You Were Worth It

To my sweet baby,

Oh, if you only knew the nights and days I dreamt of how magnificent you’d be. How you’d grow into your marvelous self and thrive and be fully you, unapologetically. Every pregnant belly I’ve had, I’d grin as jabs protruded my skin and poking stole my attention; my imagination would run wild with adoration for you. One positive pregnancy test and I was smitten. Absolutely smitten, no matter what chaos swirled in our family or that the timing wasn’t ideal, you were coming and that became an overriding joy in all I did.

But with my joy, there always came a sting. You see, your mom has struggled with a lot of things in her life, but one thing has hung over her for too long – body insecurities.

I have teetered between morbidly obese and overweight (two pounds from a normal BMI) since I was six. I remember the first horrifically negative comment that made me question myself and my size … and I remember many more after.

These childhood comments started to shake my being and I no longer felt lovable. I felt unworthy and like I didn’t belong. I was embarassed. Ashamed. Humiliated. And somewhere in the messy thoughts circling in my brain, I decided I didn’t have the right or a voice to combat it. I didn’t belong and disgustingly fat became my identity.

I spent many years with doctors and dieticians, quick fix diets and drawn-out programs in hopes to find a “normal” body. From elementary school and well into my college years, my weight fluctuated in almost alarming ways. Good days were only if I was lucky enough to feel skinny, bad days were every other day. Clearly, my issues were deeper than anything a diet could fix.

I finally met your dad and I still struggled, but he brought some peace to my caged mentality. At my heaviest, he fell in love with me.

Your daddy never saw my weight. He saw the control and torment it had over me, but his love never hinged on such a thing. He saw something I didn’t know I possessed, and I never saw it because I was so preoccupied with my own outer shell. Your dad showed me I was lovable already, just as I was. He was (and continues to be) Christ to me.

It’s from this place of my war within that I wanted to write this.

Child, I struggled carrying you.

While other mothers have ridiculous nauseousness or other major physical ailments while pregnant, I fought my old battles of “being disgustingly fat.” I’d have days that my gratitude and happiness were so abundant that I was flying high, but more days than not I struggled.

You see, much of our society loves to focus on the size and shape of a body versus what that body is actually doing. Conversation between women, pregnant or not, are hyper-focused on weight. Some applaud a woman for little or no pregnancy pounds. Some gawk at the mom that “got her body back” in months (and some even weeks) after delivery. Some jabber about “cute pregnant women,” insinuating some of us are not-so-cute pregnant women. I don’t have to give you much time to guess if any of those statements applied appropriately to me.

I was a big mama when carrying you. Most people never commented, but some felt at liberty, and some often did with a twinkle in their eye (assuming you were to be a huge baby or triplets). They spoke totally not knowing the dagger they were thrusting at my already fragile self-esteem.

It wasn’t until a long drive home one day that I pondered these thoughts at a deeper level. The radio was off, your siblings had fallen asleep in the car and I was just left with the silence. Whether it was God’s whisper to direct my chaotic mind or a bunch of crazy turns bringing me there, a very brave thought popped in my head.

Carrying you proudly in utero was the most selfless and loving thing I could give you in that moment.

We talk a lot about postpartum moms after they have their baby and the sacrifices that she must now learn and adjust to. But what about the body-shamed mama of just carrying the baby inside? What about the mom that worked hard to lose those 120+ pounds earlier in her life, only to be told to eat a little more and gain weight for the health of that sweet child? I mean, in her mind, what if gaining that weight never stops?

Can you imagine the mind games? Can you even dare go there and guess what war wages in that mom’s brain?

I can, my dear one, because that was me. And honey, that was for you. I did that for you. With many sobbing days and attempts to close my ears to the comments (whether those were my internal words or comments from others).

It seemed the more I told myself (and sometimes others) that my size and weight didn’t matter (but just that YOU WERE THRIVING), people still felt a need to comment on how huge we were. It was hard. Baby, it was harder than hard for me. Give me the barfing any day over my mind games.

I know these baby-making years will be gone before I know it. I’ll be able to get my weight back to somewhat healthy and perhaps even maintain it for longer than a year or two, but I don’t want to forget these hard days. I don’t want to forget them because I know someone else out there will feel this way someday (maybe even one of my babies). And that someone will NEED another mama to say, “Hey, I get you! And you’re not alone.”

You could even add, “Wow, your body is amazing! Look at what it’s doing! You’re making a whole NEW human being. You are making the next generation in your belly and it’s spectacular to witness.”

Be a voice contrary to society’s natural rhetoric, dear child. Dare to speak LIFE to those fragile souls, those poor mama souls like your mom. Remind them what a gift it is to give life to a new creation that God Himself knit together.

And don’t forget, Satan yearns to steal the beauty from such a breathtaking miracle. Don’t let him. He’ll make the world belittle the process, too. He wants only to steal, kill, and destroy ANYTHING that is this good, this amazing, this miraculous.

Remember just as babies are applauded for coming out in all shapes and sizes, so should the women that bear them into the world. One does not deserve love and applause over another. And really, that applies to absolutely every human situation.

Society does not have the right to have that much say over you or your significance. Only God has that power. And my child, He is soooo pleased over you. You are His beautiful and precious creation. He is more smitten over you than I have ever been (so that’s a pretty outrageous amount) and long before I ever knew you’d exist.

So before I close, let me reiterate, my sweet one: as hard as it was for me to carry you in my womb, you were worth it. Every single teary day, every single pound and roll and war within – you. were. SOOOO. worth it.

I love you, precious child. Thank you for letting me be your mom, flaws and all.

Love, your Mama

Death of Purpose

Do you know what happens when you attach your value on your appearance? On your body? On a number on a scale?

I do.

If you’re a woman, probably most of you know exactly what I am talking about. If you’re a man, maybe a slightly lower number.

I have spent my life from kindergarten until now, a thirty-five-year-old woman, wrestling this beast of an issue.

I remember the first comments on my size, telling me I jiggle too much. Or sticking “wide load” on the back of my shirt without my knowledge. Or making comments about what a waste of air I was because I was so fat. Or repeatedly trying to trip me because “the bigger they are, the harder they fall.” I remember these and more. They are burnt in my memory. Severely burnt.

From a young age, I experienced a culture that very much hated fat people (still does). I was morbidly obese most of my life and when you are told, subtly or not, that this one factor was to measure your worthiness, it does something to you.

It’s hard to rise up from this pit. It’s hard to dare to stare these faces down and vocalize your right for life because these people (these voices) just. don’t. care. And if they ever stop speaking these lies to you, your own mind will remember or Satan is all too proud to oblige.

I signed up for a weight loss bet last summer. It was right before the holiday of swimsuits, the Fourth of July. I have fluctuated between 160 and 300 most my life; really only in the last decade has it settled below 200. Well, I was approaching OVER 200 and I had a freak moment.

I heard about this bet from a friend and I was willing to shovel out money to force myself to lose weight. I had 6 months to lose 40 pounds. It would bring me to the lowest weight I have ever been as an adult. In fact, the last time I would have been my betting weight was 5th grade. In my desperation, it seemed very doable. I was so deranged, it seemed more possible than anything.

I signed up.

It took me 3 out of the 6 months to get to the point again that I thought I could do it. And the last 3 months were an everyday battle to think I could get remotely close to my goal.

Self-sabotage, anyone?

I fought. Inwardly and outwardly. I was hangry, frustrated, and I had to encounter bitter emotions and buried memories that I just didn’t want to face.

I weighed in: it was the morning of December 21st and the day of our first Christmas party. I made my goal and I really didn’t feel much different. Slightly, but not as drastic as I was hoping.

I FEASTED at Christmas. I ate whatever I wanted and however much could fit in my stomach (and then much more). I gained 20 pounds back. 20.

I woke up one Sunday morning, almost three weeks after my important weigh in, and I looked in the mirror and desperately tried not to obsess about my chubbier body. So many voices were whispering, attacking, destroying my confidence and it was so bad, I didn’t want to go to church. I didn’t want to face anyone.

I had many reasons to be at church that day and I am a stickler to commitments. If I commit, I COMMIT. I piled the kids in the car and we started our trek to church.

After arguing with myself in the car, like the demon on one shoulder and the angel on the other, I put each of my hands out. “Lord, here are my loaves and here are my fish. I am not sure if I even have a morsel of these left, but you can have it and you can have me. Please do anything you want with me. Anything. I am willing.”

And that’s when the fog cleared and the grand picture opened up.

Do you know what happens when you attach your value on your appearance? On your body? On a number on a scale?

Defeat.

Distraction.

Death of purpose.

What are we created for? Are we mere bodies that are meant to hold a certain shape or to merely look pleasing to the eye?

How much do we lose when we gather our purpose from others? When we calculate our worth based on a flashing number on a plastic platform?

I am ashamed that such a notion would even dwell in my mind and make me think for a moment, a Sunday morning, a large part of my life, that my mere shell holds my importance.

Luke 8 says, “And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?”

A part of me wonders if we, as creations of God Most High, have lost our connection with Him so much that we have nothing left but to look at ourselves? What a shame. What a shallow life. What an empty and unfulfilled existence.

I think it’s a little ironic that after my weight loss adventure these last months, I am not too far off from where I began. Still lighter, but no where near I was at my lowest. But something else changed, too. Embarrassment has an interesting way of humbling you a bit. With some humble pie, I realize maybe that’s the best state God can use me in.

Broken. Unfixed. Real.

After all, what can God do with a Manda that can do it all and then some?

Sixty years down the road, what is going to matter? At the end of my life, when my body is even more pulled and sagged as it is now, what is going to truly count?

This body is merely a vessel of something much more valuable than mere shape and body organs. Good health is important, but it was never meant to become my god or an excuse for perfecting my shell to impress others. Afterall, it’s going to all rot anyway.

When I reach 95, I want to be a spry, rosy-faced, wrinkly, real-hearted woman that glows life not because of a diet regimen or the five miles I walked daily, but because of the decades I have spent with the Creator of the universe by my side! That’s more than enough for me.

Chase your desires and chase your scale if you want, but know that true purpose dies when our focus in life goes no further than the end of our noses.

 

January Woes

January is a dark month for me. This is my thirty-fifth January and I have now had enough of them that I automatically dread them. I know what’s coming. I know this month is bad for me. I try to be intentional with how to combat it, but it’s always ugly.

We’re half way through January 2019 and I have already found myself praying for the sixth time, “God, how many start overs can I have?”

Start over with being kinder to my kids. Start over with trying to be on time to things. Start over with healthy eating. Start over with going to bed early. Start over with more time with Jesus. You name it. I am so. sick. of. starting. over.

I have a picture of how I want to be. In fact, I am a woman of lists and I even sat down one night (late night, breaking my “bed early goal’ and “healthy eating goal“ [I was eating handfuls of chocolate chips]) and wrote a detailed list of what a perfect Manda would be like.

Let me tell you, everything seems possible as I am stuffing my face with junk and staying up ridiculously late, living the tomorrow is a new day mantra.

I did this in 2018, too. Do you know how many “start overs” I had last year? Maybe 32,745. All very similar things as 2019. None of which I could ever perfect.

As I was driving home from visiting some family today, I had quiet in the car as all my kids slept. The thought occured to me, again as I was making plans for tomorrow is a new day, that I can’t do this another year. I just can’t. I can’t keep living in the day after day after day feeling failure.

I even noticed that these expectations did indeed hold heaviness. We always hear they do, but as I was driving in the silence, I felt it. Like a twenty-pound boulder heavy on my heart, not my shoulders, my heart.

I can’t keep doing this in 2019 and I definitely can’t do this for the next decade or four decades or six. I just can’t.

All these things tell me one thing – I am trying to change the wrong thing.

This whole topic is a leftover from my Year of Unapologetic. There’s something deeply rooted inside that tells me I am not enough and that I must ALWAYS improve. That I CAN perfect if I whip myself into it. That if I work hard enough and beat myself into submission, I can do all the impossible and then some. I can conquer it and I can be perfect.

I mean, I feel I have had moments of being “put together”. They lasted maybe 2 minutes, but I remember it. And in most cases, it was insanity to maintain.

But it needs to stop. And it ends when I decide to quit.

That starts with refusing to continue the rat race of who’s losing what weight with what product, what method. Who’s training for what. Who got a new car or new addition to her house or decluttered half her belongings or took a trip to Timbuktu. It has to start with quitting it all.

And friends, I’m ready.

It’s a new adventure. It’s the unknown and maybe lonely. It’s being misunderstood and unacknowledged. It’s being misjudged and maybe some talk behind my back and fake friends disappearing. But it’s freedom for me and sweet surrender in Jesus.

It’s okay to just be. It’s been said in so many circles, “We’re human beings, not human doings,” and it just might be time I live that.

Because these start over days don’t need to be. I don’t have to wake up to success or failure, I can just wake up and be grateful. I can let the words of those striving breeze by me and just be. I can choose to walk forward on my own path.

January is hard. And it’s ugly right now, but the last thing I need is more pressures and more forced perfection. I fail daily and that will never change, no matter how much brain-washing I do. I can improve, but not in the pursuit of impressing anyone or to increase my value.

So there. That’s my declaration of autonomy for anyone that cares, but specifically for me. Really, just me. And tomorrow I am waking up differently, and I tear up at the thought.

Year of Home

I’m a stay-at-home mom. My hubby and I have four kiddos under seven. While most people assume our household is chaotic, in all honesty, our chaos has tamed compared to what it was just a year ago when my youngest was a baby.

We decided four biological babies are our number, so for the first time in my mom history I am not expecting (or have a newborn) at the time my last baby turned 18 months.

This has made my wings flutter a little. Flap with independence and freedom. Obviously not from motherhood, but from the concentrated focus of babyhood.

However, allowing myself to stretch in autonomy opened my eyes to the many yeses I could finally commit to, leaving my babies and hubby at home.

As you can probably guess, my wings started moving and my goal list in 2018 blew up with new ideas and reaching out and meeting people and serving. I was running. Some weeks, running half the week or more to things that had nothing to do with my kids. And I LOVED it. LOVED IT!!!!!

If you could see me as I write this, you’d see me shaking my head and rolling my eyes.

It’s at this moment, as my wings were flapping and my gaze was reaching further and further into the future that I got a gracious punch in the gut.

My husband switched his job. This changed my schedule of freedom and the jingle in our pockets to an almost starting over mode.

He needed a new job. He was at total burnout with no hope of renewal, so it was time. But the truth is, I needed a change too. And in my case, a wake up call.

My heartbeat is to help people. I love to love. I love to serve. I love to share LIFE and JESUS with anyone that is willing to listen.

But you know what? As I did more and more of that, my family was getting the leftovers of those times. I’d give my shiny best to so many others and I’d come home with just chintzy scraps of sanity.

Something had to change.

Something HAS to change.

So that’s where I’m at. That is my adventure of 2019.

It’s time to refocus. It’s time to be intentional. It’s time to build my home to be more homey. More homey in conversations. In fun and relationships. In special one-on-one moments. In cleanliness. In organization. It’s time I make the homefront of my young family my biggest passion and mission in life.

I’ll admit, it feels a lot less glamorous than Year of Unapologetic in 2018. It even stings a little to let go of some of my opportunities outside of my home, but this must be done.

My role as mother and wife are my callings right now. I may not have anything spectacular to show to you or the world or anyone else (that might remotely care), but I’ll make a gargantuan difference in five very important souls.

And the fruit of putting them first? Well, that probably won’t be revealed right away either (or it might? maybe in small doses!?!?), but the truth is I KNOW it will produce fruit eventually. In my marriage, in my relationship with each of my children, and definitely in me.

So here I go! Year of Home 2019. Like my last Year of Unapologetic, I bet it will start one way and birth something totally unexpected.

I can’t wait!

A Start

“Lord, I don’t want to miss it! I desperately don’t want to miss You! Not again this year!”

I was explaining to my sister and niece the other day that it seems that every Christmas storms into my life with it’s busyness and cookies and presents and planning and when it’s done I feel like I missed it all. Everything. At least everything meaningful.

I often peer back at the rush of it and my heart aches with disappointment. I missed Him. Again. And I tread into the New Year with a bit of grief.

I remember one year sitting in the church pew as a teen feeling the same. I looked around at the others at the candlelit Christmas Eve service and all I could think was what was I possibly missing? Why does everyone see Jesus and the wonder and seem to “adore” Him and I am just grappling at having any connection with Him at all?

This morning my son is helping my girls set up their new princess legos they got from their auntie for Christmas. There’s an unadulterated joy in their voices and ramblings and I am still looking out the window and wondering.

Who AM I looking for? Is it really the Christ-child or is it someone else? Is it a feeling? If it is merely an emotion, I still don’t have a name for it. Whomever and whatever I am seeking, I am just weary of the seeking that never seems to be satisfied.

And if I stop in the tears and unsettling of the unknown, I wonder if that’s the point. The waiting. The desperate waiting for relief.

All over Scripture we see nature and people were WAITING for the Savior to come. Desperately looking in hope and expectation, knowing that God would fulfill His promise.

And when Jesus was born, all of creation exhaled. Whether they knew immediately He was physically present in their world or not, I imagine there being a flood of unexplained peace that just trickled into every crevice of the earth.

Hope was born.

And maybe that’s how it starts, at least for me. I must have a desperate craving for Him to really experience the communion I hope for. I must search for Him. Express it to Him. I have tasted His presence and anything less just seems so counterfeit.

Afterall, how precious is something that is easy to come by? That just falls in your lap? Or warms your heart at the first nonchalant mention?

So the first step is exactly where I’m at.

Jesus, I just want you. Everything else just leaves me empty. Let your birth bring a new perspective. And may the beauty and amazingness and craziness and miracle of You coming to earth start to penetrate within.

I just crave hope. I crave You.

And if you’re in the same spot as me, take heart. You’re not alone. Even in the midst of the world’s fake Santa Holiday delight, real. joy. lives.

His name is Jesus Christ.

He stands as ready as He ever has; even as ready as He was at birth and as He died on the cross…for you…for me.

He won’t come uninvited. He just wants an honest heart that craves Him.

And I’ll start there. In my waiting and my discomfort. In my hope and anticipation.

And if you’re with me there, maybe you can start there too. Sit in that melancholy, searching, wondering, the uneasiness, or maybe grief and feel it. Take your hands and give it to the Christ-child. Let it go and just let Him move.

He has come. He is here. He is coming again.

What’s in a word?

“Year of Unapologetic” is wrapping up and I am absolutely dumbfounded at what I’ve learned this year; I am amazed at how one word changed my outlook of myself, my world, my Jesus. When I chose it in January, I used it with pure skepticism that really anything positive would come from it but just a lot of made up confidence and stories.

As I ventured through the year with this word, I realized quick that it was definitely misunderstood. Some labeled it in conversation as a bit egocentric, especially in some of my Christian circles. It appeared that my focus was so much on ME, so much on bettering ME and understanding ME and valuing ME, and to be honest, where was Christ in that?

Um…everywhere.

I have brought these concerns to Jesus so many times, a bit embarassed and wondering, “Man, God, are these people right?” And every time I have prayed that prayer I get an all-encompassing peace (and sometimes even whispers within), “No, this is your journey. They don’t know your journey. This is your next step. Just. Keep. Going.”

I spent so many years burying my head in shame and fear and anxiety about who I was as Manda that it chained me from what God has been calling me to do. I have spent my life apologizing for myself in ways and areas that I have no reason to apologize for. I marked that as being kind and humble, but all it did was make me weak and spineless (and dare I say, ineffective) for God’s Kingdom.

To NOT live authentically as Manda, as the Manda God created with the passions and wildness and uniqueness and battle scars and rawness and realness that I encompass, is to miss a part of Jesus that I am meant to share. God speaks through these things and shines in the beauty and rough-edges that make up me.

A phrase hit me like a ton of bricks this fall, “You don’t know what’s on the other side of obedience.” I have run with this. I have learned to say yes to pretty much everything. It’s easier to say yes to things when you are living unapologetically and fearless. Even in the face of pure fear and uttering nonstop prayers as I kept taking next steps, it has pryed open my eyes to the amazingness that awaits on the other side of obedience.

You want a full life? Follow Jesus. You want a crazy life? Follow Jesus. Are you an adrenaline junkie (because I definitely know a few)? Follow Jesus. Take that step of obedience, no matter how small, and see a journey unfold. And not just any journey, but a journey that makes you swear you’ll never turn back.

In this year I have found my voice. I have found my voice and I am not too timid to use it. And just to be clear, not all words I say are good, but wow, sometimes the words that come out are so timely in my life or someone else’s life that I am just shocked. God has used my awkward bravery in ways that I cannot fully write out here.

Boldness, confidence, bravery, zeal, vision, passion – these have been the fruits of Year of Unapologetic. Daring to seek God for my identity and my voice and allowing His opinion to outweigh and even shut-up outside critics, this too has been fruit.

I look back at 2018 with grateful tears. How did I get here? How have I gotten this free and healed and empowered and alive?

Jesus. All Jesus. Saying yes to Him. Doing what sounds and looks stupid for Him just because I feel Him nudging me to do so. Living unapologetically, not for myself, but for Him and fully in Jesus.

What’s my new word for 2019? Every word seems lackluster after such an empowering year. But whatever word God breathes into my thoughts, I anticipate the adventure of it. And whatever He chooses, I am completely optimistic of a greater understanding of God and what He wants with me through it.

Ten Years of Compost

I am reading 6 parenting books, 3 Psychology-type books, and not enough of my Bible lately. I have 3 other books that help me formulate prayers for my sons, daughters, and hubby, and Jesus is Calling is always read with my morning cup of cold-brew. You’d think with all these words going from paper to my brain that I’d be exploding with ideas to write about. But no.

When I was in college (completing degrees in writing and Psychology… ooo… yes… impressive… but not), one of my professors touched on the thought of composting ideas, an awful way of talking about “writer’s block.” When nothing innovative is coming to screen or paper, just give it time – let it compost.

Well, I’ve run with that for almost ten years now. I have written here and there, but nothing like I have in school (although I was paying thousands for that and for a degree).

I feel like one big mass of events and one unacknowledgable creature of emotions because I have not sat down to actually see what this composting period has done. As a girl that wrote out her emotions for clarity (because I have always struggled with identifying what each emotion really is), I have had no writing or thinking or evaluating attached to these years; just survival.

Can I just breathe?

Can I just sit for a moment and be raw?

That back there, that last decade of chaotic life-building events and moments, that was crazy hard.

And beautiful.

I’m nowhere near the Manda that started that journey. I have cracked and bent and collapsed and exploded and released and birthed so much; many days it’s just hard to even recognize myself.

And (I think) I’m okay with that. That’s probably normal. We change in every season of our lives – some seasons you stretch more than others. And sometimes I have stretched so much I feel a need to re-introduce myself (Ha! No, seriously.).

But I am now realizing all that back there, including my lack of Manda, is not so much what I have to “sort through,” but more like it’s time to use my compost…and move on…move up.

A definition of compost is “a decayed mixture of plants that is used to improve the soil in a garden.”

My decayed plants are anything and everything from these last years – singleness to marriage, infertility to a mother of four in five years, weight gain to weight loss (To weight gain! Hey, being real here.), births to deaths, unemployment and insurmountable bills to debt-free and flourishing. My decaying plants are all of that and more.

So what in the world do I do with all these piles of compost?

I don’t sort it; I work it into my garden to improve the soil. I work it in to improve my future plants, my future years, the future generations, my children and their children. I work it. I use it. I already learned from it (whether I acknowledged it or not) and now it’s time to plant something NEW.

I let the mass of decay just mix all in and look at it as a whole instead of parts.

I survived. I’m grateful. I learned a lot so I could survive, but I am ready to grow.

This is the realization of newness. Anticipation without looking back. Taking my past, painful and tender, and instead of mulling on it, building from it.

I feel a loud echo within saying “It. Is. Time.” and I think this may be the foundation of me living this year unapologetically.

Here I go!

(Thank you, Rebekah Lynn, for these quotes you shared.)

Unapologetic

I have spent most my life apologizing. For being too fat. Too slow. Too needy. Too desperate. Too motivated. Too unmotivated. For having no kids to having too many kids. I have felt many things in my life have been scrutinized. If it wasn’t picked apart by someone else, it was most definitely picked apart by me.

There have been some major victories in my life, ranging from “beating the odds” of having kids to losing over one hundred pounds. Perhaps my biggest miracle is life itself; some days and years I thought it would be great to just not exist. And in these victories, I have often hung my pride.

But you know what’s ridiculous? If there are any medals to be hung about anything, they just melt away within moments. In a blink, there’s a new day with new amazements and new reasons to just. not. be. enough. Humans are so fickle.

My best friend, Rebekah and I went on a short reading voyage of picking one theme word for 2018. It seemed sentimental and an inspiring thing to do and we flung our thoughts and emotions into it. Five short days later, we arrived at conclusions. For me, I chose the word free.

I loved the idea. I envisioned saying yes to things that I normally would shy away from, strutting with confidence and courage and anticipation. But then I feared the reality of attempting to be free. I thought about seeing pictures or rehashing conversations and a sudden squash of embarrassment filled my gut. A shame of feeling too chubby when viewing the pictures or feeling judged or misunderstood by things I said. So, it had to change. Free didn’t seem right.

One morning I stood before the mirror. I was looking at my belly of fat and excess skin. I was looking at my face and the new lines that were slowly appearing. I looked at my hair that was absorbing every ounce of iron from our well water which made it orange instead of blonde. I looked at my moles that seemed to be exploding off my body (thanks, Mom). I looked at my blue eyes and five tattoos and teeth that were more yellow than white due to my coffee addiction. And though my body stole most of my gaze, I felt a weird surrender.

I knew this girl.
I knew this woman.
I knew her story.
This was me.

Every ugly day has brought me a deeper beauty that could never be contained on a mere body of bones, skin, and fat. These “flaws” tell my story, my journey, and my struggles along the way.

My word had to change. It was time to be…unapologetic.

What if I owned her? What if I stood tall, satisfied, unreformed by society? What if I just committed to being me and not look around for anyone else’s approval or disapproval?

What. would. happen.

I told Rebekah that I just wasn’t sure how this word would play out or what it completely meant. I am only month two into unapologetic and have to admit, I am still debating the girth of the word. While I picked it for very clear reasons, it is something I wrestle with everyday. But just as quick as I stated my uncertainties, Rebekah said, “Well, we have all year to figure that out.”

And yes. Yes, we do.

Lessons at South Friborg

The wind is howling outside. Trees shaking their new leaves and the lilacs popping out to give their spring scent. The skies are heavy gray and I am just waiting for the first raindrop. Somewhat revealing of my own mental place today. The kids are all napping, I have a cup of iced coffee at my side, and I am curled up with the blue afghan my aunt Bev made me two decades ago.

I am remembering her today. Remembering me. Remembering Heyma. Remembering Ruth. Remembering all the “hers” that I have lost sight of. Remembering the women that rooted me and the ones that have somehow shaken loose.

The howling wind takes me to my childhood. Watching the trees sway, I was somewhat fearful of damage, of what was coming, of the unexpected explosion that may just interrupt my world. I remember sitting on Heyma’s front porch, cuddled up with a quilt on her day bed, closed eyes, the wind comforting and concerning me all at the same time. The howling through the night that would shake the old windows of my room at home. The rattling rocking me to sleep.

I listened to MPR on my way to South Friborg Cemetery this morning. This was the only radio station I recall hearing in Heyma’s car growing up. My kids and I picked a few 

branches of lilacs at our house to bring to her grave today. Lilacs are about as symbolic of Heyma for me as her green eyes and red hair. We drove by the same fields, the same lakes and trees, and the same family farms she knew in her day. Man, how things have changed. How people have changed. How I have changed.

We pulled up to the cemetery, my kids wide-eyed. A sense of reverence settled in my body, something my kids have not learned yet, but will. We opened the heavy metal gate, the same one I remember as a kid when I visited this same cemetery with Heyma. I brought our lilacs and told Olivea and Tosten to collect some other flowers from the grass (dandelions).

We sat down by her gravestone. I cried. My kids were too enthralled by all the mysteries of a cemetery to truly relax, but they tried. They eventually got up and decided to explore, whispering, stooping to look at the pictures on each gravestone, picking more “flowers” and bringing them back to Heyma’s grave. And I sat. And sat. I am still not sure what Manda sat there, whether it the mother-of-three Manda or the eight-year-old Manda sitting, but I sat.

We eventually held hands, walking through the gravestones as I attempted to explain what a cemetery was. I explained who lived in the cemetery and why we visit them. I explained the respect that each grave should be given as we walk through. I explained eternity and death and life and a million abstract thoughts at once to my children…and they just giggled. They eventually ran off and collected more dandelions to decorate each gravestone.

And it all seemed so silly. Ridiculous even.

What does a child know about such things? About death and life and heaven and hell and cemeteries and people dying that are never suppose to leave? What do they know about the millions of tears that have dropped on this ground, the dashed dreams, the broken spirits, and incurable aches that have been placed here. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And they won’t…until it happens. And it will. It always does.

The wind howled again and this time with a chill. Olivea rushed to me and said, “I cold. We go?” And that’s exactly how it feels.

But I have to remind myself…this is not the end. It is cliche’, but for them, this is just their beginning. They will feel this brokenness and probably much more. They will be crushed in ways that I never had to experience and none of those before me ever had to. And the one they’ll be mourning might be me someday. It might be my husband. It might even be each other.

And that’s how the circle goes. Round and round, generation to generation, woman to woman. Human to human. Years keep clicking by and more are born and more die. My life is but a spark in an explosion of life.

And I must live now. My moment with them is now.

I am pretty sure if Heyma was watching this whole ordeal as we visited her grave today, she probably would have been full-grinned, laughing at my children’s pure pleasure of life as they traipsed around the cemetery. In fact, most people in that cemetery probably would have delighted in their joy. Because sometimes that’s what death is…joy. Joy at birth. Joy at death. Joy of the in between. And joy of eternity.

It can be joy.

I guess if there was one thing I could teach my kids about life and death it is that it’s all fluid. The world changes. Brokenness is guaranteed. And cemeteries, well, really, they are just the place of old bodies that couldn’t hold spirits anymore. And those spirits, some of them go to a much better place where joy is the only thing that is experienced. And Jesus, well, Jesus is as real as He ever was on earth…but more.

And when their smiles hit ear to ear I will smile back and say, “I can’t wait for that either.”

The Dance

“You are mine for all time.” I woke up from deadness. My eyes peeled open and my heart started to race.

“You are mine for all time…I want you to realize how utterly secure you are! Even if you falter as you journey through life, I will never let go of your hand” (Jesus Calling, page 73).

I remember in college God gave me a very clear image of my relationship with Him. In the middle of a very ordinary Sunday at Church of the Open Door, God was doing a dance in my head. His arms high and wide open, His eyes fixed on me, and He grinned and laughed as He flawlessly and beautifully stepped in rhythm to His joy. There wasn’t music, there wasn’t a beat, but He danced, to and fro, inviting me to join.

I remember seeing myself enter the picture of God’s dance, embarrassed that I didn’t know how to join Him. His smile only widened as I tried to take His hands and dance with, only to stare at my feet and stumble like a drunkard as I tried to learn the moves of His legs. He laughed again…always laughing. He took my chin and raised it up to look at Him.

When I looked at Him, when my eyes were locked with His, our legs and feet were in perfect sync. And as we continued to dance, I started to smile and laugh just as much as He did and I had never felt such perfect pleasure.

I lost that. I lost Him. I think bits and pieces have slowly torn away and I have forgotten that dance. Actually, I think I wasn’t even in the same room as that dance.

These past months I have been devastated. Broken. I would even say something as drastic as dead. I have been so focused on survival and trying to do everything in my life perfectly that I just worked myself to death. I felt like a workhorse, but the workhorse that no one saw was working. Giving and giving and giving and dying and dying and dying. In my death, I lost my Savior. I lost my understanding of Who He really was and is. I lost my identity.

As I cracked open my devotional last week to the date to read, the words were like a shock collar wake up: “You are mine for all time.”

For all time? I am HIS for ALL TIME? I know I used to be, but I still am? I am STILL His?

Someone saw me. Someone liked me. Someone took ownership over me, and not just ownership, but a jealous ownership. And He took me as I was. The messy, crazy, broken Manda that I was.

And then ”I will never let go of your hand.” You mean, God, you still have my hand? Really? Even after all that has passed through my life and all the death I have allowed myself to wallow in?

Weird things happen when joy returns. Visions return. Life returns. Resurrection begins.

I am not being overly dramatic, though I am not sure how to convey this in writing, when I write that these last few months have been the darkest I have felt in years…maybe even decades…life? I felt alone and what I always relied on to comfort was not satisfying. Even when I sought God, I felt like He was unmoved. He didn’t see me or hear me or even recognize my calling. This same God that had invited me to dance at the beginning didn’t even notice I stopped. He hadn’t even noticed I was a corpse.

But maybe He didn’t stop dancing. Maybe I wasn’t even dead. Maybe He just changed the dance. Instead of inviting me to join Him, He had to hold me in the dance. Rock me in tenderness. Whisper truth in my dead ear until my hardened heart heard.

“You are mine for all time.”