk stains and vomit and possibly poop all day long because she packed extra clothes for the kids but forgot them for herself.

To the mama who has pried chubby arms from around her neck and put her crying child into the arms of another so she can bring home the daily bread.

To the mama who has wondered how she got here, surrounded by little people, in a world that seems foreign compared to her degree and high heels.

To the mama who makes the beds and sweeps the floors and churns the laundry every singe day on a constant cycle of rinse and repeat wondering if she’s ever going to feel that magic she’s read about.

To the mama who has navigated blindly into playdates and church visits and library storytime in an effort to meet someone else who just might understand.

To the mama who has never felt undone by her child but whose skin prickles when she thinks of her own mom.

To the mama who has flown cross country and cross ocean flights to bring babies home to the world that raised her.

To the mama who has had enough of feeling like she’ll never be enough.

Reading Surprised by Motherhood was like having a friend bring me a chocolate milkshake and then offer to watch my kids so I could take a bath by myself in a tub that’s not drowning in toys.

It was like hearing my own voice when I read, “There’s no rage like the exhausted rage of motherhood” and just about every other line in the chapter titled “How to Fall in Like” as she discusses with frank honesty what it’s really like to parent a child with a strong will and a fiery temper.

It was having someone finally understand that while we all know motherhood is so much better than we expect, we also choke down the reality that it’s so much harder than we expect.

But here’s the real beauty of Lisa Jo’s offering back to those of us who sometimes wonder if it matters that we’re just a mom—this offering came first from her knees when she realized that it didn’t matter whether or not she mothered, it mattered that the great Creator of all that is good and perfect* loved her.

He loves you too. And if you struggle to believe that, I’d like to put a copy of this book in your hands today.

Then I’d like to have you over for chocolate cake and coffee and tell you a little more about my own story and how I’m learning after nearly ten years as a mother and twenty-five as His child, how to finally find comfort in the skin He knit for me.

And if you’re not a mom or don’t want to ever be a mom? Read it anyway, just for the sheer joy of seeing these words:
“But when we metabolize love, it can sustain us for years. It feeds the parts of our hearts we didn’t know were starving. This never-giving-up, always-chasing love that isn’t afraid…this lavish love that loves us first.”

You can get a copy of Surprised by Motherhood here or here or here. You can read more about Lisa Jo here and you can read the first three chapters here. There’s a linkup over here (scroll all the way down) where our launch team is posting all our reviews and lots of those bloggers are giving away books too.

It’s a powerful thing when a community comes together to say we believe this is important. We believe this story is that. We also believe it’s important to give back a measure of what’s been given to you, so that’s why portions of the book sales also benefit Lisa Jo’s South African home.

You can read about how I’ve fallen in love with the world next door right here.

And my giveaway today? It’s going to be for one of my personal facebook readers. So many of you are my real life mama friends who have walked this journey with me. So leave a comment on my personal page where we do life together with silly pictures of our kids and our dogs and our piles of laundry, and I’ll have the random tool pick one of you to get a copy by the end of the week.

So much love to my online community who writes raw on Fridays with Lisa Jo at the helm, and so much gratitude to my real life community who shows up with Chic-fil-a and donuts just when I need it most.

Motherhood surprised me. But you people who love me like Jesus through it all? You’re a gift straight from the Father above.

Follow the movement on twitter and instagram with #surprisedbymotherhood .

*James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.

Linking up with Crystal over at Behind the Scenes as well. Because we all need a glimpse into the reality that’s on the edges of those photos. My beautiful family pics? My friend Merideth takes them and that day was a hot mess. That’s the only picture of Gus where he’s looking at the camera and wearing both shoes.

motherhood · reflections

The Sacred Hour

March 27, 2014 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

It’s dark and in this unending winter we seem to be trapped by, it’s always cold. He preps the coffee pot before bed so it sputters and spits and finally fills the carafe with discount Folger’s blend that I sweeten and spice and sip under a fleece blanket.

Sometimes I turn on that fake fire and let flames and drink and words warm me from the inside out. There’s Scripture and questions and prayers and me scratching the only pen I could find across crisp sheets of journal paper. There’s settling into this creaky old armchair that’s about to lose its seat springs and reading the earliest morning news and whispering intercessory for the Malaysian flight and the Washington mud and the sorrow that our world seems to drown in sometimes.

There’s blank documents on this computer that balances on my knees while the new eight year old curls into the corner of the couch because she likes to get up early and watch me write though she always falls back asleep and leaves me in my quiet.

There are pages that will never be written and scenes that cannot be edited and posts that are listed on a calendar that will fail because the baby boy has snuggled into the hollow under my chin and he’s so wrapped around my heart that I indulge rocking this baby that my body says is likely the last but my soul knows is preparing me for something more.

It’s my sacred hour.

That early hour when there’s no press to return phone calls or emails or texts or plans. That sliver of quiet that whispers shhhhhh, there’s no place for dishes or laundry or worry here. This is the time for creating and worshiping and bending knees. This is the time for listening.

So I get up in the dark and wait for the muse that comes in ancient words and toddler cries. I fight the battle of no more sleep for me and just thirty more minutes for him. I stir another teaspoon of sugar into my coffee and push back the thoughts that nothing I’m doing really matters. I know in mere moments my thoughts will run to chores and bills and homework and breakfast and playdates and the never ending battle with the laundry. It will be blessedly ordinary and seemingly insignificant.

But sometime already today, maybe only for seconds, I had a moment of sacred.

Quiet. Alone. Listening. Filling.

That will power me through.

faith · one word 365 · reflections

On Reveling in Contentment

March 24, 2014September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

I chose content for my word this year. It was like praying for patience.

Suddenly, as soon as I made that declaration, nothing was good enough. I couldn’t stretch the groceries, I couldn’t make that old outfit work, I couldn’t wait to put our house up for sale, I couldn’t enjoy writing or reading or my birthday.

Because it was all about I. Me. My search and my quest and my journey alone. Except, I can’t ever find contentment in myself by myself.

I’m hopelessly flawed. I bet you are too. I can be incredibly selfish with my time and my resources and my heart, and I’m pretty sure when we’re being honest, you get what I’m saying.

Sometimes I just want what I want.

I want to go to the grocery store and buy whatever I want to eat that week especially meat because that’s what we limit the most.

I want to buy a new house with a basement and new kitchen cabinets and a deck that’s accessed from somewhere other than the master bedroom.

I want new Toms for summer and cute tops that hide my muffin top and I don’t want to figure out how to make the same pair of capris work for the fifth year in a row.

I want everyone to focus on just me and my needs and my desires and I desperately want to hole up at the library or a coffee shop for hours and hours and just write so I can get a handle on the blog and the article submissions and the maybe novel.

But contentment never comes when I focus on myself all the time.

I started a Bible study with Hello Mornings a few weeks ago. It’s called Taking Refuge: The Story of Ruth. It’s about seeking Jesus as our only refuge, our only source, our only contentment that never wavers under the pressures of life.

The Word is squeezing my heart and stirring my soul and constantly challenging me to dig a little deeper. For the first time in a study, I’m using multiple translations and the word of God is singing over me in a way it never has before. I owe that to my pastor’s wife who is teaching a ladies’ study at church and she has encouraged us to use versions I’ve never tried before. The Amplified Bible is like the main course of Bible study–so much clarification and meat. The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language has been like dessert–a sweet touch to words that I had let grow stale in my own life.

Over the past few days, I have begun to notice a new feeling. For the first time in a while, I feel full. I feel secure. I feel content.

I’ve been handing over tasks to the Lord that I’ve always tried to do myself, and He’s blessed me in return.

I realized this when I went to the grocery store a couple days ago with a list that was small, but somehow, I had planned a week’s worth of meals that included meat and snacks and dinner for a friend who had her fifth sweet baby girl last week. I bought a whole boneless pork loin (that was the big sale item) and had half cut into pork chops. We grilled for the first time this season, and I’ve got the rest in the freezer for next week’s Sunday dinner, and then I had to laugh when I saw this week’s fellowship supper at church: pork tenderloin.

See with God, it never rains, it pours. I gave Him something small when I handed over that grocery budget, and He gave me back something much bigger than myself and my petty concerns.

He gave me contentment in Him. And that’s way more filling than any meal.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, so if you click on something and it takes you to Amazon and you make a purchase, I get a teensy bit to help cover my domain costs.

birthdays · Friday Five · http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post · motherhood

How She Gave Away Her Birthday Cake and Gave Me Joy {Five Minute Friday}

March 21, 2014March 19, 2018 Lindsey P. Brackett1 Comment

On Fridays this community of prayer warriors and sleep-deprived mamas and funny college students and thoughtful friends takes one word and writes without editing, without backtracking, without over thinking for five minutes. Sometimes we cheat a little, like me today, because I needed about 8 minutes to get it all out. But Lisa Jo knows all about grace, so she lets that slide at least once.

So go all in and try it out. What’s your five minutes of JOY look like?

Joy

I picked her up in a drizzle off a forest service dirt road 8.5 miles from Amicalola State Park and the headwaters of the Appalachian Trail. She and her grandmother–my feisty and fearless mother–had hiked south from Woody Gap, a 21 mile stretch over a mountain in the rain that forecasters had said for three days would end tomorrow. They were tired and cold and wet and it was her birthday, so instead of finishing one more night on the ground in the mud with poptarts and ramen noodles, I loaded them up in the mud-splattered F150 and drove back down the windy mountain to the lodge at the state park.

I had met them early to bring her a birthday treat. A footlong ham sandwich with black olives and a cookie cake because I didn’t make it to the bakery for key lime cupcakes. Everyone I met on my drive through the misty forest knew her name. Every hiker I gave a peanut butter sandwich to had met the 8 year old with a pack and a grin so wide it made another tooth fall out on the second night in. Everyone knew it was her birthday.

When we pulled into the parking lot of the lodge, she bounded out with more energy than someone who only weighs 50 pounds and carried 15 pounds on her back for three days should have. It was her birthday and she couldn’t wait to share it. She asked if she could give cake to the workers. I told her it was her cake and she could give it to whoever she wanted.

So she did. After a dinner from the buffet, we cut up that cookie cake and plated it on salad plates her baby sister kept fetching from the bar. She walked all around that sparsely populated restaurant and my shyest child asked folks if they would like some cookie cake because it was her birthday. They were a little astounded. A little flustered at the thought of saying no. A lot joyful at the idea that a child could exhibit selflessness.

Most of the time, she can be a bit difficult. She’s stubborn and strong willed and makes me question everything I do, but when she decides to be a giver, she’s all in. It’s her joy language, her heart song, her words without saying a word.

It’s her gift and she unwrapped the beauty of it for me on a foggy evening in the mountains on her eighth birthday.