• Home
  • Blog
  • Photos
  • About
  • Contact
Menu

Mom + Camera

Street Address
City, State, Zip
Phone Number
Meeting God in the mundane + Finding grace in the mess

Your Custom Text Here

Mom + Camera

  • Home
  • Blog
  • Photos
  • About
  • Contact

there was no needy person among them

June 21, 2019 Jacqui
public.jpeg

It was almost 9:00pm and there I was at the counter, chopping some pickles, finally getting around to eating dinner, if you can even call it that.

“It’s a comfort food kinda night, huh?” my husband said, eyeing the start of what we call “hot pickle-cheese dip” around here. I shot him a sheepish, knowing look. Yeah, it is.

Sometimes when I feel depleted, my soul has an insatiable desire to create: order out of the swirling chaos, or to combine a bunch of nothing together and make it into something.

The perfect storm of emotional triggers had finally worn me down: the chaos of children home for summer and constantly in my space, too many things to do in too little time, being stretched beyond capacity in multiple areas, lack of uninterrupted sleep, struggling neighbors, financial worries, and the rollercoaster of imbalanced hormones left me exhausted...and apparently craving pickles.

A deep surrendered sigh escaped my lips, evidence of the strain I could no longer keep hidden, and I minced some jalapenos to the soundtrack of helplessness playing in my mind.

This is all too much.

I can’t do this.

I’m already overwhelmed––how am I supposed to add on even more?

I know they’re struggling and don’t have enough. But what if we don't have enough to share?

Maybe you listen to these songs, too? When we carry the weight of the world on our shoulders, it’s heavy, overwhelming, and discouraging, to say the least. The paradox of reality is that you can be sinking while standing on the hardwood floor in your kitchen on an ordinary Monday. This is one of my personal deadly sins: that I try to carry it all by myself.

In what had to be a divine intervention, the book of Acts flashed through my mind, specifically how they all shared what they had with one another and everyone had enough. There was no needy person among them, it says. There was zero pressure to do more, acquire more, or figure out how to take care of everyone alone. All they had to do was simply share what they already had, and everyone received a portion. It may not have been as much as they wanted or looked exactly how they thought it would, but it was enough.

You see, when we stick to the basics of what is required of us, the yoke is easy and the burden is light. It strengthens our faith as we have the opportunity to behold Jesus making the little we have to offer into plenty. It draws boundaries around what we can and cannot do, and lets Him take care of the rest.

I also struggle with this assumed pressure in my creative life, feeling like I need to be or say or do certain things, giving people more of what they seem to want, manufacturing what I may not naturally have. And I suppose that’s a decent business model, a way of promoting a “brand,” but I’ve decided instead to simply offer what I have: my truest self and my story, and I’ll leave the rest to Him.

Jesus is the one who takes our meager offering and makes it into enough, not me. He uses our small sack lunch, which is really only enough to feed ourselves, to nourish the masses. So I can let go of the futile striving for my own glory and leave the impossible to Him. This is the everyday miracle of faith.

In Freedom, Depression Tags Self-talk, Identity
Comment

The Thing About Being Sad

July 25, 2017 Jacqui
IMG_4642.JPG

“You aren’t who you are all the time.”

At least that’s the case according to Lisa Feldman Barrett, professor of Psychology at Northern University. She goes on to say, “you have a vocabulary of the self, a range of people who you become.”

This idea seems familiar and comforting to me, like an NPR-ish way of saying what Paul does in Romans 7:

It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge (v21-23, MSG).

I find that I often write from a certain disposition; it’s the observant, insightful, idealistic, convicted of a greater good/hope/purpose “self” that cranks out most of the essays. Interspersed between city drama and heartfelt narratives is the funny/snarky “self," and then we have the dormant chef "self" with an occasional recipe to share. That last one hasn’t surfaced in a while, mainly because it’s summer and we’ve been surviving on a steady diet of sandwiches, processed carbohydrates, and chicken nuggets. Lord have mercy on our digestive tracts.

But the melancholy part of me, the one who recently told my husband, “my problem is that I feel like a failure from the moment I get up in the morning and it just goes downhill from there”....that one doesn’t write much.

“I think that’s called depression,” he responded.

I think he’s probably right. And depression wants to run away and hide. It loves isolation, so naturally, it doesn’t have a voice. Or pen many essays. 

I’m not sure when it happened in our society, but sadness became “negative” and uncomfortable. It doesn’t jive well with perky status updates, 140 character one-liners, or pretty pictures of home decor and flowers, although I’ve deliberately tried to juxtapose the two. The fact is, no one likes a Debbie Downer, and deep down, everyone wants to be liked.

I think what make sadness so uncomfortable is we don’t know what to do with it, especially if the person has no obvious reason for feeling sad. Then, it’s just...awkward. Sometimes, there are no bandages or platitudes or commiserating that will help. It just is what it is.

Sunshine helps. Talking to people helps. Getting enough sleep helps. So does laughing.

But the thing about being sad? It’s okay.

It’s okay to be sad. The reality is, the world we live in is not all rainbows and unicorns, unless your world is a Starbucks frappachino. Or a bag of skittles.

It’s also okay to not know what to say to someone who’s sad. It’s okay to not have all the answers or know how to fix it. Believe it or not, that was never in our job description. I don’t know that people long to be fixed so much as they long to be heard and loved, and that goes for any emotion or situation.

As much as I’d love to be the encouraging person who’s noticing the many footprints of God in my mundane daily life, the truth of the matter is I’m also the person who wakes up and feels like I’m failing at all aspects of life before I’ve even had a cup of coffee, and there’s simply no encouragement to give. But sadness doesn’t negate the presence of God, even if He’s a little harder to see, and I’m realizing that maybe this other part of me should write.

That maybe, she has something to say, too.

I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?

The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. (Romans 7:24-25, MSG)

 

In Depression, Motherhood Tags Mental Illness, Motherhood, Depression, Real Life
Comment

For when you suck at managing a home

February 2, 2017 Jacqui
FullSizeRender.jpg

“Now, I don’t want you to feel bad about this, but you’re not very good about asking for help. Like, instead of just cancelling an appointment, for example, remember you have an army of people who could help with the kids so you can keep your commitments.”

I had just told him I don’t know how other people do it -- life, that is -- without constantly feeling like they're drowning. Because I do. All the time. There’s clutter on the floor and any flat surface, laundry piled on the couch, and a sink overflowing with dishes, not to mention the list of neglected phone calls that would rival the very List of Santa himself.

“For some reason, you tend to function as if you have to do it all, and you don’t! You need to somehow figure out how to delegate things and manage your environment.”

Yes… I thought. That’s it.

Good, freeing tears welled up in my eyes as the truth cut straight to my heart. “You’re totally right, and I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. Instead of asking for help, I run around like a crazy woman trying to do everything myself, and not only does nothing get done, but no one wants to be around me because I’m stressed. Instead of commanding my environment, I let it control me.”

IMG_9402.PNG

When we manage our environment, we turn stress into rest by commanding our surroundings instead of letting them control us. But sometimes it feels impossible to do so...

I realized I’d been a victim of my own life for the past year as I struggled to manage a household of seven, a new puppy, and an unrelenting case of postpartum depression. Often overwhelmed and underwater, I allowed my environment, with the eager aid of imbalanced hormones, to make a puppet out of my emotional health. Depression blinds you to the life it slowly skims from the till, leaving you wholly unaware of the richness stolen until you wake up one day, bankrupt.

Once the cloud finally begins to lift, you can see how far depression actually dragged you from your true self, how it made a jack-o-lantern of you, gradually hollowing out the interior and leaving you with a stupid, fake grin, yet completely empty inside. But pumpkins are seasonal, like anything else under the sun, and there will be a time for it to die and for something new to grow in its place.

We have the bar set pretty low around here, but now that it’s February, we decided to pack Christmas up and put the tree away. With over a week to spare before the next official holiday, I call that a win. Even though spring is still a ways away, I can feel change blowing in on the wind. The sun is brighter, the air more fresh. Birds are trickling back into town, and before we know it, there will be other evidence of new life all around us.

Joy comes with the morning much like winter yields spring, and the pumpkins won’t keep forever. For all of you fake-grinners, I pray that your cloud begins to lift today. And even if it doesn’t, I pray the Lord will hold and sustain you until a tomorrow dawns with the new life of spring.

In Depression Tags Postpartum Depression, Depression, Rest
Comment

Walking in Humility: The Angry Stress Monster

November 17, 2016 Jacqui
IMG_8711.JPG

I have this thing my son calls the “Angry Stress Monster," an apt description, as it will suddenly rear its nasty head without warning, much like I imagined the monsters under my bed would when I was young. 

Usually, the symptoms have been festering below the surface long before they're noticed by the droves of screaming and fighting children running about the house, but they all notice when the switch flips--a maternal Jekyll and Hyde with a messy top knot, yesterday's sweatpants, and crazy eyes. Or maybe it's more like mommy Frankenstein, who, after having all her brains removed by a litter of children, can only scream, growl, and try to kill things. Little things. More specifically, little people.

Some days, I don't do a very good job of containing the monster.

The offenses against sanity begin to stack up the moment we walk in the door after school. It’s the pent-up cackling crazy they’ve had to control all day. It’s the running and fighting and making each other cry. It’s the deafening noise level composed of mommy look at this and mommy we did this and mommy sign that and mommy I want a snack and mommy I need help….all at once.

I’m on the edge. On the verge of losing it. Lately, I’ve gotten to the point where I recognize this edge, the ledge from which I plunge head first into the oblivion of rage and overwhelm. The fall is incredibly hard to recover from.

I know what it feels like, the tightness in my chest. The mental jitters that make it impossible to think. The overloaded circuit of my faculties, sparks flying, fires starting, the whole thing burning down.

I can feel it begin, and I try to breathe deep. To take a step back, calm down. But sometimes life keeps assaulting me, and I can’t keep it at bay. The Angry Stress Monster emerges from the flames of spontaneous combustion, and everyone nearby gets burned.

Sometimes I don’t recognize this woman, this angry monster in the mirror. I hope to find the calmer, more patient person I once knew, I really do.

But I guess until then, I’m sorry.

 

***********************

This post is part of a series I’m writing for the month of October called, Walking in Humility: Learning to Abide with God in the Everyday. If you’re interested in the reading the rest of the series, you can find it here. Enjoy!

In Depression, Write 31 Days Tags Postpartum Depression
Comment

Walking in Humility: When Life Is Stressful

November 2, 2016 Jacqui
IMG_8472.JPG

Today is a trash can full of crumpled rough drafts that didn’t make the cut.

 

Pressed for time, many to-dos, forgetful.

Left late, wrong turns, detours.

Rushed, stressed, chaos.

Disobedience, repeating, frustration.

Hyper children, dog poop, baby fingers.

Play outside, space to think, it’s always something.

Car climbing, dog escaping, dinner burning.

Wet baby, dog water, playing with garbage.

Sassy son, too many kids, can’t catch a break.

 

Can’t catch my breath.

 

Lost my mind.

 

Check under the sofa. It could be under there with a dirty diaper, the TV remote we can never find, Lego blocks, and action figures.  Maybe a dog toy or two. Some old underwear? A baby binky? I guess you never know.

Or we could dig through the dirty dishes in the sink. Maybe I dropped it in there with the soggy Cheerios from breakfast this morning. It could be in the tall stack of pots, as well. The one with the leftover pasta sauce rotting inside.

We should shuffle through the stack of school papers on the counter and flash cards that didn’t get rehearsed today. Or any day this week. Or last. Maybe it’s by the book order I forgot about or the one thousand handouts about parties, dress-down days, concerts, meetings, and projects due. Perhaps it accidentally got buried in there.

What about the four hampers of clean clothes I have yet to fold? It’s possible that my mind just fell on out and landed in there as I walked by. I doubt I would’ve noticed its absence as I frantically ran out the door after the dog. A revolving door would be nice because closing it seems too much of a chore for those that come and go here.

Maybe the mental haze I feel is due to the fact that it’s baking in the oven with the potatoes I put in about an hour ago. With all the pieces of my mind I’ve handed out today, what remains is probably about the size of a potato, so it would’ve blended in nicely.

 

Let me know if you find it.

 

***********************

This post is part of a series I’m writing for the month of October called, Walking in Humility: Learning to Abide with God in the Everyday. If you’re interested in the reading the rest of the series, you can find it here. Enjoy!

In Write 31 Days, Depression Tags Humility, Postpartum Depression, Parenting, Motherhood
Comment

HELLO!


IMG_2559.JPG

I'm Jacqui, the mom behind the camera. Wife of one + momma to five. Writer + speaker. Unqualified philosopher + theologian. Accidental mentor. Chaos manager. Lover of coffee + wine, perspective, and Jesus. Truth teller. Freedom fighter. Worth affirmer. Wanna-be author + world changer. Laundry piler. Emoji enthusiast. It's nice to meet you!

I hope you'll stay awhile and take a look at life through my lens, as I seek to find joy in the mess and walk with God through the beauty of everyday life.

 

Get Connected


Let's Be Friends!

Sign up and be the first to know about all the latest happenings!

We respect your privacy.

Thank you!
 

Partner with Us


Click the icon to find out more about our work with Third Place in Cleveland or to partner with us financially. 

Click the icon to find out more about our work with Third Place in Cleveland or to partner with us financially. 

 

Looking for Something?


 

Instagram


That last-week-of-school hustle is reeeeaaal. 😩👊🏻😴
That last-week-of-school hustle is reeeeaaal. 😩👊🏻😴
Oh haaay, summer, haaay!! ✨😎 It’s almost 90 degrees with a breeze here in CLE, & we’re not minding one little bit. We just got back from a Target run, as one does on a Saturday. 🎯 I swept yesterday’s chalk dust and all the hel
Oh haaay, summer, haaay!! ✨😎 It’s almost 90 degrees with a breeze here in CLE, & we’re not minding one little bit. We just got back from a Target run, as one does on a Saturday. 🎯 I swept yesterday’s chalk dust and all the helicopters off the porch (as far as propagating strategies go, this is a very good one. Those suckers are EVERYWHERE!), and now I’m watching my little corner of the world go by from my second-hand rocking chair on the porch, iced coffee in hand. And it’s so, so good to be right here. In this moment, in this place: the wind tugging at my hair, the kids arguing about something in the backyard, the wind chimes next door, the dogs sunning themselves at my feet. These are the days. This is the abundant life. And I wouldn’t trade it for the whole wide world. My corner is enough.
I used to think the old woman who lived in a shoe was nuts. I mean, why in the world would you choose live in a shoe? With all those kids?? 😱 And withholding the bread? Straight up neglect. Some versions say she kissed them fondly, but we all know t
I used to think the old woman who lived in a shoe was nuts. I mean, why in the world would you choose live in a shoe? With all those kids?? 😱 And withholding the bread? Straight up neglect. Some versions say she kissed them fondly, but we all know that mean broad spanked the daylights out of them before sending them straight to bed. Then I became a parent. Life has a way of waking you up to realities that are literally impossible to understand until you’re completely immersed in the incessant demands of a sacrificial season, or in some cases, a sacrificial existence. And you can fathom now how life can wear a person down to a shell of who they were, how one unfortunate circumstance can tragically alter a trajectory. And you finally realize that no one chooses to live in a shoe. A shoe is where you live when you have no choices, when you’re out of options, when it’s either a shoe or the streets. She had so many children she didn’t know what to do—so many mouths to feed every day. If broth and bread is all she could afford, there might not have been enough to go around. She didn’t ration out of neglect but rather out of necessity. And she whipped them all soundly before she put them to bed because she didn’t have anything left. Because she’s an overwhelmed, exhausted single mom without a shred of a support system. She never gets a break. Carrying the weight of their survival solely on her weary shoulders, she beats them now so the police won’t later. She whoops them because she cares, and that’s the only way she ever learned how to show it. . ...and what you can see now is, she loves them.
Anyone else feel the pull to show up here every so often to say, “Hey! I’m still busy doing things! My life is still interesting! And it matters! And here’s why…” When I feel compelled or obligated to do something, for
Anyone else feel the pull to show up here every so often to say, “Hey! I’m still busy doing things! My life is still interesting! And it matters! And here’s why…” When I feel compelled or obligated to do something, for whatever reason, one of the best things I can do for myself, at least for a little while, is….don’t. Don’t log on. Don’t post for the heck of posting. Don’t force something that doesn’t want to come. And I let the silence begin to speak for itself. God speaks in a whisper, you know, but how often are we quiet enough to hear it? And how exactly did we arrive at the place where our worth was determined by the number of hearts tapped out on 2x2 squares? It sounds quite ridiculous when it’s all spelled out like that, doesn’t it?
This is how we showed up at church tonight—legit looking like maybe we just crawled out of a garbage dump. Or at least a construction zone. 🚧 It’s actually worse than it looks and literally the best I’ve got this week. Bless it. Al
This is how we showed up at church tonight—legit looking like maybe we just crawled out of a garbage dump. Or at least a construction zone. 🚧 It’s actually worse than it looks and literally the best I’ve got this week. Bless it. Also, the nursery worker made them wash hands before snack, so we’re good. What matters is that we showed up. On time, in fact, which is no small miracle in and of itself. . ✨All that is required of us is that we arrive as our truest selves. And today? We’re filthy. So, here’s a gentle reminder to you, fellow traveler: come dirty, come late, come ill-prepared or even irate. Come with a smile on your face, or come because you need some grace. Come stressed, come sweaty, come imperfect, even petty. Just come, in spite of your mess, and trust that God will take care of the rest. He always does. See for yourself. ➡️
These jokers are my favorite. 💖 #happymothersday
These jokers are my favorite. 💖 #happymothersday
‘Tis the season. 💜🌸 The only problem is choosing just one! 🤩 So I didn’t. 😬

Did you know that lilacs only bloom for 1-2 weeks a year? Kinda makes you wonder about humanity’s over-emphasis on “blooming”—always
‘Tis the season. 💜🌸 The only problem is choosing just one! 🤩 So I didn’t. 😬 Did you know that lilacs only bloom for 1-2 weeks a year? Kinda makes you wonder about humanity’s over-emphasis on “blooming”—always producing, striving, hustling, creating output. Even if we’re blooming where we’re planted, as the saying goes, it’s brief. Stunning, yes. Breathtaking, yes. Colorful, vibrant, full of life, yes please. But also short-lived. Temporary. Fleeting. Seasons are not only temporary but necessary. Don’t focus so much on the fruit that you miss the seasons of watching and waiting, of hunkering down when the landscape is barren and learning to weather the storms. These create the fertile soil in which flowers grow. 💜
*new headshot* 😬
*new headshot* 😬
Today is Good Friday, and it arrived exactly how I always picture it—the sky weeping, the earth soaked with tears. This is the inevitable darkness that must come before the morning, the necessary death which precedes resurrection. This heartbre
Today is Good Friday, and it arrived exactly how I always picture it—the sky weeping, the earth soaked with tears. This is the inevitable darkness that must come before the morning, the necessary death which precedes resurrection. This heartbreaking pattern of life is something my human heart always struggles to embrace as “the way.” Surely, there has to be another (less painful) avenue toward truth and life? . Selfishly, I want what we all think we want at the end of the day: a life of comfort and ease. We quickly realize, however, that comfort is fleeting and ease is overrated. With each excruciating step up the hill of Calvary, Jesus reminds us again: every good and perfect gift arrives on the other side of death. It is finished, forever and ever. Amen.
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.
—Rumi
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. —Rumi
 

Popular Posts


Featured
FullSizeRender.jpg
Jun 6, 2018
what being a pastor in the city taught me
Jun 6, 2018
Jun 6, 2018
IMG_2372.JPG
May 8, 2018
HELP WANTED
May 8, 2018
May 8, 2018
FullSizeRender.jpg
Oct 25, 2017
i need the city /or/ there your heart will be also
Oct 25, 2017
Oct 25, 2017
IMG_8369.JPG
Oct 23, 2017
ministry is messy /or/ life mirrors the gospel
Oct 23, 2017
Oct 23, 2017
FullSizeRender.jpg
Oct 22, 2017
the currency of souls /or/ wake up from the dream
Oct 22, 2017
Oct 22, 2017
IMG_7071.PNG
Oct 18, 2017
the truth about being blessed /or/ the blessing is always Him
Oct 18, 2017
Oct 18, 2017
IMG_6863.JPG
Oct 14, 2017
the designer home "promised land" /or/ the path not taken {part 2}
Oct 14, 2017
Oct 14, 2017
IMG_6861.JPG
Oct 13, 2017
the designer home "promised land" /or/ .... {part 1}
Oct 13, 2017
Oct 13, 2017
IMG_6405.JPG
Oct 11, 2017
the mom beating her son /or/ finding common ground
Oct 11, 2017
Oct 11, 2017
FullSizeRender.jpg
Oct 10, 2017
SWAT in the driveway /or/ this is the new normal
Oct 10, 2017
Oct 10, 2017
 

Archive


Posts by Year
  • 2013 59
  • 2014 104
  • 2015 49
  • 2016 29
  • 2017 46
  • 2018 14
  • 2019 2
  • 2021 3
  • 2023 1

©2018 Mom + Camera. All Rights Reserved.