Category: reflections

31 Days to Embracing Motherhood · motherhood · reflections

When You Need a Time-Out to Balance It All

Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

A re-publish of one of my Embracing Motherhood posts.  Linking up with Kayse today for Balancing Marriage&Mommyhood.

I’ve written about time outs before.  The difference between mommy time outs and kid time outs here.  How sometimes life hands us a time out that’s not necessarily what was planned.

I’ve learned to embrace a lot about motherhood, time out for myself included.

So why don’t I use it more often?  Instead I stretch myself to the breaking point, I build up frustration, and I collapse under pressure.

I know that at the end of the day, no one is going to congratulate me because I finished everything on my to-do list, and no one is standing by with a stopwatch to track how many moments I actually played with my kids.

But at the end of the day if I’ve been cruel with words or short with patience or drained with fatigue, there are four little pairs of eyes and ears who have noticed and who have been hurt and who deserve better.

So if better means that sometimes I take a break from being a mommy to spend some time alone, or with the Lord, or with my friends, or even with their daddy that is being a great mother.

Do you hear me?  Take a break.  Don’t be a martyr.  The laundry will always be around, the puzzles will eventually get put together, and most kids delight in being left with someone else for a bit, especially if that someone else has different toys or books or snacks.

When I chose to embrace the wonder that is motherhood, I also chose to accept that somedays I would need to walk away from crying and diapering and whining.


And He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a lonely place and rest a while.” For there were many people coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.        

~Mark 6:31

Isn’t that a picture of motherhood?  Jesus knew.  He knew what it was to be pressed in on all sides and to need a moment to breathe.  He knew what it was to have no time to even eat.
So put yourself in time-out every now and then.  Breathe.  Eat.  Sleep.  Rest. 
Christmas · motherhood · reflections

A Long-ish Post about Just Joy and Grace

Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

I let myself go blogging dark for a bit because I didn’t have words for a week that ended like that.  I wrapped my arms around my kids when they got home that afternoon and then I made pizza and later I prayed and wept and apologized over and over for thinking my own trials were anything in the face of insurmountable grief.

Philly Cheese Steak Pizza

Since Columbine and Pennsylvania and Virginia Tech, I’ve birthed a first grader and a second grader.  I’ve earned a degree and five teaching certifications.  I have sat in a faculty meeting and been assigned to a team for the worst case scenario and heard my principal explain why our Connections teachers would have to be the ones to identify because they often know every student in the school.  I’ve hidden students in the corner for the drill and wondered if it would really do any good if they madman came.  So Friday afternoon when facebook and CNN and text messages kept coming, all I could whisper was a feeble thanks that my children and my school and my family have thus far been spared, and all I could realize was the humbling acknowledgement that I can’t keep them safe.  I can’t live in a bubble that doesn’t have schools or malls or theaters or cars or cancer.  All I can do is thank God for another day.  So I got up Saturday morning and made muffins.

Pumpkin-Cranberry Cream Cheese Muffins

We went to Christmas on the Square and children sang “Away in a Manger” and goats stole the scene at the live Nativity.  We saw Santa and the Chipmunks sang in the furniture store picture windows and the girls were carefree and happy and silly.

 

 

 

We were just normal, and I was grateful.  It’s all we can really do isn’t it?  When we hear of tragedy?  Be thankful and find joy because it forces the evil back a little bit more.
Gypsy Mama and Holy Experience gave some words to comfort any mama’s heart.
Now we’re into another week and some believe the world is ending and for others it already did, but I’ve got Christmas baking to start and presents to wrap and an 8 year old home with the stomach bug that has wiped out two-thirds of the second grade.
It’s by grace that this is my life.

We’ve been spreading a little joy all around this week in an effort to give thanks for Christmas but also for those who cherish our children for so much of everyday.  Wish I had pictures of the hugs bestowed when we brought Starbucks for the car greeters at school yesterday.  Wish I’d taken pictures of the gorgeous baby biscuits and golden jars of homemade apple butter we handed out to teachers.

Something small can say a lot.

Small can be big.  Our account is low and our cash is now change.  But there will be gifts under our tree and goodies in the cookie jars and a feast on our table.
My sister is home from Maine and she’s carrying another blessing and chasing her first up and down the stairs at my mama’s house and around the giant Fraser Fir that has sat in that same corner for so many more years than I can remember.

May your Christmas be blessed.  Ours already is.
Christmas · http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post · reflections

It Happens Every Year

Lindsey P. Brackett4 Comments

It’s December and Christmas is in full swing around here.  Which means we have a tree shedding on the carpet because there’s nowhere to put it except right next to the vent and this mom had her annual decorating meltdown.

Every year, folks.  Every year I say I’m going to hold it together and get over my perfectionist tendencies and my insecurities about our home and our faded, hand-me-down decorations and I’m just going to enjoy my children and the magic of the season.

And every year I get uptight and irritated and pathetic about where to hang the DecemBear calendar from Joshua’s childhood, how to make the manger scene more focal, what color lights to put on the tree.  Every year I whisper that nagging little sinful thought–

If God would just give me a bigger house, I’d be able to have a better Christmas.

We could have a bigger tree then and hang all the ornaments we want.

There could be a basement or a playroom for the kids to decorate so I can keep everything else nice and pretty and worthy of compliment.

If we had a dining room, I could set out my china and use it and enjoy it and there could be glass candlesticks and table runners and poinsettias in a sleigh.

The problem is, if we had a bigger house, I’d probably be an even bigger jerk.  Because then I really wouldn’t want my kids to mess up all my pretty things and my husband to have an opinion about lights or centerpieces or seasonal towels.  Which probably means that in the end, I’d manage to hurt everyone I love in my quest to have something tangible and temporary that I think would make me happy.

And I forget that God truly does want good things for me, He does want me to be happy, He does want my delight.  He just wants it to be in Him first.

Do you know what Jesus’s first miracle was?  He turned the water into wine.  A wedding feast was about to run dry and He touched the water.  He made it better.  It wasn’t a need.  People would have survived without more wine.  But He did it anyway because He delights in giving us good things, delightful, wonderful, lovely things that remind us we are loved.

We took a break after that little hissy fit of mine.  The girls and I gathered around the table, shoved decorations to one end and ate pb&j and chips and salsa and cereal and talked about Christmas and why it’s hard for me to believe that all this is enough because everywhere else there seems to be so much more.

They probably think their mommy is crazy.  They love what we have.  They set out snowmen and rang jingle bells and unboxed the bear who reads ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and then they read all the other Christmas books and Gus shrieked at us to pay attention to him while we hung ornaments on our tree that all have a story.

God is breaking my heart over and over right now until I get the message that this. is. enough.  That I don’t need more things, I need more Him, I need more grace, I need more love.

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and restore to me the joy of your salvation…Psalm 51:12

Tell me how you’re making joy happen this year?  Not about your pinterest craft or your new wreath or your perfectly iced cookies, but how you are finding joy in all the little moments and meltdowns.

We are doing this.

Come back tomorrow?  I’m hoping to post some pictures or our sweet tree and these beautiful faces.


Friday Five · reflections

I Wonder {5 Min Friday}

Lindsey P. Brackett3 Comments

I’m joining with Lisa-Jo and so many others today to celebrate the last 5 Minute Friday of the year.  So here it is, five whole minutes of raw writing.

Wonder….

I wonder if Mary ever got frustrated.  If she had swollen ankles and if her hair fell out when Jesus was about five months old and if she worried that his teeth were never ever going to work their way through those swollen gums.

I wonder how she stood the whispers and the taunts and the stares and how she made peace with this plan.  What happened really in that empty space between an angel’s declaration and this girl’s submission?

I wonder if she ever felt ready to be a mom.

And all those four times I lay in a hospital bed in a sterile environment with IV fluids and epidurals and nurses and ice chips, I wondered about giving birth in a stable.  I wondered about the mess and the pain and the sweat and the tears and how she did it.

I wasn’t even strong enough to handle the unexpected after ten years of marriage and three other babies.  I caved to the fear.

Maybe it was the absence of all we think we need now.  Maybe it was the stillness.  Maybe it was the raw, barren, homeliness of the stable gave her strength.  Because maybe there was nothing else to do but delight in the wonder of her child.

faith · Friday Five · reflections

Just Quiet {Five Minute Friday}

Lindsey P. Brackett3 Comments

I’m no good with quiet.  I crave it, desire it, try so hard to find it in the naptime moments and the late night minutes and the afternoon car rides to the parent pick-up line.

But it eludes me because I’m not really in the chase.  I don’t really want the quiet.  I think I’m afraid that if I slow down and get quiet and listen, I might not like what I hear.

You’re too busy.
You’ve shifted your focus.
You’re escaping into someone else’s story so you don’t have to write your own.

Is any of this familiar?

When it’s too quiet, I look for something to occupy my mind. Doesn’t have to be noise, doesn’t have to be voices, just needs to be something–a new recipe, a novel, this blog, last night’s episode.  Anything to keep me from having to sit in complete silence and listen.

Really listen for His voice.

Because there was a wind and an earthquake and a fire, but He wasn’t in those.

He was in the quiet.

Writing for five minutes with Lisa-Jo is a goal I can live with.  And right now it’s quiet in my house though I do wish the baby would go back to sleep so I can take a shower.