Category: reflections

faith · reflections

In Which I Clean My Dyson and Ponder Being the Temple

Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

Jesus Calling - 365 Day Perpetual Calendar for Kids - Large

We read about it this morning on our Jesus Calling perpetual calendar for kids. How we’re the temple, the indwelling of the Spirit, the place where Creator God has chosen to reside.

So today as I’m trying to make a literal sweep of the last few hard days by cleaning my dirty floors and wondering how on earth four little people can wreak such havoc upon such a small space, I’m struck by the realization that even temples get dirty sometimes and need a good housecleaning.

I think the revelation really came when I had to give up on sucking up the dust and crayon bits and dried gummies from under the couch because the vacuum just simply wasn’t going to do it anymore. I resigned myself to a chore I hate, a chore that should not even exits, because excuse me, but why in the world is a vacuum not self cleaning?

And I took apart our refurbished Dyson on the hope that even though there’s a hole in the hose, if I give it a good cleaning, surely it will continue to function. The thought I just couldn’t get past was this–the very appliance that is designed to clean my house gets grimy and dirty and just plain nasty doing that job. Even though I might be left with less grime in my carpet, there’s filth inside the very item that did that cleaning. And if I ignore that, eventually I’m left with something that can’t perform the job it’s intended for.

Lightbulb moment.

I’m full of filth and grime and there’s dust clogging up my heart and soul on a regular basis. Yet, I’m claiming to be a place where Christ is. I’m good at cleaning up the outside and making myself presentable to others. I’m good at words that encourage and suppers that feed new mamas and putting my name on the list of volunteers.

I’m good at helping clean up others.

But I’m not keeping it up inside myself. Every now and then I need to be taken apart–just like that Dyson–and given a good rinse. The beautiful comes when I realize that once I’m apart, I need to be put back together to work. To function. To fulfill my calling.

And none of those good deeds or encouraging words are capable of reassembling my parts.

And I’m not self-cleaning.

But there is One who lives inside me. There is One who wants me to be the very best I can be as a home for His love, His grace, His mercy. So He cleanses. He restores.

He puts me back together and He will do so over and over and again and again because we’re never capable of helping to clean others without getting a little dirt on ourselves.

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Sarah Young - Jesus Calling - (in)courage Exclusive Edition image

Friday Five · linkups · reflections · writing

When It’s Just Fine to be Finished {five minute friday}

Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

On Fridays the writers gather at Lisa Jo’s. We write in five minute increments like ones scared braved. We’re not supposed to edit or backtrack or over think, though everyone confesses to that at least once and that’s why there’s grace for even the most ordinary of writing tasks.

Except on Fridays five minute ordinary becomes extraordinary. Join us? Link up here and give us your five minutes on

Finish

He says it in a sweet little voice that bears no trace of sarcasm or disrespect. In answer to everything I say.

“It’s time to take a bath now, Gus.”
“We’re going outside to pick tomatoes.”
“Do you want to go see the goats?”

Fine.

Fine, he says with his two-year old lisp and blond curls bobbing. I know he says it because he hears me sigh it in exasperation and his sisters reply it when they’re tired of being asked.

I know it has so many meanings. But sometimes that little four letter word just means what it is:
Fine.

It’s fine. It’s okay. It’s all right. Don’t worry about it. Let it go. Pass it on. Breathe deep.

It’s fine to be finished.

Lisa-Jo is passing the baton. Four years of wild five minute writing in flash mobs and dark bedrooms and late nights that have gradually gotten earlier because let’s face it–all us mamas are tired by 10 p.m. on Thursday, and she knows it’s time to pass it on.

She’s mentored my writing from afar since the day a friend forwarded me that old Gypsy Mama page and I thought who is this woman who knows the words my heart is whispering and weeping even though we’ve never met?

She told me in a crowded room at a conference last fall that I would know when the time was right to write that book that God has laid on my heart and I’m laying back down at His feet.

She was right.

And that time came before I was really read to wrap my mind around it and for months I’ve been trying to do it all.

But I think I’m finished too.

I think it’s time I admit that it’s fine if the blog doesn’t get the best of me and instead that part goes to my children and the legacy of words I truly hope to leave.

It’s fine to let what was once the best thing become something I used to do, for the sake of doing what I’m meant to do at this time, this season, this moment.

It’s just fine to be finished with one season so another can come.

I’m not shutting this down….just taking a break. I’ll be posting sporadically and not worrying about being faithful for numbers or platforms or expectations. I have long believed my best writing comes from when my soul is prompted and I need an alter to remember. This past spring I got caught up in trying to promote and that really didn’t work well for me or sit well with my heart for this space. This is the place that has given me the courage to try for new and bigger dreams and I want to honor it with words that are worthy. But mostly, I need to live and focus on those who share my home and life and give breathe to every word I write. 

faith · motherhood · reflections

The Sweetest Moments of Forgiveness

Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

My kids break the rules a lot. Whether it’s one more episode of Netflix after they’ve been told to turn it off, or only brushing their teeth with water instead of toothpaste, or just plain going out of their way to aggravate one another, there’s always someone doing something wrong.

It doesn’t help that I’m not all that great an enforcer. Follow through has never been my strongest trait.

So sometimes there’s a lot of yelling and a lot of crying and a lot of frustration. Sometimes there’s me holding them to an unattainable standard that I haven’t even really spelled out for them, so it’s unfair to punish for something they didn’t really get was wrong in the first place.

That’s my middle child’s favorite excuse.

“But you didn’t say don’t eat ice cream in the living room. You just said eat a snack!”

Well I didn’t realize I had to remind you for the 1000th time that the living room isn’t where we eat snacks! Sound familiar?

I tell you honestly, this journey through motherhood has taught me more about God’s love than the twenty-four years prior I spent in a sanctuary. I get that love now without having it spelled out in a sermon–how His love is unconditional and passionate and fiery and jealous and merciful.  Because until I have walked through the fires of sleep deprivation and chore charts and please, please can someone pick up the crayons off the floor, I didn’t get it.  I didn’t get how much He must love me.

And how exasperated He deserves to be with me.

Because I keep trying to live and raise my kids and govern my life under the letter of the law. Rules are good, sure. Rules give parameters and guidelines and function to society and classrooms and homes. But following rules, checking off boxes, getting a sticker reward–that does nothing to forgive my soul for it’s ugly tendencies toward sins like coveting or anger or pride.
As Easter approaches, I’ve been trying to really, truly grasp the weight and glory of the cross. I’ve been trying to see it through the film of my own life, to better understand this faith I hold to be true but sometimes cannot put into words. Then a pastor friend uttered these words at Friday’s MOPS devotion:
We have to sit under the weight of God’s curse before we can truly grasp the meaning of the cross.
And I thought about my kids. 
So often we put our children under the weight of law and of course, when that law is broken there are consequences. And if you’re anything like me, you’re doling out those consequences with a pretty short fuse and a whole lot of irritation.
But God’s law doesn’t work like that. Instead, with Him, we have to commit the sin before we know the sweetness of forgiveness.

We have to break in order to mend.

Once, I really, really lost it with my middle daughter. She had pushed me beyond my limits and I slammed out the door in a fury to cool off before I could deal with her anymore. I was mad, and I just knew, I was going to have to go back in there and issue a punishment fitting to her crime and also, explain again, that I was sorry I had gotten so angry. I was so tired of being the one to ask for and offer forgiveness that seemed to mean nothing to her.

But she came to me first. Out the door in a sobbing heap, she crawled into my lap, grasping at my neck and saying, “I’m sorry, mommy, I’m sorry.”

And my anger just melted. I think that’s what God does for us. His anger has just melted away because through Christ, we can come to Him, we can climb in His lap and beg forgiveness and He can give it wholly.

Until I sat under the weight of motherhood, under the weight of a love so great I would give my life for any of my children, I didn’t really understand the depth of unconditional forgiveness. 

I didn’t really grasp the meaning of the cross.

Now it is an extraordinary thing for one to give his life even for an upright man, though perhaps for a noble and lovable and generous benefactor someone might even dare to die. But God shows and clearly demonstrates His [own] love for us by the fact that while we were still sinners Christ [the Messiah, the Anointed One] died for us. 

Romans 5:7-8 (Amplified)
motherhood · reflections

The Sacred Hour

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

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.

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