This Teacher’s Thankful Thursday

May 20, 2011 Lindsey P. Brackett4 Comments

I started to write this. I started to cry.

I know all of my colleagues are rolling their eyes right now because what’s to be sad about? I got to make the amazing choice to stay home next year. And it’s a choice I wanted and desired and prayed over and made long before we knew about the bank closing or losing insurance or gas going to a zillion dollars a gallon.

And I’m so thankful.

And sad. And scared to death.

People ask me if this is just a sabbatical. If I’ll return to teaching someday.

I don’t know. I honestly just don’t know. I firmly believe that whatever you do you should do it with all your heart…and my heart hurts right now. It’s been hard. I (and anyone who braves everyday in a classroom) have been so beat down and stifled and discouraged that I don’t know if I’ll ever come back.

And praise God for those who do.

But I’ve been reading One Thousand Gifts and long ago I took to heart the verse that promises “a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over shall be poured onto your lap.” Luke 6:38

I’ve had my measure. It has been good and it has overflowed.

The boy who found a copy of Where the Red Fern Grows in our book drive donations and asked to take it home.

The time we read Oranges and my student talked about how the oranges symbolize the boy’s nervousness and anxiety around this girl.

The fact that middle schoolers will do anything for a piece of candy. Or a sticker.

The bad (and some great) poetry that haphazardly covers my walls.

The times they have remained seated to hear the end of the story even though classes were changing.

When they love the book more than the movie.

When one says, “Oh, Mrs. Brackett, you have to read this!”

Exhausted after Friday library days from finding the “just one book” for each one.

A door covered in sticky notes.

Watching them mature in 8th grade.

100% pass.

How quiet they are the first day….how they never stop talking on the last.

“Are you coming to our game? Please?”

Bobcat black and gold and pink in memory.

Preposition poems that make me laugh. And think that I’ll never be a writer, but this kid will.

A director’s chair with my name on it from kids who know all the words to “Green Eggs and Ham.”

No name, but I know the handwriting as if it were my own.

Stacks of lit books and pages of plot analysis and all they remember is how funny A Christmas Carol is when your classmates act it out.

Groups that work.

M&Ms and Diet Coke can fix almost anything.

How much they love the book fair…especially the gigantic pencils.

How respectful they are on Veteran’s Day.

When I go to Ingles and my bag boy remembers my class….and tries extra careful to get things just right.

…For with the same measure you use, it will be measured back to you.

Thankful Thursday

April 29, 2011September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

The storms are past. And here we were just between the bands, so even though folks at school told me we were actually under a warning about 1 a.m. last night, I heard nothing save intermittent patters of sporadic rain that seemed playful in comparison to some of the downpours we’ve had recently.

The lightening was frightening though. Pulsing like it was sitting right over our house and waiting to strike. I was afraid to go to sleep for fear of what the night would be bring and afraid to stay awake for fear of the day…but sometime as I lay in my bed after viewing all the damage to my alma mater and praying earnestly that God would wake me in time to gather my girls…I felt a calmness that told me we were safe.

And so I slept. And so we were.

But so many others were not and I could beg the question all night long of how and why, but we don’t know and there is only One who does. But as I look at photographs of those, who in only a week will join me in the ranks of alumni, cleaning debris (which is a small word for a might tree that I sat under on spring afternoons and read Faulkner and Shakespeare and contemplated clouds) and I hear stories of children who survived though their homes are crushed and twisted beyond recognition, and I know we are not alone.

Photo taken at Berry College. This is the dorm I lived in when I was a student.

So today I am thankful for so many little things…for twenty-four precious gifts that are small, but that somehow might help save me from the weight of despair and destruction and desensitization….

10. a small paci with a pink handle abandoned on the table by a baby who loves pop-tarts
15. bubbling up the bath with foam
16. daddy walking in the door to squeals of baby delight
18. thunder that rolls over the house and keeps on going
19. bacon sizzling in the pan hungry mouths to feed
22. a belief to rebuild a life upon

thankful Thursday

It’s Never Too Late for Thankful Thursday

April 22, 2011September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. Brackett3 Comments

So I was too tired last night to link up a thankful post even though I’d had one floating around in my head all week.

Then I got home today and found a brown paper package in the mail from a little birdie who’s encouraging me to write more and I got motivated.

Some random thankfulness this week….

Easter eggs. The empty, plastic kind that are all over my floor and causing this precious moment…

that necessitated a quick grab of the camera and then the realization that removal of the lens cap is always a good idea.

Good books. I’ve been time traveling with the Outlander series lately on recommendation of a friend at work and though it’s good escapism, let’s be honest. It’s probably not making me a better person. Even if I am learning more than I ever needed to know about eighteenth-century Scotland. But during some quiet time at school this week I began One Thousand Gifts. And had to stop immediately before I cried in front of my students. Raw, emotional intensity right from the beginning. The first chapter is entitled “an emptier, fuller life.” Someday I hope so. Now I can’t wait to dive into Bird by Bird and share some of my reflections with you.

(and hopefully some of that writing won’t take as long to compose as this post since I keep having to stop to rescue Amelia from the Sissy Monsters and then cuddle her for a minute while she demonstrates her latest skill–giving kisses!)

My husband. I realize I don’t blog about Joshua all that much and he worries when I say I have written about him (smile) but he has been the reason I can find a moment to be thankful this week. Lately I’ve been the busy one with rehearsals and meetings and efforts to squeeze in some exercise, so you would think my house is a wreck and my kids are surviving on pop-tarts. Not so. He’s made dinner (I’m buying steaks more often), given baths, cleaned the kitchen……and made me thankful God gave me him.

madelynne · thankful Thursday

Thankful Madelynne Thursday

April 15, 2011September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

This Thursday I am thankful for Madelynne who always keeps us laughing. I haven’t blogged about her a lot lately but just so you know, she’s gotten taller. And wiser. So she thinks.

The other day she was playing hide and seek with her daddy and he ran into the closet in our bedroom and shut the door. Well, I was in there hanging up shirts. Of course she and Belle started pounding on the door and yelling. Finally, Madelynne said, “We better just leave them alone. They’re in there being romantic.”

Then this afternoon she gave me a word problem. “Mommy, if you have two squirrels and 100 more come scurrying up, how many do you have?”

She likes to challenge me, she says. I told her the answer, but apparently she didn’t believe me because at dinner she asked her daddy what 100 plus 2 was. When he told her 102, she replied, “Oh, I guess Mommy was right.”

Nice to know she has a lot of faith in my ability to count!

She also washed these dishes the other night because Joshua was gone and she said since Daddy was gone somebody had to wash the dishes.

What am I going to do with her?

reflections · thankful Thursday

Thankful Thursday

March 25, 2011 Lindsey P. Brackett7 Comments

I need to be thankful today. Thankful and not spiteful. Thankful and not regretful. Thankful and not prideful. Can you tell I’m having a bit of a down day?

I lost my temper. Someone else lost theirs with me first, but that doesn’t make it right. And no, it wasn’t Joshua. That fight was three days ago over the lights for my school play and I won, thank you very much.

But only because he’s less selfish and more forgiving than I am.

Sigh.

Thankfulness. It’s important. It’s a reminder of what’s true in my heart and soul.

That’s why the first thing on my list today is pizza. From Papa John’s specifically. Delivered at lunchtime in the middle of a school day during a crazy week. Ordered as a thankfulness for what is hopefully one less thorn in our side by one of my team mates. Teachers. We celebrate the littlest, craziest things that no one else would care about.

The teacher in my is thankful for sticky notes today too. Especially ones that are covered in phrases like “You rock!” and “I’d never heard of Romeo and Juliet before I took your class. Thanks.” It really is the little things. The little sticky things.


Stick-it-to-’em Day. A secret project to be kind to the teachers because sometimes we need to know that what we do matters.

And finally today, I’m thankful for forgiveness. Jesus forgave me and continues to everyday from the moment I get up and begin messing up. I think (hope) my students forgave me for losing my temper at rehearsal. And right now I’m praying to find forgiveness in my heart for those who make me feel unappreciated, unwanted, undeserving. And I’m thankful that simply writing this post has helped me get there.

Thankfully there’s grace.

link up your thankfulness at black tag diaries with my friend Julia.