One Little Corner of Sanity {Behind the Scenes}

January 21, 2014September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. Brackett1 Comment

We’re rearranging. Again. Either we’re furniture moving junkies or incredibly indecisive. Or both. But really, it’s just that we keep trying and trying to figure out how to live best in the space we have (that whole contentment struggle) and so that necessitates constant motion until we get it right.

Or until I get a new idea from Pinterest or the IKEA catalog and it’s back to the moving we go. Thank the Lord I have a tolerant husband who actually agrees with me about most of these projects. Except when I change my mind halfway through. Then he gets a tad frustrated and there might be some ~~yelling~~ strong discussions.

I was tempted just to show you the one picture. Because it appears from that little corner that we might actually have a plan that is organized and working. But that would be false advertising. Like telling you how there’s less than a 100 calories in a serving of Oreos. That’s only true if you only eat one and who does that?

We do have a plan. It’s just that each step scaffolds upon the other, and I can only handle so much chaos at one time. So for now, we have a corner. And ~~a couple of~~ several messy closets. And rooms that really look like this.

Linking up with Crystal today to tell the story Behind the Scenes. Join us over here!

family · Friday Five · Friends · linkups

Encouragement {Five Minute Friday}

January 17, 2014 Lindsey P. Brackett1 Comment

Joining with this amazing community of writers is a privilege every Friday. Want to play along? Head over to Lisa Jo’s and read all the “rules”–but the only one that really matters? Write your heart and give some love to the link before you.

Today’s words is…

Encouragement

They came bearing soup and casseroles and cookies and salads. They sent cards the old way with stamps and return addresses slipped in between my weekly paper and coupons and bills. They stopped me in the hall, in the store, beside the peeling paint minivan to simply express condolences that are more than sympathy—they gave me empathy.

It’s a small thing to call the florist and have flowers delivered. It’s a small thing to rearrange a Sunday afternoon and drive an hour north to hug a friend for only a few minutes. It’s a small thing to show the greatest, deepest kind of love.

It takes patience and conscious effort and intentionality. It takes work. It takes a tiny little sacrifice of waiting a few more moments before watching or reading or folding or washing to write a note to place a call or send a message.

But the way it made me feel? Loved. Encouraged. Reminded that I matter to many and my grief is not mine alone. That in the family of God, we can embrace grief together and remember that this is not the end.

It is the beginning of joy and it is those on the outside who can find the cracks in my hurting heart and fill them with glory.

family · Home · linkups · one word 365

On Being Content {OneWord365}

January 14, 2014September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

So I jumped on the bandwagon. But then I read this and almost jumped off. But my “un-word” would have to be “un-complain”, and really what are you when you don’t want to complain all the time?

Content.

So that’s it. That’s not just a word I’m claiming for this year. It’s an attitude I’m developing and hoping to nurture in my children because last night my nine year old sat in a sticky kitchen chair while I mashed potatoes and told me that the truth is she’s just jealous.

Jealous of her friend’s fancy clothes, their big house, the horses in the pasture. Jealous that some kids are already being told they’ll attend the trendy private school after fifth grade, and she knows that’s not in our future plans. Jealous because she doesn’t have her own electronic device and she barely has her own room.

I don’t want to foster those feelings. I don’t want to smooth them over and say this lifestyle we have is just temporary and someday we’ll have a bigger house, and clothes that aren’t consignment, and maybe even a horse for her to ride even though all of that is probably true.

Because if I can’t help her find contentment now without all that, how will she ever find peace with it? How will I?

For I have learned to be content in whatever circumstance….

Philippians 4:11

That was my grandfather’s verse. He’d written it in the back of his Bible and he modeled contentment for me. He had nice things, some of the best things actually, but he was most content with basics and a campfire in the woods. He knew the secret of living well, and I wish I’d listened more.

So this year, I am striving to emulate his presence by reminding myself to be content in three specific circumstances.

1. Content With Myself: We all have a different level of capacity. I am learning that just because other people may multi-task really well, or be able to manage home businesses, or grow their blogs into salary-producing establishments, or homeschool half a dozen kids while writing a novel, doesn’t mean I have to. My capacity is not there right now. Honestly, it is all I can do to manage laundry, dishes, and meal planning some weeks, much less all the volunteer and church work I’ve heaped on myself. How I ever worked full-time and managed our home is beyond me. But then again, that was when I had two less children and full-time daycare. My life is vastly different now. I simply can’t do it all anymore and that’s okay.

2. Content With Our Home: We have, by most standards (especially when you consider four kids), a small house. It’s about 1400 square feet and there’s nothing particularly charming or unique about it. We bought it almost 8 years ago with the intention of fixing it up and flipping it. Then the market crashed and since we have no equity and no option for refinance that doesn’t include money down, we’re stuck in an upside down mortgage with a property that was never supposed to be a long-term home. See why I need to work on being content? But here’s the truth: it meets our basic and current needs. There are four bedrooms, so only two of the four have to share. The master tub is big enough for them all to take a bath at the same time. There are hardwood floors and new kitchen counters and a laundry room (not a closet!) that’s big enough for pantry storage as well as the piles of dirty towels. My husband has plenty of yard to work in and the kids have plenty of room behind the house to play. Over the past year, we really began to try and embrace this as a home and we’ve made some changes I’m going to be sharing with you throughout the year. Finding what’s good and not comparing our home to everyone else’s takes a conscious effort on my part. But I want to know that I can be content wherever we live because it’s my family that makes any place a home.

3. Content With My Family: Comparison is a trap that robs us of all joy. (hmm…Maybe my un-word should really be “un-compare.”) For instance, I love my kids. I think they are smart and funny and interesting and whiny and uncooperative and delightful. They’re not perfect and yours aren’t either. But for some reason, we trap ourselves into comparisons. My girls brought home report cards yesterday that were all As and Bs, so I refused to scroll through my facebook feed because I didn’t want to see all the posts about who got straight As. It’s great if your child did, it’s great if you posted about it, but my personal issue is that I make that all about me. I make it all about how I should be helping more, quizzing more, trying harder to make my kids into model pupils who excel especially at reading and language arts because, hello, their mother is a certified teacher! But when I do that, I’m not finding peace with who they are. I’m trying to make them into someone else. For a long time, I’ve carried an image in my head of my perfect family. Guess what? My perfect family is nothing like the image I had because this family I have is real. This family is love.

So that’s it. One word that I somehow managed to make into many.

Content.

I’d love to hear about your one word. Or many. Or just how you’re becoming content in whatever circumstance?

Friday Five · gus · motherhood

See {Five Minute Friday}

January 10, 2014September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

I’ve been away from this community for far too long. While we all took December off, I feel like I’ve been out for so much more. The beauty of Five Minute Friday, though, is that no matter how long I’m gone, this flash mob of writers–mamas and students and single ladies and the occasional brave man–always welcomes me back.

It’s a place to belong. Community, not competition.

Today’s prompt?

See

He was afraid. I could hear it in his shrieking cry and his pitiful wail for “dada” because he’s such a smart boy that he knew such a dilemma as locking himself in his sister’s room would be better solved by daddy than mommy.

Mommy, who didn’t come with a hurry at first because I thought the sisters were kidding and there are three of them after all, so surely one was in the room too? But no, they were crowded in the narrow hall twisting the handle in vain and jumping on toes that are never still between 3:30 and 5:30 in the afternoon. I had a friend over. A sweet girl who has shared teaching with me and students and Bible studies and last Friday bid her grandfather goodbye in the hospice facility two rooms down from where I had watched mine draw his last breath only hours before. So we were bonded, but a meltdown in front of her?

I didn’t want her to see me lose it, to see me become unglued over such a simple task as twisting the lock on the bedroom door to free my stranded toddler.

But I couldn’t get it open. I couldn’t jimmy the bent hanger in the hole just right like daddy does and I sure couldn’t break down that door with my bare hands.

Though I might have if she hadn’t been there to see.

I took the knob off finally and he stumbled out into my arms wiping snot and tears on my favorite sweatshirt and jerking his arm from the sisters who were trying to pet him back into submission.

I didn’t want her to see me lose it, but I did want her to see me be a good mom because I hate to think anyone thinks I’m less than. But maybe, maybe, I should have been thinking about what my kids see?

They see that mommy is willing to hold it in for others but not for them.

That may be a lesson worth talking about.

Uncategorized

When 65 Years is Worth the Fight

January 8, 2014September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

She didn’t sleep all that long cold night. I know because when I would roll over on the pullout couch and lean up on my elbow to listen to the shallow rise and fall that breath has when death has come upon it, she would be sitting in the armchair we had tucked her into amongst pillows and blankets and she would be staring.

I think she was trying to will it away.

After sixty-five years, I don’t imagine there’s a lot he wouldn’t do for her when asked. There’s a lot he might have grumbled about in the most endearing way, saying, “Woman! I told you I would get to that.” But he always gave her what she wanted; he always gave her what she needed out of a deep abiding love.

But he couldn’t give her this. He couldn’t fight past tumors and cancer eating away at a body that in the end had become a mere shell of the robust man he’d once been. The man who was tough enough for camping when it was below freezing in the north Georgia mountains but gentle enough for hand holding on any given day.

He fought well in death, but in the end, when she took his hand and sat by his bedside and stroked his hair, she told him he could stop without words and without despair.

She finally knew his fight on earth was done.

My grandfather, whose name is carried in my father and brother and son, left us for heaven this past Friday morning. A friend texted me and told me I should write Five Minute Friday because the word was fight and it was so appropriate for our circumstances. But I wasn’t ready for the words, though in the end, this morning, five minutes was the restriction I needed not to overthink his well-lived life.

Linking up with Crystal for Behind the Scenes as well. Late on that one, too, but in this community grace abounds. Join us to tell the story behind the photo?