True {five minute Friday}

September 27, 2013 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

It’s Friday and that means it’s time to write for five minutes, no editing, no backtracking, no over thinking (I broke all these rules last week). Lisa-Jo provides a prompt and in this community, we write, and then we encourage one another. So link it up, friends, and share the love because “Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.” E.B White via Lisa Jo.

This week’s prompt is….

True

Yesterday I cried hot tears of frustration and guilt in the library parking lot and then I talked myself off the ledge and into the story hour and across town for chicken nuggets and my mama and a sweet friend who always gets it.

This morning was better, and I could feel it, the metaphorical turning of the corner in my soul. I could do this stay-at-home gig more and I could write and I could coordinate and I could feel God move.

Then the three year old tantrum woke up the seventeen-month old napping and the spiral downward started spinning. Frustration began to mount and the gulping drowning in the motherhood began.

Because I am never enough.

I am never good enough or strong enough or patient enough. I can’t make the right decisions and I can’t figure this out.

I thought it would be easy. I thought it would be fulfilling in all the ways it’s not.

I thought being home would make me a better mom. That’s the honest truth and it’s an honest lie to believe.

Nothing can make me a better mom except me and Jesus.

In case you’re interested here’s a little truth about getting a girl’s ears pierced at the mall.

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We Just Wanted Earrings {Not Promiscuity}

September 23, 2013September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

We went to the mall as a family on Saturday. It was our first trip there in a very long time. Long enough, in fact, for me to have forgotten that there is more to that place than the Food Court and the carousel.

We went because it was Madelynne’s 9th birthday and we had promised she could (finally!) get her ears pierced. Since it’s been about twenty years since I had any piercing done, I went with the tried and true decision to take her to Claire’s. That place is like a rite of passage for girls, right?

Except to get there you have to pass so many other rites of passages that nine years olds shouldn’t know about yet.

We parked away from the crowd and came in a less used side entrance due to the rain. We walked past Pottery Barn and J. Crew and the rock climbing wall and a giant picture of a half-dressed girl and guy sharing an intimate embrace on the beach.

That was Hollister. I thought they sold clothes? Silly me.

Steered them on toward the food court since Annabelle’s mouth was hanging open. Obviously she was hungry.

After lunch, we went up the escalator (so much excitement! we obviously don’t get out enough) and trekked on down toward our destination.

Which was unfortunately located across the aisle from Victoria’s Secret. Well, at least there’s no mistaking what they’re selling.

This time I didn’t steer them on fast enough. Madelynne had a friend with her and there was a whispered conversation that went like this:

M: What’s that place?
F: That’s where they sell pajamas that look like bras and underwear.
M: (staring at a sheer negligee with garters) Ewww!

I’m no idiot. I know they probably already know more than I want them to and are exposed to more than I think they should be. I’m sure the time for the talk is coming soon, and I know I should get on with that before some kid beats me to it, but I was naive enough to think that a simple trip to the mall wasn’t going to prompt that discussion.

I wish I could shield their eyes from seeing pornographic images in stores that don’t believe their product is good enough to sell itself. I wish I could take them shopping without arguing over the fact that they’re too young for spiky heels. How much I wish that argument hadn’t come into existence because someone, somewhere has forgotten that little girls should dress like little girls.

And young ladies should be treated with respect. But how can we expect that when we tell them it’s cool to be wrapped around your boyfriend’s waist in a pair of $50 jeans?

Don’t tell me that I should go ahead and prepare myself for this because I have three daughters and they are going to grow up faster than I want them to.

That’s not the point. The point is I should be able to treat my daughter like a nine year old and nine year olds shouldn’t be exposed to promiscuity on a Saturday afternoon at the mall. I wasn’t looking for an intro lesson to sex education.

We just wanted a pair of earrings.

Don’t forget my giveaway for the book No Maybe Baby ends today! Enter here.

Linking up with The Better Mom Mondays.

Friday Five · giveaways · MOPS

She {Five Minute Friday}

September 20, 2013 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

It’s Friday and that means it’s time to write for five minutes, no editing, no backtracking, no overthinking (I broke all these rules last week). Lisa-Jo provides a prompt and in this community, we write, and then we encourage one another. So link it up, friends, and share the love because “Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.” E.B White via Lisa Jo.

This week’s prompt is….

She’ll come in with her arms full of bags casseroles and sippy cups and the extra paci hanging from her pinky. She might have yelled this morning and rushed and fought her way out the door and wondered if the ends will justify the means.

She might come in alone, her few precious hours when they are all in school or at Nana’s chosen to spend with others who rock the night with babies in swings and the mornings with tall cups of hazelnut caffeine. She might be timid or just plain afraid or too overwhelmed to know if she belongs or not.

She might be cute in her chevron print. She might be secretly wearing the only pair of pants that zip. She might be hating the tall blonde who looks like a model and sighing in secret relief to see someone else who just is happy to have on a clean tshirt.

She might laugh. She might cry. She might connect. She might be glad she came.

I know I will be.

It’s MOPS Friday for my group and we’re filling our fellowship hall and every room in the preschool wing. Pray for us please?

Have you entered my giveaway? Speaking of she...Marcy’s book is for all of you who have struggled with infertility and felt alone or for those of us who have been on the outside of a friend’s struggle and wondered how to help. Click here to enter!

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A No Maybe Baby Giveaway

September 18, 2013 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

Tomorrow I mark nine years on this journey toward embracing motherhood. Nine years ago I labored for over twenty-four hours and under the influence of drugs that were meant to give me rest but really only caused me to check out for several hours. I woke up with the feeling that I had lost a piece of my life, and I left the hospital two days later with a whole new piece of life bundled into the hand-embroidered homecoming gown of my own mother.

I left that hospital with seven pounds of tiny and the terrifying notion that I had no idea what I was really supposed to do. Within months I began a downward spiral that came to crescendo after the birth of my second baby girl eighteen months later.

I believed myself to be inadequate to be called a mother.

I lost my temper.

I lost my calling.

I lost my joy.

All in the midst of what is meant to be one of the greatest gifts we are given: the opportunity to love unconditionally and wholeheartedly.

My struggle was never with the ability to conceive and bear children, it has always been with the ability to realize that I am called to be their mother and not someone else’s.

In some ways, my story does bear similarities to those women who have questioned if they are meant to mother because they are unable to conceive. Which is amazing because that shows me time and again, that it’s not the ability to physically bear children that calls us into motherhood, it’s the embracing of that call and the patience and perseverance to see it through.

No mother should ever judge her worth on the number of children she has or the means by which they were given to her. A mother’s worth is far more than birth certificates and bloodlines.

Saying yes to motherhood is setting aside of piece of yourself in order to make room for a new part, that eventually, will fit you far better.

Sometimes we never know where that journey is going to take us. My friend Marcy has four kids like me, and her youngest is a baby boy, just like mine.

She didn’t physically give birth to any of them, but she’s birthed them through courts and paperwork. They are her beautiful story, and while I am still sometimes struggling with mine, she has embraced hers in order to share it with you.

Her book No Maybe Baby is meant to show other women and couples that they are not alone in their struggle with infertility. She offers comfort and hope with the desire to build a community for women who share this journey and can advocate and encourage one another.

//d12vno17mo87cx.cloudfront.net/embed/rafl/cptr.jsI am honored to be giving away a copy of her story to one of you lucky readers! Maybe this isn’t a story for you, because for many of us, it’s not a struggle we have experienced. But while statistics may show infertility rates are decreasing, my reality is that I can name more than one friend who has not been able to get pregnant, and I’ll bet you can too. So enter for yourself or for a friend and leave me a comment telling me where you are in your motherhood journey. It’s my hope and prayer that you’re learning to embrace your story.

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faith · Friday Five · motherhood · reflections

Mercy {five minute friday}

September 13, 2013September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

It’s Friday and that means it’s time to write for five minutes, no editing, no backtracking, no overthinking (I broke all these rules this week). Lisa-Jo provides a prompt and in this community, we write, and then we encourage one another. So link it up, friends, and share the love because “Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.” E.B White via Lisa Jo.

This week’s prompt is….

Mercy

You know it doesn’t always have to be as big as a home in Kenya. That’s amazing and beautiful and makes me want to get on a plane tomorrow–

but I can’t.

Because it’s here too. In the small and the everyday and the ordinary. It’s in the open invitation to lunch so that everyone feels included and it’s in the understanding smiles you exchange without words to the mother who had the screaming toddler on the playground. It’s in the hands of the friend who took my tray one night at McDonald’s when I was seven months pregnant and three kids in already and so overwhelmed that a single milk spill unraveled my control.

I’ve found it in the quiet words of the secretary when she doesn’t chastise me for calling for the third time in a row to change pickup arrangements. Sometimes it swings loudly and shrieks joy and “Look at me, mommy!” after a morning of tempers and strong wills. I think it’s given in the simple, like the times we choose to know or speak or ask rather than assume or complain or judge.

Unfortunately we who claim to know Christ can give it least. We forget we were once all women at the well or thieves on the cross begging for someone to give us water that will truly quench our thirst. We take it for granted and we forget to give it away.

“Do justice, LOVE mercy, walk humbly with your God…” ~Micah 6:8

It’s an act, a verb, a command this love mercy is.

It’s what happens when we get past our version of what should be and start living with and loving on the version that is. Wrapping ourselves in the safe bubble wrap of But, I’m praying for her isn’t always enough. Sometimes people need the apology they don’t deserve and the hug that isn’t forced and the kinship that isn’t fake and the home that saves their babies.

Sometimes we forget how incredible it can be to show a little mercy.

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Confession: I almost didn’t write a post today. I tried and failed last night and if I’d been speaking I’d have said it was because my tongue was thick and clumsy and couldn’t form words, but I was writing so instead it was my fingers that couldn’t seem to find that magic moment with my brain to put what my heart was singing down into coherent sentences and imagery. So I gave up and went to bed and tried again this morning and gave up again. Then I went about my day and waited for God to speak. He did to me, and I hope he did to you too.

One of the reasons I was so finger-tied is because today’s prompt was written by Alia, who is one of my new favorite people. Between the praise I got from her and Lisa Jo last week, I figured I could retire from blogsphere a pretty happy little writer. I wanted to do justice to her words and to this cause because loving on and supporting new mothers from anywhere and from any walk of life is so near and dear to my heart. It’s why I coordinate MOPS; it’s why I’ll be pleading again for more workers because today in Chic-fil-a I didn’t invite moms because we don’t have the space for their children. That’s an awful feeling, to know someone might need the resources you have but there’s no way to offer them without more physical or financial support. I know most of you can’t come over my way and rock babies on Friday mornings, but you can click here and read about Mercy House and the amazing good it’s providing these mothers who are our sisters in motherhood.

And if you’ve been stalking Alia and me on twitter, you can find the recipe for fried okra right over here.