Brooke Martin

By Brooke Martin

It’s mid-January now. Winter darkness has settled in. Most Christmas decorations are put away along with the ambiance they offer. Christmas outdoor decorations are a rare sight. We have made it past the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. Depending on the person, this information ranges from obvious and unmissable to something inconsequential and possibly un-noted.  I find myself noticing the darkness more in January when the joy of the Christmas lights fades and the darkness is more evident. 

In my home, we have white lights that stay up year-round, a strand around the kitchen, and a strand on a wall in our living room. In part this is a practical choice, for the times we come home after dark, welcoming the light to aid us in reaching the light switch without tripping over strewn toys on the floor. 

Warm white lights can offer a cozy welcome and calm respite after whatever the day has brought. As evening calm settles into our house, I can be intentional about unwinding. Sometimes the warm light helps me center in yoga, inviting me to tune-in and listen anew to the Triune God around me. Other evenings I snuggle in with a warm drink intuitively embracing the complement of light and darkness, the cold of winter with the warmth of heat and a blanket. 

Light in the darkness can also be a symbol used to remind my children of the Holy Spirit’s presence watching over them. A lava lamp and small lamp are switched on when my children climb in bed. When their thoughts are scary, or a shadow in the closet tricks their eyes, they come to find my husband and me.   

We have a few practices to engage during these times. Putting the power back in my kids’ control, we flip the image, helping them imagine their fear appearing in a silly or less threatening way. What happens when the scary thing wears a rainbow tutu … how about if it has a clown nose or rides a unicycle? We also equip our children by reminding them that God is with them, we are here, and they are safe. A hug goes a long way.  

We have a prayer that we have taught our children. It is not perfect, it does not mean their room is as bright as daylight. It can be picked apart, but it does name their bravery and remind them that Jesus, our hope, is light. 

“Jesus is with me 
And Jesus is the Light, 
And where there is light, 
There can be NO DARKNESS. 
Help me be brave.” 

As evening comes today or clouds cover the sky, may we also be able find the lights, and may God use them to center and comfort us and to spark hope and bravery. 

Brooke Martin

Brooke Martin is the Youth and Community Formation Pastor for Mosaic Conference. Brooke lives in Telford with her husband, Nathaniel, and their two children.

When was the last time you felt seen in church, not in an exposed, vulnerable way, but in a way that brought comfort and care?  Recently, during a sermon on sabbath, I felt seen. There was a deliberate pause in the sermon flow, and I was seen.  

Me. A parent of young children. 

Pastor Dave Greiser of Salford Mennonite Church (Harleysville, PA), preached these words (44:10-47:49): 

 “There is a whole group of people who have experienced little-to-no rest, in two years. First, there is full time work. Second, there is full time child rearing.  Very often both of those things are going on simultaneously. So that basically there’s two conditions in life: sleeping and work. Seven days a week, and that’s it. For those of us who have been in that experience, there is a sense in which sabbath is largely a dream, or a theory, and I cannot tell you this morning when you are going to get and feel a real sabbath…” 

Pastor Dave did not try to hand me a well-packaged solution, sweep my experience aside, nor over-estimate our similarities. Instead, I was seen and held in support, and that is what I needed. 

As the pandemic continues to impact social structures, child-rearing can be exhausting. Many options for young children to engage outside the home have ended or are less accessible or consistent. I am now mom AND playmate, educator, and energizer bunny.  

Due to polarization and the worn-down stamina of society, it feels risky to have conversation with other parents, as each interaction allows the possibility of unsolicited judgement. When such conversation is initiated, will it be a healthy connecting point or a space of judgement because of my family’s choices (work/life balance choices, masking, vaccine status, activity participation, etc.)? Even if the conversation is positive, I still need to navigate the constantly shifting dynamics of households and our community’s continually shifting guidelines.  

As a result, I need to do intentional work on my self-care and balance, because an imbalanced mom directly impacts the lives of her children. They are the ones who suffer from a worn out, frazzled mom … mom with a short fuse … mom who just wants quiet to sort my thoughts … mom who can’t play or read a story because I am joining another Zoom call. When I am weary and unbalanced from it all, I am unable to be the mom that I thrive being, the mom I really am and deeply want to be.

Pastor Dave’s sermon continued, “Perhaps the best thing I can do for you this morning is to offer you words that I think, possibly, Jesus might say to you: Whatever it is that you are giving to your job, whatever it is that you are giving to your family, whatever it is that you are giving to your children, it is enough…” 

I am thankful for the spaces of healthy conversation, community, and comradery that I have. I give thanks for places where my family is supported, not weighed on a balancing scale. I am grateful for friends with whom I can share frustration and the many joys of this stage of our kids’ lives and our parenting journey.  

The pandemic will continue to change, but our kids (and we) will not get this stage of life back, and we all are being shaped by this season. 

To other caregivers, may healthy conversation be present for you, and please know: I see you, I hold space for you. May you be well.  

I am beginning to enjoy house plants. As a child, I remember a few plants finding their way into our home. It was a welcomed, bi-annual chore to move several of my grandmother’s potted plants outside in the spring and then clean them up and move them back indoors in the fall.  

Now that my children are old enough to not tip over the plants to explore the dirt or eat the plants, a few house plants have found their way into our home. Some have bitter-sweet memories attached as gifts from a funeral; some came in bright abstract pots painted by my children; one was an exciting find at a discount grocery store, and others were shared from growing collections of family members.

Plants generally need a combination of soil, light, and water. Choosing the right amount of sunlight, soil type, and proper drainage combo varies with each plant variety. Now, I can make most plants survive, and most of them are fine and happy. However, the spider plant I have growing in a corner shelf that I never bother to rotate is not healthy. My vining pathos plant is luscious and deep green; however, if I experimented with different lighting, I wonder if it is actually a variegated leaf variety waiting to be exposed.

If I treat each plant equally, with the same pot, soil, and sun-exposure, and put them on the same watering schedule, with equal amounts of fertilizer and pruning, they might survive, but they would not thrive. They share one home, but these are all different plants. Their needs may overlap, but each requires different attention.   

It would not be wise to water my snake plant like I do my palm plants as my snake plant would suffer root rot.  Currently I prefer my arrowhead to be a bushy plant, so I need to prune it to keep it from vining and taking over. For a variety of plants to thrive and flourish in my one household, each plant needs to be tended in its own way. This is equity.  

In our lives, equity means every person is their own God-created, perfectly beautiful plant. Every person’s personality, culture, race, life stage, gender, economic status, health, relationships, and life experiences impact what sun exposure, fertilizer, pruning, watering, soil type, and frequency of re-potting is needed for them to thrive.  

Take a walk with the Holy Spirit through the household of your life. Listen to the Creator of the Garden of Eden.  Look inside you. What plants in you need to be pruned? What needs to be re-potted or fertilized?   

Look around you. What plants in your household, workplace, small group, congregation, community, country, and world are straining for sunlight? What parts are waterlogged and suffering root rot? Ask the Holy Spirit to direct your actions and inactions toward Holy Equity. 

Creator God, hear our prayer. 

“Can papyrus grow where there is no marsh? Can reeds flourish where there is no water?

 – Job 8:11, NRSV 

Lord, give us today our daily bread … daily bread…not weekly, not over-abundance, but daily:  what we need to sustain us in You today. 

A couple of years ago I began baking the bread that my family eats for sandwiches and toast. The repeated process of kneading the dough, waiting for the yeast to rise, smelling the welcome aroma of freshly baked golden loaves, and snacking on warm slices fresh from the oven has become a time of prayerful reflection for me. My context is quite different from the world and context in which Jesus taught the prayer, “Give us today our daily bread.” My day carries on while I knead the dough. Sometimes my children want to help knead their own small loaf, other times they are playing in another room, or throwing sand outside.  Still, in this task I can center in Christ, both the physical and soul food for today. My daily bread.

Simply today Lord, sustain me today. 

On bread day at my house, I prepare enough bread to last for a week or two (thank you, freezer).  But for the people in Jesus’ world, bread-making would have been a daily task. They didn’t have the choice to wait until tomorrow to make bread and plan a breadless meal for the family today. Bread was not just an addition to a meal, but a core piece of it. Each day required a set time to prepare the daily bread.

Lord, let me orient my daily routine around you. Be my Daily Bread.

I imagine that making one’s daily bread in Jesus’ day would have been even more of a process than it is for me today. The flour itself may have needed to be ground and prepared before it could be used. It is possible that the family may have even grown the grains for the flour themselves.  The oven was not propane or electric, but a fire that required tending to keep the embers glowing and the fuel needed to be gathered. Bread really did fill stomachs and supply what was needed. 

As I shape the risen dough into loaves, I center even more on this phrase in the prayer, “Lord, give us today our daily bread.” Jesus does not ask for a week’s worth of sustenance nor a rounded pot-roast meal complete with the meat, potatoes, and carrots.

LORD, be the core of my sustenance today.

Amen, may it be so.

As we walk through this time of Advent, I am particularly drawn to the idea of Advent as a journey of preparation. The turmoil of this year, with the coinciding stress and desire for the usual ways we celebrate, can distract from the WHO and WHY we celebrate. 

As others have shared, this year I want to embrace the quieter season. In many ways that has been fulfilled as my family’s schedule does not hold the normal amount of holiday activities that both celebrate and distract from Jesus’ birthday. Yet in our worn state, disrupted traditions and routines will lead us to numbly drift through Advent without intentionally preparing and looking to Jesus.

This Advent, our family dinner is accompanied with Mosaic’s 25 Days of Advent Family Devotional. We light a candle marking the days until Christmas and read the verse cards which build each day, pointing to and celebrating Jesus’ birth narrative. It is simple. Yet a daily devotional practice instilling the narrative in my children’s hearts, also draws my daily focus back to the purpose and joy of Advent.

On Sunday mornings, as my family gathers in our living room for virtual worship, we pull five assorted candles from a cupboard and set them in front of our screen on top of a cloth napkin to build our Advent wreath. It is makeshift, but there is a holiness in bringing what we have before God. I am acutely aware of the individual Advent candle’s call to center my soul and mind, in celebration of Christ’s incarnation. 

During the virtual service an invited household reads the Advent piece for the morning and we join them by lighting the candles in our home. I am struck this year by the call of each week’s candle: Hope. Peace. Joy. Love. Christ. 

As I miss family gatherings, I am appreciating anew Christmas cards and notes. One from my aunt and uncle contained this poem by Holley Gerth. It, too,  helped me pause and recenter:

Five simple candles tell the story of Christ’s birth
and the reasons God sent His only Son to the earth…

The candle of Hope reminds us of the prophets’ words
and the promises they shared with all those who heard.

The candle of Peace reminds us to prepare our hearts,
because it is within us that true worship starts.

The candle of Joy reminds us how the angels came
to announce God’s good news and glorify His name.

The candle of Love is our response to God’s Son
as we so humbly thank Him for all He has done. 

The final candle stands tall above all the rest, 
because it is for the One who is brightest and best…
the candle of Christ reminds us of the reason
we rejoice and celebrate in the Christmas season!

BY Holley Gerth

This Advent and Christmas season, may you find Christ’s Hope, Christ’s Peace, Christ’s Joy, Christ’s Love, and Christ. Amen