Category: choice

Sarcasm or Encouragement?

Have you ever been in an emotional rut?

Stuck waking up day after day feeling the same heavy emotion? Carrying the same hopeless mindset that leads you into the same painful experience of trudging through the day?

If you have not, that is amazing! I know I definitely have. I have experienced seasons of suffering, be it physical, mental or emotional that left me feeling like I may never wake up feeling hopeful again. Those seasons were long at times and at other times brief, having only felt long.

As a high school and college athlete I loved all of those motivational posters. You know, the ones with the pictures of mountain scapes that read, “Attitude is Altitude” and the others that always showed someone in the military dominating life with the word “SUCCESS” written over top of their picture.

It’s funny how time can change you. Those same posters I was inspired by in my youth irritate the heck out of me now! Now, I find myself more drawn to sarcasm. And it seems I may not be the only one! As I was writing this blog I google searched these infamous posters shown above only to find that many have been altered to include the same photo but with a sarcastic caption.

Funny, right? Now, I am not cynical enough to create these hilarious posters, but I do resonate with them. Even more so, I resonate with the messages that are sarcastic but yet still uplifting. Like this one…

As a mom, I get my fill from the light hearted and funny quotes that you can find at www.smilesmacker.com. They make you smile, you can share them with others to make them smile, AND you can even buy products and have your favorite quote placed on it!

Regardless of my encouragement preference or anyone else’s, I think the main thing is that encouragement is so necessary. Life is hard. Most people are trying their best, and still stumbling, failing, meeting opposition or discouragement. Sometimes we try our best and things go great, but then we realize we are not done yet. We have to try our best again, no matter how hard it was the first time. And that is life. Especially life for many parents in a pandemic. The impact that the coronavirus has had on the education system has been intense. It has caused a great deal of challenge and exhaustion for parents, kids, teachers and community members. I believe it has been hard on everyone regardless of if they are a parent or not. I highlight the parents in this blog, because I am speaking as a parent, in hopes of encouraging another.

This past year we homeschooled our children in India, and it was a heart-breaking experience. Not all homeschooling experiences are like this, I am sure. I mean, when I homeschooled our daughter for kindergarten, it was great! As for our negative experiences, we were balancing the special needs of two children who needed more than we could give, and we all felt broken at the end of it. So when we returned to the U.S so that our youngest could get the cochlear implant that he needed, we placed our kids in public school and saw them thrive! Now this is not always the situation either. I know this because when we placed our son in a public school for Kindergarten before we moved overseas, we were receiving phone calls from the principal’s office twice a day for weeks! I share both sides of the coin, because-like I mentioned earlier… Life is hard! For everyone, for all different sorts of reasons. No one side has it easier, and the grass is NOT greener on the other side.

We loved seeing our kids thrive for those 3 months in public school. But then COVID-19 came and shut everything down. There we were, homeschooling again. And now, the 2020-2021 school year has begun and we are homeschooling again. And it sucks. Can I say that? Can I just be honest? It sucks! And it is NO ONE’S fault. It just is.

But I vividly remember being back in India. At night, I would feel so heavy at the thought of thinking about waking up again, only to meet the same crushing demands of the day. For me, it was the humbling realization that I could not homeschool alone, I needed my husband. It was the painful realization that my son was struggling with ADHD and Oppositional Defiant Disorder and the latter part (ODD) was for me alone. He welcomed my husband’s authority but threatened mine. I grieved that I was unable to provide our eldest daughter the attention she needed while also grieving that our youngest grew to hate school time because that meant his siblings were occupied and whatever lesson we were trying to perform with him was in vain as he was battling decreasing hearing loss and an inability to communicate.

These are painful memories. They have become very fresh as we have returned to this homeschooling routine once again and it has brought to mind the all too familiar struggles that we once endured.

But one thing is different. Very different.

Choice.

I guess that is one positive thing that you can take away from a negative experience. That and the ability to say, “I have done this before. I survived. It all turned out OK, and it will again. I WILL be ok.”

I think the motivational sayings started to bother me because when I read them, I was interpreting them as saying, “This isn’t that hard, you SHOULD be able to do this well. YOU just have to try harder, YOU just have to be better.”

Instead, I am reading them as if the person who wrote them is saying, “Mama, I feel you. I hear you. I know how you feel. This is hard. You WILL get through it. You WILL be ok. Things WILL get better.”

And this time around, I am remembering the way it was and CHOOSING a different way. I am choosing not to go to bed dreading tomorrow. I am choosing to ask for help. I am choosing to give myself grace. I am choosing to say it’s ok if it doesn’t go well, we can try again tomorrow and we can always try another way. I am choosing to validate myself, affirm myself, and use the tools I have to make it through the best way I can.

I am going back to my FCA days when we would teach about the Armor of God. And I am using my arsenal of emotional support oils to gear myself up for the day. I am using these resources to give myself a shot, to surprise myself, to be proud of myself, and to be the best I can for my family.

I am doing this with scripture and with the help of applying these Young Living Essential Oils:

  • Hope
  • Gratitude
  • Joy
  • Believe
  • Frankincense
  • Valor

Let me know if you would like to learn more about these essential oils and their properties!

The Word of God contains so much encouragement. This scripture in particular-

Ephesians 6:10-18

The Armor of God
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.

I am supporting myself and my home by using diffuser blends to create the environment I am longing for such as:

And I am making myself laugh with sarcastic inspiration.

I hope you too are able to walk lightly into a new day, laugh and feel hope. Because you ARE doing a GREAT job.

Yoga pants and mountain views

“The LORD is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Psalm 34:18

Sometimes it is the little things that help you get through a week. This pair of Proyog Yoga pants did it for me.

This week was hard. Emotionally really, really hard. For various reasons I felt heartbroken that I was not back home in America.

Sometimes, you just gotta grieve. Sometimes, you just have to take the day off, sleep in, and wear yoga pants all day. I mean yoga pants people. Not the tight, suck-in everything black pants that we were all made to believe are called “yoga” pants. But the wide crotch, flowy, not too tight elastic band, soft material, yet still flattering, can actually do yoga poses in, yoga pants. Such as these.

And no, this picture is not of me, as much as I wish it was. But nonetheless, there is nothing like lounging in your real “yoga” pants that your waist can actually breathe in, drinking a cup of coffee and staring at a picture of the mountains.

This week I just needed to take extra days off. I needed moments to stare at my mountain pictures, sit and read my Bible, journal and pray. There is just something about mountains that do it for me, they really do! I shared a little about that in an earlier post. Maybe it’s because of the nostalgia of sweet childhood memories they bring, or the fact that they are majestic and in fact point me towards their maker. Whatever it is, mountains help me breathe, breathe when life is suffocating. Just like my “real” yoga pants let me breathe!

So, this week in review:

We did a lot of puzzles. Over the weekend we were gifted two boxes of puzzles and I had already ordered some as well. We had SO many puzzles in the states and for some reason I DID NOT pack them! So, it was encouraging to see how excited our kids were to puzzle!!

The humidity arrived this week. That was a huge bummer. We are not strangers to humidity coming from Florida. But here, it has been a dry heat. Lately, a “Baking” dry heat with temps above 110, but little sweat! Now, the minute you leave an air-conditioned space you soak your clothes.

To add salt to the wound we had a bit of a water shortage in our apartment complex. I discovered this after soaping up and then needing to rinse off with only a dribble coming out of the faucet instead of the shower head. Thank goodness it was not a hair washing day!

As I said in the beginning, it is the little things that can bring joy, make a change, brighten up a day. We received a care package from a dear friend in the states this week! The kids would have used ALL of the stickers they received had we not stopped them.

A friend from our apartment who is so kind and helpful even gave the kids a free ride on his scooter which they thought was the tops.

Learning something new always brings flavor to the day. Sometimes it’s a new skill, other times it’s a new treat or a special surprise.

This week also came with a holiday. One not celebrated here as it was the 4th of July. To be completely honest, we missed the actual 4th due to a tough day but when we woke up on the 5th we were ready. Complete with 4th of July themed clothing, balloons and decorations at the place where we study Hindi (because they had a 4th of July party for some tourists the night before.) That evening we even played all of our childhood patriotic faves like “This land is my land,” “My country tis of thee,” “America, America” and so many more. We ate hot dogs, mac ‘n cheese, and peas and finished with some vanilla cupcakes with red, white and blue sprinkles. I would say for a July 5th, in India, it was pretty epic.

On Saturday we decided it was time for our family to get touristy. We ventured to Nahagarh Fort. As we left our flat, it started to rain and it looked like the day was going to be a complete bust. But we knew we needed an outing as a family so we risked it.

Thank God we did. The entire day was overcast and in the 80’s. Unheard of here!

We even explored the exterior of the fort and somehow, our Braucher bunch got to explore alone! Free from anyone asking to take our picture! It felt like it was just us, and the views. For a short time, at least.

Inside the Fort, there was a sculpture garden spread out amidst the different empty rooms. The sculpture was, interesting. I am sure that it had significant meaning. However, we were unable to read the descriptions due to chasing young children.

Despite the inability to spend time reading the historical significance of each sculpture, it took but a few seconds for me to realize that this sculpture was indeed a pelvis. Hence, the look on my face.

I wish I had more to share about the pelvis, but sadly I do not. We ended a great day with a movie night where we watched the movie, “A Dog’s Way home” and by the end decided that as soon as it is plausible we will be getting a puppy.

The next day we ventured out to a renowed sports store about 30 minutes outside the city called Decathlon. It was awesome. It was like entering the Indian verson of Dick’s Sporting Goods! The kids had a ball. They basically had a complete workout in the fitness equipment zone, played basketball, rode bikes and learned how to skateboard! We discovered that Jackson is a natural boxer, Garrett a born skateboarder and that Gracelyn is definitely not shy as she enticed customers to the the yoga mat display with her yoga poses. Of all the things to purchase, our kids each walked away with a fishing net pole and a bouncy ball in hopes of playing makeshift lacrosse.

It was an extremely fulfilling weekend. One that our family needed. However, it ended with another goodbye to more friends here headed back to the states and continued grieving over a loved ones suffering. I prayed and prayed for the Lord to bring me comfort. And before I knew it, I received a video call from my best friend introducing me to her new baby boy!!! Tears of sadness were real, for my heart longed to be there at that very moment. But the tears of joy were incredible. Seeing my best friend’s fresh to the world baby boy and her smiling face, in the midst of my heartache was the Lord hearing and answering my prayer for comfort.

As we journeyed into the next week. I have held these things close to my heart, and frequently looked at the pictures we captured over the weekend. I give thanks for breath-taking views and A God who is close to the broken-hearted.