Welcome to Ask a Pastor, a podcast from Orchard Hill Church! Have you ever had a question about the Bible, Faith, or Christianity as a whole? Submit your question and one of our pastors will answer on the program. New episodes every Wednesday.

This episode, Dr. Kurt Bjorklund connects online with Russ and Lyndsay Brasher to talk about how the coronavirus has impacted life with young kids, how to balance working and living at home, things this time has caused you to think differently about, and more!

Mentioned in the Podcast

• Russ Brasher's Blog Post - https://www.orchardhillchurch.com/blog-all/2020/4/24/alive-and-active-studying-the-book-of-acts-in-isolation

• Anxious for Nothing by Max Lucado - https://www.amazon.com/Anxious-Nothing-Finding-Chaotic-World/dp/0718074211/

• Anxious for Nothing Study Guide - https://www.amazon.com/Anxious-Nothing-Study-Guide-Finding/dp/0310087317/

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Podcast Transcript

Kurt Bjorklund: Hey, welcome to Ask a Pastor. Today I'm joined by two of my favorite people, Russ and Lindsay Brasher. They are parents, have four great kids, and do a great job parenting young kids. And Russ also works at the church as our Director of Student ministries and does just a great job with that. Lindsay works for Chick-fil-A. How do you navigate both trying to work and do different things, and then having four kids, having school thrust on you, and everything else kind of all at once? Tell us about your kids first, just so everyone gets a sense of their ages and what they're interested in.

Lyndsay Brasher: Well, alright, so, we have four kids. Our oldest is our daughter Peyton and she is in third grade. She's nine. She does dance, and she's really into dancing, singing, and things like that. And then we have Addison. She's a first grader, she is seven, and she just signed up to do her first season of softball that has been postponed. And she is also in dance. And then we have Bennett, who is five years old and is in pre-k. He plays baseball, which he would have been doing right now as well. And then our youngest is two, Avery, so three girls and one boy. And Avery's just hanging around home all day with mom.

Kurt Bjorklund: Okay, so what has been the dynamic with all of a sudden you all being there almost all the time, as opposed to kids are at school, Russ is out at work, and Lindsay's in and out a little? Tell us how that's changed for your family.

Lyndsay Brasher: Well, when we got the call, now a month ago, that the kids were going to be home, we originally thought that was just going to be a couple weeks, maybe a month. I work part time doing marketing for Chick-fil-A and I do about 75% of it from home anyways, but I am in and out, so we made the decision that I would just cut back. Thankfully, we had the flexibility to do that. And I would just cut back, be able to focus on being home with the kids and not having to go to Chick-fil-A. So, I made that decision that I would not be working at all out of the house. So that was a big choice, but I think we were able to do that. And then all of our kids, we had two kids in full time school, and they now are home all day. And then Bennett was three days a week at pre-school, so he is home. So now it's all four of us home. Four kids home all day, and then Russ, a few weeks ago started working from home too.

Russ Brasher: Yeah, and that and that took some adjusting. And the reason we made that decision was because we didn't know what my job was going to look like. In a relational job, doing a lot of face to face meeting interaction, we knew that was going to be different. And so, we had to make the decision of which one of us was going to work. Thankfully, we were both still able to work. And we're very blessed about that. But I had to make kind of a hard decision because Lindsay loves her job. She loves doing marketing for Chick-fil-A, and plus Chick-fil-A kind of pulled back and said her job right now is to bring as many people to the restaurant as possible and you couldn't do that. And so that kind of created a good window for now just to say, hey, it makes the most sense for her to stop but it has been difficult and hard at times. I know she misses it and, you know, just like I miss tons of things about normalcy with my job and in the church, but we're making it work.

Kurt Bjorklund: If you look back at this time so far, what will you take away from this that you will say, because of this time, we're going to do something different with our kids in our family moving forward?

Russ Brasher: That's a good question. Lindsay's been the front runner for all of this. I mean, she's the one that before all of this started, kind of had the most experience with spending the most time with the kids because obviously, I wasn't here as much. She worked from home a lot. And she was just kind of the commander in chief of that department before all this started, and so I've been kind of letting her still lead that and create the schedule for this time. But I think the biggest thing for us, that we keep reminding each other of and we're trying to instill in our kids is, this is something that for years we're going to look back on and it's going to be documented. And hopefully something like this doesn't happen for a very long time, if ever again. But hopefully this will be a time at least for our children and our family that we can look back, have fun, joy, build memories, create experiences and spend our time in such a way that we're proud of it. And that we can look back with joy versus focusing on the stress, anger, anxiety, and the things that this can cause. Trying to make sure that this is our hope and goal is how we've been trying to get through this. What would you say to that?

Lyndsey Brasher: Well, I would say I feel like since the day we got married, we had kids right away, we've been in full time ministry for a long time, and we've just been go, go, go, for so long. And I feel like this has been a time where God has forced us to slow down and to stop, and to be intentional, and to focus on our kids, not that we weren't before, but there's so many other things going on. And so, I think the thing for me that I know I'm going to walk away with great memories, but also hopefully create a new routine in our houses. Since in the morning we're not scrambling to get four kids ready, kids out in the bus, kids out the door to wherever we need to be, we've just been able to both actually spend that non-rush, intentional time with God in different studies and in that connecting time with God. That's made a huge difference in our day now, but I hope it's something that I don't forget once the busyness starts again. And then another thing is, I feel like with just being rushed all the time, that can cause so much anxiety. Who do we have to pick up? Where do we have to get to next? And we have been able to do so many things with the kids that sometimes it gets away from you. Or sometimes you feel like okay, I don't have time to do all that tonight, we're just going to have to pick what you do. It's been nice to be able to, you know, actually lay in bed, and read with every kid. We've been having a lot of fires in the backyard and things like that, where we probably wouldn't be doing that as often if we were still going full speed ahead. So, I'm hoping that we can remember those moments when we are done with this.

Kurt Bjorklund: Yeah, I have a suspicion that a lot of kids whose families aren't negatively impacted from an economic or a health standpoint where the parents don't end up sick, or grandma and grandpa doesn't die, or something like that, are going to look back and say that was one of my favorite times of how centered the family was as opposed to scattered. Is there anything as you look at this that you would look at and say, we don't want to add x back into our life?

Lyndsay Brasher: I know for one of the things that I am going to do instead, and I kind of always try to live this way, a little bit, but my kind of motto is if mom is super overwhelmed and full of anxiety, that is not good for anybody in the house. The whole house is kind of crazy at that point. And so from the beginning, we were getting assignments and schedules from school, and I know that first week I read this printed out schedule of this is what we're going to do at this time, and this is how we are going to tackle all these assignments, but by the end the week I was like, this is not who I am. We got to adjust this to make it work for our family. And I even emailed the teachers and said, hey, what's the priority? What should we make the priority of these assignments because there's no way I'm probably going to get all this done, especially with one teacher kind of assigning a lot? And I feel like that was just that good take away - what's the priority? What's the most important thing right now? Because I feel like we can get so overwhelmed with schedules, or the things that you read online, or even all the news, that it can just get you anxious, worried, or stressed out. And it's like, okay, let's draw it back and remember what the main thing is. What's the priority for the kids and for our family?

Kurt Bjorklund: How have you with coming together this way, both kind of for lack of a better phrase, stayed in your own lane. Because I would assume as you all of a sudden are together all the time, there's some things that, you know, Lindsay used to take care of and Russ wasn't part of, or he used to take care of and you weren't part of, and vice versa, and all of a sudden you say, how do we do this? What new lanes have you established?

Russ Brasher: Yeah. You know, that's something that, again, like I said earlier, I've always kind of looked at Lindsay as when it comes to raising our kids, and our household, and setting that bar, and that pace, like she's had no problem being in the driver's seat for that and it's allowed me to do what I do. And you know, I spend a lot of time ministering to other people's kids, and I can do that because I love and trust so much what she's doing, and then I find ways to jump on in with what she's got going on. But as far as this staying in the lane thing, I think, for both of us, we've had to kind of humble ourselves and admit that we can't say that I've got this all together, or I've got this figured out. And it's forcing us to lean on each other like we hadn't before realizing that my routine is now off, Lindsay's routine is now off, and that's going to create things that we didn't expect. And so to be able to trust one another, to kind of step into that lane and say, hey, let me help, or what if we try this, or why don't you take a break, step away, and trust that I will lead this. Now I wouldn't recommend that when it comes to homeschooling our kids because she needs to stay in that lane and not let me take over because that's just bad news. But like in other areas, just actually learning what lanes we need to stay in together, where we can still remain apart, and then humbly admitting when we need help. We're both stubborn at times, but we've figured each other out and we have pride in this. But being able to admit there's a lot going on in the house, outside the house, there's a lot that we don't have answers to, we're figuring this out every day, and if we can't lean on each other, and work together, and be able to admit we need help, and then respond when help is offered, we're in trouble. And that's been hard. We're not perfect in that - it's been an adjustment. But, you know, week five into this, we're still figuring it out, and I guess we're proud to say that it's been more better days than bad ones.

Kurt Bjorklund: Alright. So, tell us about the worst moment you've had since this all started and the best moment?

Lyndsay Brasher: So, we're coming from the family, for the most part, he is working full time from home, and for the most part, I'm with the kids’ full time from home. So, there's been those times where, you know, I'm trying to focus on a first and third graders homework while I have a five-year-old boy, and he's just going crazy. I'm trying to teach him maybe something that he will walk away while he has no desire to do this. And then we have a two-year-old, a baby, we're trying to keep busy. So, there's definitely been those times where everybody is crying, or everybody is pouting, and mom is almost right along with them, like the crying, and oh my gosh, what are we doing? And you know there's been a moment where Russ will be in the other room working and he'll can yell like, what is going on in there? Why is everybody yelling? Why's everybody crying? And that's when I want to be like, be quiet. We've had to learn like, hey, Russ, I do not appreciate when you are yelling over everybody and everybody else is yelling. I don't need anybody else chirping in on how things should be going. I think that's where he's learned if he needs 100% silence, he will go to the car, go outside, and put his headphones on. It's impossible for us to keep work, quiet or calm. And then there's those times instead of being like, what is going on, coming in and saying, hey, how can I help for a second, being able to jump into the other person's perspective, and have some patience and understanding with maybe what the other person's going through. And there are times where I know I can tell he is feeling overwhelmed trying to get stuff done and preparing something. And there's kids running all over the place, and that's my time that I can say, okay, we're going to go outside for an hour so you can have a little bit of peace and quiet.  But I think for us, instead of us just crying and yelling above everybody else, we've learned how can we kind of work together as a team?

Kurt Bjorklund: How about your best moment?

Russ Brasher: I think for me personally, the best moments have been these small moments where I'm still trying to work and do things from home, but realizing that when my kids run into what is now my office, which used to be and still is their living room, to them, I'm still just daddy. And even though daddy is normally at work, when daddy's home, he's dad. And even though I'm trying to work, just telling myself and realizing that I need to stop because no matter what I'm working on, it is not more important than my kids. And when I'm able to just stop, turn my rolling chair, take my headphones off, whatever, and just like acknowledge them, hear what they say, even if it sounds stupid, or I don't even understand what Avery's telling me, just acknowledging it, or taking two minutes to participate in or, answer this trivia question that Peyton spent three hours putting together, it's just in those little things where I'm seeing being a dad is still more important than anything else that I'm doing. It doesn't make what I'm doing not important, but that's been the sweetest things for me. And to go back to your question earlier, I hope that in any way that I can, I can keep that priority and maintain that because for any job it's hard sometimes to leave work at work and sometimes work comes home with you. Well, now home is work and still trying to say no matter what, that sweet spot of still being a dad has been very, very important to me and it's something that's been hard to figure out, I'm still figuring out, but is a gentle reminder daily.

Lyndsay Brasher: Russ has been taking his stress out on the trees in the backyard. And so, we've been cutting down trees and doing some yard work which has allowed us to almost every day be making a fire and being out there as a family in the backyard. We wouldn't be doing that as much with baseball, softball, dance, soccer, and whatever all else that was going on. And so, I've just been enjoying those like sweet little moments of us just being together. There's been a lot of moments where you feel like everybody's running around crazy. There's also been a lot of those sweet moments of just having fun together and taking family walks.

Russ Brasher: Yeah, we kind of created a family slogan like, "This is quarantining right." We pause, look at each other, and say that because it's those moments where regardless of what's happening right now, this is priceless. "This is quarantining right," so feel free to use that. That's not trademarked. Make t-shirts with it, whatever.

Kurt Bjorklund: What have you learned about God, or where have you seen God at work in your lives during this time?

Russ Brasher: Yeah, I mean, obviously the real quick one is just been in my time with the word. We've been releasing these Orchard Hill blogs and I just wrote a blog on how if you've ever wondered if scripture is really alive and active, the answer is absolutely yes. I've read through Acts, hundreds of times, preached on it, taught on it, and participated in lectures on it, but reading it now, God is meeting me where I'm at, speaking to my heart, and reminding me of His goodness, truth, and control in the midst of really scary things, and in the midst of really awesome things. That's just been such a blessing for me personally, and it keeps me focused. Lindsay mentioned earlier that I have no reason not to meet with Christ in the morning. Now there's nothing stopping me from waking up, doing that first, holding that discipline, and watching him show up every morning. It's just been awesome. There's been things happening in our house, like our sink started leaking, and we had water all over our kitchen. The tree fell and hit our house and did some pretty decent damage to some of our roof and some other things. And if a kid was looking like they're not feeling well, you start saying, God, why now, why, what are you doing? And being reminded instead, that's not the approach. That's not the mindset. It's, you know, God, I know you're good. I know you're in control. I know that. You're in this with me and I just have to look for you instead of looking at whatever it is. I have to look for you, despite whatever it is, and not let my circumstances dictate who I am or what I believe, but let God dictate who I am and what I believe. That's been so big this last month, and we've had those things happen where it's like, oh, all the time, why is this happening? But everyone is saying that. Everyone has that fear and God's just gently been whispering, I'm right here. I'm in control. I've got you. Don't focus on that, focus on me.

Lyndsay Brasher: I've done a couple different studies on anxiety and just things that relate to this situation. And I did this one study by Max Lucado. This quote that he said really stuck with me. Your challenge is not your challenge. Your challenge is the way you think about your challenge. Likewise, your problem is not your problem. The way you look at your problem is your problem. And I think that has been huge for me. That is my mindset. My thoughts going into this, yes, is not an ideal situation. Sometimes it's stressful. Sometimes it's frustrating with all the things that were not able to do. Sometimes it's scary. But if there's anything that I feel like I've learned that God is teaching me through this, is that through God we have that power to change the way we think about a situation, and I feel like for me that's clinging to Jesus's word, to his truth, and how he's provided the past. It's helping me, that clinging to Jesus and filling my mind with this truth, really helps me keep that anxiety at bay. And it keeps my thoughts focused on the good because if not, it's so easy to have your mind go wild with all the scary bad stuff. And I feel like that's just the coolness and greatness about God is that even in such a bad situation, a diseased situation, that God can still use that to do good. And I feel like those are the things I'm clinging to, just the conversations we've had with our family who are not followers, and they've never wanted to have those conversations before. So, I'm like, okay, if God is bringing people to him through this, that's something to celebrate, even if a lot of the other impact of this is not great.

Kurt Bjorklund: You need a time where people are open to considering things they wouldn't otherwise. And oddly, it's safer for people to check out church online than it is to walk through the door somewhere. And so, invitations right now have a lot of sway. Well, good, we're going to need to leave it here. Russ and Lindsay, thank you for taking your time. You guys are doing a great job with your kids and a great job in this season, and I look forward to when we get to hang out in person again. But thanks for being a part of this. And as always, if you have a question you'd like us to consider on Ask a Pastor, you can send them to askapastor@orchardhillchurch.com and we'll try to address some of those things in future episodes. Thanks for making this part of your day.