Don’t Borrow Trouble

April 6, 2016 Lindsey P. Brackett2 Comments

Sometimes, and I hope this is no secret to those of you who read my posts regularly, I get overwhelmed. I struggle with unrealistic expectations of perfection and knowing my limits. But I’m learning, all the time. This past February, I met Ashley at FCWC, and we clicked over blogging, WordPress glitches, and being big sisters. She’s tech-savvy and smart, witty and wise, and a joy to bring to my corner today.

Oh, and she’s the reason I figured out how to add a Newsletter subscriber page.

Do you ever imagine the person God wants you to be?

My perfect self is more compassionate and kind; she’s a better daughter, friend, and wife; she reads her Bible daily, prays always, and is completely focused on God.

My perfect self is a pretty cool chick.

I’m not there yet.

The Process

I know this is who God wants me to be, and I’m working on it. But, while my salvation was complete the moment I believed, being perfected by God is a process, or a journey.

Like any significant journey, we can’t start and finish in one day. In fact, God seems to have a plan for how far we should go each day and what we should accomplish along the way.

This is great news! Why?

The Steps

There is a huge gap between who I am today and who I’m meant to be. When I focus on that gap, I get overwhelmed and want to give up. But when God breaks it into small steps and reveals each step to me as I need it from moment to moment…well, that’s more doable.

I didn’t have to be the perfect friend or daughter today; I just needed to visit with my mentor and call Mom on the drive home. I don’t have to publish a book today; I just need to write a few sentences each day.

These are small steps, but they’re part of the greater journey.

No Skipping Ahead!

Sometimes I get excited and want to skip ahead to what I think God has planned for my future. (I’ll get up at 5am tomorrow and read my Bible and pray and write three blogs and finish my book and….)

That’s how I get in trouble. Not only do I miss the lessons I was supposed to learn today but—because I’m not following God’s timing—I fumble tomorrow’s lessons, too. I end up bogged down in confusion, worry, and even legalism, all because I tried to get ahead of God.

Jesus said we shouldn’t worry about tomorrow, for each day has its own trouble (see Matthew 6:31). I think He meant that He gives us the proper portion of opportunities and lessons for each day—as well as the grace to get through them and learn what we need to know.

We don’t have to borrow trouble from tomorrow; we’ve got enough on our plate for today!

Be Encouraged

I encourage you to seek God’s will for you in this moment. If you’re trying to skip ahead to tomorrow’s plan, then stop. Don’t put more demands on yourself than what God is putting on you right now.

Be content to wrestle with what God gives you today. Then you’ll be one step closer to the person He created you to be.

Ashley L. Jones received her M.A. in Biblical Studies so she could learn how to dig deeper into God’s Word. She uses her blog, BigSisterKnows.com, to encourage others to see God as alive and relevant by showing how the Bible applies to their everyday lives. She brings this same passion to her other projects, including her current focus, Girls with Gusto, a Christian living book for young women on how to navigate the eight major steps of the spiritual journey. If Ashley isn’t working or writing, she’s outside taking pictures with her husband Robby, and their cat Sue.

Show Ashley and Just Write Life some comment love. We’ll get back to you because there’s nothing better than a good heart connection.

faith · family · motherhood · writing

In the Broken

February 10, 2016March 2, 2016 Lindsey P. Brackett2 Comments

The little pink porcelain cross hung over her cradle. Strength it read. For me, more than her. I kept it in her keepsake box and rubbed it like a talisman more than once last year when all the unknowns piled up because of her little brain and inside my sleepless one.

She broke that cross the other day.

Now it sits in a corner of my kitchen counter, waiting for superglue or hot glue or some other miracle.

Last week Joshua repaired three broken toys and a decorative teapot Annabelle got at a yard sale.

And I’ve told you all about my peeling paint van that often needs more repairs than there are digits in the emergency fund.

Yesterday the little man tried to be helpful. He climbed onto the open dishwasher to unload the cups for his whiny sister and strung-out mama. Never mind that I have said DO NOT CLIMB IN THE DISHWASHER a ridiculous amount of times since he became mobile nearly three years ago.

He fell and used the top rack to break his fall.

So, yeah, my life is pretty much full of brokenness.

I had a friend tell me this week that–

brokenness can be beautiful because it’s in the fall our need for Jesus is most magnified.

And oh, how I need.

My husband traveled this week. Not a big deal, I know. He’s home more than he’s gone and when he’s here, he’s all in. For that I’m grateful.

But sometimes the timing of his trips and the timing of my sanity just don’t match up.

Broken.

He got the sobbing-don’t-ever-leave-me-and-don’t-ask-me-to-manage-the-budget-and-these-kids-are-too-much phone call yesterday while he was at the LAX airport.

In my defense, the threat of snow had closed school two hours early and I don’t know about yours, but for my kids, transitions are the hardest part of everyday. If I ever homeschool one reason will be because we get along better with less transitions.

This introduction of the girls into the space that is not usually theirs and was already full with my to-do list and my thought that if they were home they could at least do their chores, made for a harder than needed to be afternoon.

The dishwasher incident broke me.

And I cried in the closet and my eleven year old tried comforting me and said (this is wisdom, really), “Having a conversation with you is like that conversation I just read with Gale and Katniss. You know? When he gets mad at her because he thinks they’re running away together and she thinks they should save Peeta’s family too?”

Well, the night before they had tried reading Bible stories with me, so I guess she figured Hunger Games might work too.

It kind of did.

See, Katniss and Gale fought because they had different expectations.

And my expectations are not at all the same as my children’s.

They expect some attention, and a little freedom to turn flips on the trampoline, and a snack, of course.

I expect them to be excellent readers because I was a reading teacher (and I love reading). I expect them to not only help, but to do so cheerfully, without complaining ever (apparently I’m the only one allowed to complain). I expect them to get along and love each other and listen to me all the time.

I think I forgot they are children. And they are broken and sinful and selfish.

Just. Like. Me.

They are also imaginative and compassionate and patient with their crazy mama. They are loving and kind and generous. But, they do not always meet my expectations.

I wonder if I meet God’s?

I think, yes. I think He doesn’t expect anything more of me than to come, broken, kneeling in my closet, weeping, begging for a little calmer heart.

He expects me to let Him handle this.

He’s my glue miracle. And he’s in the business of repairing the broken.

1000 gifts · Uncategorized

How Do You Measure a Year?

December 31, 2015December 31, 2015 Lindsey P. Brackett1 Comment

I’d forgotten all about these lyrics until my jazzercise instructor used the song in class the other day–

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets
In midnights, in cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife
In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, a year in the life?
Read more at http://www.songlyrics.com/rent/seasons-of-love-lyrics/#ulRxxkIvQXcSY0JZ.99

The words all came rushing back along with lots of memories of drives back onto Berry’s campus late at night after Waffle House runs. My friend Melanie would put in her Rent soundtrack and roll down the windows and we’d be all young and idealistic and going-to-change-the-world.

Then we all grew up and life happened and years have gone by and we’re all world changers in some big and small ways if we open our eyes to see.

View More: http://candiceholcomb.pass.us/al-wedding

How do you measure a year?

2015 will blow out today, taking with it bands of storms that have plagued lives and spirits. The flood waters haven’t just risen in the Mississippi or spilled over the levees in St. Louis or my sleepy little college town.

They’ve spilled over my life in countless ways of hope and fear and promise and pain.

So do I measure the passing of 2015 in MRIs and blood work and countless unknowns? We took my almost-six-year-old for her sixth MRI yesterday. She’s considered stable right now, and most of the time, these days, we are too. But in other ways this will always be the year I watched my daughter’s little body degenerate–

and watched her learn how to put herself back together.

That’s the hope I need to carry. That she, as her physical therapist reminded us this week, always compensates and keeps going, never worrying about the fatigue or the pain.

May I learn that lesson from my child.

How do I measure a year?

In apologies and forgiveness, rather than meltdowns and tantrums.

In acts of kindness, not jealousy.

In second chances and mistakes that taught lessons.

In successes, not in failures.

2015 is also the year I gulped faith and pushed down insecurity and wrote a novel–bleeding heart and soul and family onto the pages that are under contract with a publishing house for release in early 2017.

This is the year I rebranded my blog and myself, as a Southern writer of life, and have shifted my focus to where my heart truly lies–in the words of creative non-fiction and fiction that paint portraits of the life I know and cherish.

This is the year I heard God whispering, Ask and you shall receive.

Not a give-me faith of praying for things, but a resolute faith of praying that I can walk with His plans, surrendered and passionate and in constant awe of how and where he can use me. A faith of believing that if God has placed a restlessness within my soul, it might be because He wants to do more with me than I ever imagined possible.

And more might simply be to live and love and give and hope through the measure of another year.

Christmas

How to Underwhelm Your Overwhelmed Holiday

December 15, 2015December 15, 2015 Lindsey P. Brackett4 Comments

Two Christmases ago we received a terminal diagnosis.

My precious Granddaddy’s cancer had metastasized and we knew this would be our last Christmas. I was in the middle of directing A Christmas Carol and between the constant coffee and stress, I worried an ulcer into my stomach and winced pain all season long. Scrooge lived in our home that year in the form of this overwrought mother.

Because Granddaddy had dementia, he would forget his diagnosis, and eventually, we quit reminding him. The last time I saw him happy was Christmas Eve. My sisters had decorated the house and brought in a tree because he loved the smell of that fresh cut pine. I made him cookies and we huddled around his chair that day, the big family Christmas that had been planned thwarted by the stomach bug and death’s cruel march. He smiled and told me he’d see us all again soon.

He died in hospice care one week later just as the deep cold came and settled itself around the South.

That was the winter I never felt warm.

Last year we fumbled though Christmas in a fog of uncertain diagnosis, and I vowed and failed in my attempt to keep my Scrooge in check. The tree always undoes me. In an already small space, bringing in six feet of Frasier Fir, no matter how slender, seems futile. But then, as the days marched on toward fear, I tried to loosen my grip. To enjoy my children and their antics and their normalcy. I didn’t want to have to write another one of these posts and admit how much I fail at enjoying Christmas. And on my darkest days, I didn’t want Amelia’s last memories to be of a Christmas where all Mama did was waver between tears and anger.

Do you know I can’t even remember what we gave them last year?

But I remember with crystal clarity every detail of our Christmas week MRI and losing it in the parking lot of a Chic-Fil-A after a trip to Stone Mountain.

And I knew headed into this year, how much I didn’t want this to be my story anymore.

Overwhelmed by the season of light and giving and love in a way that only made me feel underwhelmed by God.

Is this all there is? Hustle, bustle chaos and comparison and conflict?

This time I prayed before it all began. This time I didn’t vow, I asked. For grace. For patience. For a heart of simplicity. For eyes to see all the blessings that have already been pored out and a mind to register gratefulness every time I look at my daughter who’s still here, healing, right now never in any more constant danger than just the danger of everyday life.

(And I’m definitely not perfect and neither is she and that’s why there’s grace and forgiveness and sometimes spanking when a tantrum gets thrown because I asked her to clean up her art supplies and she threw the scissors across the room.)

This is my parents’ tree. This is why I have a tree complex.

When you really want to underwhelm your overwhelmed holiday so you can be overcome with the true Spirit of the Season–compassion and faithfulness and generosity all wrapped up in swaddling clothes in a manger–you’ll practice these three things.

Saying no. To the party you don’t really want to attend, to the gift that costs too much and you don’t really want in your house, to the social media that’s making you feel like a failure because all your elf does is sit around (or you don’t even have one like us).

Saying yes. To the kids who want the big tree and are willing to figure out where to put it, to the teacher who asks so hesitantly if you can maybe just help for one hour, to the crazy idea that since layaway has ended maybe there’s no reason to try and hide a giant box of trampoline for ten more days when life is happening right now.

Saying thank you. To the cashier who’s curt, to the kid who’s sorry she made you feel like the worst mom ever because you were too tired to play Bananagrams on a school night at 8:45, to the people who have made your year matter in a whole new beautiful way.

Because at Christmas, I only want to be overwhelmed by the love.

And maybe the cookies.

amelia · motherhood · Uncategorized

Looking Back and Moving Forward

December 7, 2015 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

Found this sitting in my drafts folder from almost exactly a year ago.

When our diagnosis was still AVM, when we were still being told surgery would be an “easy fix” (don’t you just love doctors’ optimism?!?) and had no idea that one year later, our daughter would still struggle.

There are good days and bad days and in-between days. Sometimes I still sit in the school parking lot and cry. But this line breaks my heart when I read back over and remember our darkest moments of this time: I can’t suit up for this fight with everyone watching. I think the biggest lie I bought during that time was the idea that I had to be strong. Instead my kids have learned more about trusting God from my inept brokenness than I ever could have taught them by faking my way through the fear.

Yesterday started with Amelia refusing to wear shoes to school. We’re in the parking lot of her tiny little Christian school at a tiny little church in the middle of the country with the mountains all around and I’m throwing her backpack and saying, “Well, fine, then. Stay home. I don’t care.”

Except I really, really did.

I don’t know how to walk this line. How to parent her through this time in our lives without caving to every little whim (she ate gummies for breakfast by the way). I don’t know how to discipline my child with the “slightly bleeding arterial abnormality” in her brain. I don’t want to yell, but I still need to be the mama. I don’t want to be selfish, but I still need a little bit of time for myself. I can’t suit up for this fight with everyone watching.

She didn’t go to school. Of course it was my one four hour block in the week where everyone goes to school and I keep “office hours” with the free wi-fi in Chic-fil-a and try to write. But another mama came to my rescue. Hers weren’t going either. They all played hooky at her house and ate funnel cakes at 10:30 a.m.

Don’t judge us. Sometimes everyone just needs a little break.

{Maybe I should insert here that our Sunday School Christmas party was the night before and it was at least 10 p.m. before anyone went to bed. Sort of explains the morning meltdowns.}

But when that break is over, reality is still there. My big girls are still in need of attention, the dishes still have to be done, and we’ve got a plumber bill coming to go with the new pipes in the bathroom.

And then apparently I ran out of steam…

What moments from this past year are you dwelling on as Christmas draws near?