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.