That. Is. It.

And that’s it. I am waving the white flag: surrender! surrender! surrender! I am so done. Done with wearing layers of warmth in my house! Done making three meals (usually more if you count snacks) everyday for three kids that drain and strain and pull the life out of me. I am done washing every piece of laundry I have from spewed vomit and diarrhea from my little humans. Done with stepping on the scale and seeing the number reach higher and higher, all while I stuff another handful of Apple Cinnamon Cheerios in my mouth. Done trying to run, okay, since we’re being utterly honest, walk on that stupid treadmill in the basement. A mile was all I could dare to muster today, followed by another handful of Apple Cinnamon Cheerios.

I have prayed. I have read encouragements. I have diffused oils. I have cleaned my house from top to bottom. I have jogged. I have snuggled my life-suckers. I have dreamt of future trips to Montana. I have envisioned myself with this gob of fatty skin cut off my stomach. I have tried to hold hands with Optimism, but either I was too pessimistic for her or she just didn’t understand me.

Today I stop.

This is day three stuck in this prison of our house. Sick kiddos and one exhausted mom, more from giving until my limbs feel like they are going to fall off. Giving and receiving nothing but more vomit, more poop, more laundry to wash and try to put away. And as I sit sipping my coffee, and yes, eating my Cheerios, while watching Sesame Street with my lazy little humans I grapple at finding something to find hope for.

And I weep.

Is it at the end of ourselves, the end of our best efforts, the bottom of that Cheerio bowl that something sacred is found? Nothing satisfies. Absolutely nothing satisfies. And I just want to wallow here…and eat Cheerios, maybe chocolate chips would be a better option at this point.

And just as fast as I write those words, a typhoon of grace sweeps under my belly and swells with a soft whisper that says, “And NOW you’re ready.”

Ex-writer

I have been having an internal battle of what to write about. I mean, this is silly: I spent a ridiculous amount of money to go to a university so they could teach me how to become a more compelling writer. It should trickle out of my fingers onto the keyboard and on this screen without a second thought. Right?

Hey, I am a mom. A stay-at-home mom of three kids ages three and under – you’d think I have some pretty inspiring stuff to say, but I don’t. Not to mention, I have a past that was less than pleasant where I was so lost and so dead. Ideas should be squirting out of my ears (or welcome to motherhood).

I even started a conversation with my best friend Rebekah about it over a large bowl of fries at Granite City this Christmas. And this woman is smart, but wow, she said something jaw-dropping to me that I couldn’t rattle from my thoughts. She said, “Perhaps nothing is coming because you’ve already dealt with it all. Writing was a way that you could make sense of things from your past. Maybe you’re moving forward.”

Forward?

Woah.

I am teeter-tottering between finally walking away from my past with some type of acceptance and looking with full gaze at my present and my future. I have spent so much energy on the voices that crushed me, whether from others or myself, and I chose to believe them and allow them to shape my existence. But now that I see more of the grand picture, I see the truth. I see the intentions behind the voices that yelled defeat over me. I understand. I get it. And ironically, I am so over it. And whether it was the few voices of hatred or my very own, I have forgiven them. I have forgiven myself.

Last week Tyler was looking at a scrapbook I made of our dating years and we came across a picture of us two in the middle of a Minneapolis park. He circled his finger around my face. My very round face. Round with acne face. One thing stood out – my glowing grin and eyes. He said, “Look at how genuinely happy and carefree you were.”

I was a little dumbfounded. Maybe even offended? I was more than 100 pounds heavier there and if I would have been honest, I absolutely hated myself when that picture was taken. I was depressed. I ate all my emotions. I was in denial that I had garbage in my brain to deal with. But in this photo, my eyes were telling a totally different story.

Maybe that past Manda held a wisdom of her own? That Manda had something that THIS Manda didn’t have. What was it? And how did I misplace it?

I didn’t know.

I still don’t.

So here I am, wobbling over the line of releasing my past and plunging into my future. I don’t know where this is leading or where this will take my writing. Having this Manda and that Manda somehow meet and figure everything out sounds a bit disturbing, like maybe I have a mental illness or something, but I am certain that the mediation between the two will bring about something spectacular…like freedom…and maybe a new hobby that doesn’t include writing.

I Don’t Know

After a hiatus, I am inching my way back onto this blog. To sit down and actually write feels about as brave as starting in the first place or even admitting to the scrutinizing writing world that yes, I write. I used to be writer. Well, I used to think I was a writer. Or something like that.

As a friend encouraged me to attempt to write again, I laughed. What in the UNIVERSE would I write about? I mean, I have plenty to write about, but what would I write about that would really matter? What significant voice do I have in this vast world of endless words?

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
– Ernest Hemingway –

This Tree

And in this moment, right here, in this photo, with Ellenor snuggled next to me, I felt happy. It was so strong it was as if heat was wafting out of my ears, my heart at complete ease, and all seemed right in the world. In my world.

We picked out our family Christmas tree today. I am a firm believer in REAL trees and I think I always will be. Many childhood memories revolve around a Christmas tree, a real one, even though my mom stopped getting real ones as I got in my teen years. And just as I am a firm believer in real trees, I am almost an even firmer believer in “Charlie Brown trees.” So much so that I would prefer one of Charlie’s to a perfectly symmetric, full-boughed tree. I figure full trees are a little prideful anyway.

This year, as we have done a couple previous years, we decided to go to my family’s land and try to “thin out” by cutting down one of the pines that were clustering and choking each other out. This is always the best way to find a Charlie tree! While we waited for Tyler to scout out the trees (which Tyler is the best scoper-outer ever…always picking the best possible choice…which is exactly how he picked me), my dad pulled up in his grain truck and decided to help pull the kids out of the pickup. As we waited for Tyler to surface again, my dad began to tell me a bit about the land.

It was a field at one point. I had no idea. I had been by this piece of land probably several hundred times in my life and I had always assumed it was a tree hill. There was little flatness to this land. A bunch of small independent hills somehow uniting just because they had to. And it was a small chunk of land surrounded by roads and water. What a nightmare for any farmer. He then told me how he helped my grandpa and some hired men plant these trees in the 1950s.

All of a sudden this land took new life. These trees took new life. These hills that my dad just smiled and reminisced about somehow seemed…magnificent.

It’s moments like this that I wish I could stop and record every word. Like somehow I am missing something. Like “there’s some wisdom here: listen carefully.”

As Tyler appeared, he brought us on a quest through the snow-laden grass and what seemed like secret passages through the pines. We then came across this one lone tree. He was small in the shadows of his peers, but he was alone and randomly boughed (totally unsymmetrical) and grew exactly how he was meant to grow. My heart began to beat faster and I said, “this is the one.”

 

As we all stood there, deciding this was the tree, a part of me felt a weird connection to my Grandpa and to my ten-year-old Dad. Did they have any idea in the 50s that they would be planting this tree for me, for their grandchildren, for generations after them? It probably crossed my Grandpa’s mind. But as that tree seemed to glow (like in all the movies), it just seemed too magic. Too amazing. Too reverent.

 

We cut half the tree, which seemed barbaric to me, but Tyler assured me the remainder would grow and eventually have a rounded top and be happy. And Tyler, with his He-Man strength, carried it to the truck and we all rode in dreamy-eyed excitement home. Well, except for Tyler: he knew what awaited us as we tried to squeeze this beauty in our living room.

Right now, everyone is in their beds and I just sit. I sit on our brown couch, the fireplace humming, and ponder on it: pine cones still clinging to the branches, still uncluttered with lights or ornaments, and I think it may be the most beautiful tree I have ever seen.

 

New Magic

I remember the red and white shag carpet between my toes and the smell of cinnamon candles wafting through the house. She’d always place her reindeer and santas and snow scenes on the side tables and the top of the TV and any other open spot she could find.

I remember the little elves she hid in the windowsills and the stories she invented of their adventures from the North Pole to her house.

I remember her fat pine in the corner, fat in the sense that it seemed about as wide as it was tall. All of us cousins giggling, stuffing our jaws with candies and peanuts and cookies and chocolate, hanging her glittery ornaments on the tree’s limbs.

I remember two punch bowls of nutmeged egg nog and dad being overly concerned and constantly asking which bowl we were choosing to drink from.

But what I remember most is Heyma.

I remember the feeling of warmth. A warmth that I still have never felt except with her. Every attempt at trying to describe her and her presence and the feeling I felt when I was with her seems so lackluster. To be with her. To be alive and breathing and celebrating and laughing in her presence was an experience that shaped how I live. Her relationship made me.

Sometimes I go back to those moments, especially sharing Christmas with her. I close my eyes. I try to sneak back, like Lucy pushing back all the coats and clothes in the wardrobe to get back to Narnia. I push back the years and the logic and brokenness of growing up and I trade my skeptic adult mind for the hopeful giggles of my childhood.

One such time was last night.

Lonely has been an understatement of my journey right now. Where God has placed me is a very quiet, kept life in my home, caring for Tosten and Olivea and watching another little girl for a little income 36 hours a week. I see two adults all day. Laura, when she drops off and picks up Sarah and my husband.

I’m not complaining. I love being home with my children. But I’m lonely. I loved working in the community, seeing changes and smiles of populations I was working with and while I get this at home, it’s a much smaller scale.

As Tyler ventured to New York Mills to get his buck for the season, there I was alone again. I’ll admit, it was exciting to have a break in routine and I decided to stay up as long as my body would let me for the night. But, there was still a part of me that was lonely.

Once Tyler left, there we were. I have been trying to cut down on screen time with my family, but I reluctantly turned on the TV. I scrolled through the channels, both kids’ gaze glued to the screen to see what I’d choose: I found a free music station. Christmas must be getting closer because we only get music stations on TV when the holiday approaches. This year, it was “Traditional Holidays” they were giving. Perfect. This music was like a turbo-elevator to my childhood joy and I definitely needed some joy injections. And an added bonus for this anti – screen mama, there was no picture or flashiness for my kids to stare at.

As I sat like a lump on the couch, I clicked it on and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” filled the room. Of course this song had to be on, one of my favorites. Memories flooded and gushes of happiness and joy and loneliness all crept in. I closed my eyes.

As my mind moved through the wardrobe, seeking the warmth and the glimmering magic of my childhood and of Christmas and of Heyma, tears started to stream. I was okay here. I could have spent the night in this place, crying, giggling, remembering, feeling the magic and hope, but something interrupted me.

A little hand yanked on my blanket. I opened my eyes and smiled, but closed them again as not to lose this moment. He yanked again and kept repeating, “Come on! Come on, Mama!”

I looked at him again, a warm grin filled his whole face, rosy cheeks and a mischievous haircut and he took my hand and helped me up. Tosten pulled me in the center of the room and grabbed my hands and bounced.

In that moment, the giggles exploded out of his mouth and my tears only streamed down more.

Somehow the magic of my childhood and his newfound magic of his childhood met and I was dancing with him in the middle.

As we continued to move, the songs switched to “Frosty the Snowman” and “O Holy Night” and fast song and slow song and fast song and slow song and we danced to each of them. Olivea joining now, stomping her left foot and wiggling her bottom to the ground.

I twirled in my teal dress, Olivea in her orange one. All three of us dressed to a T in celebration for a lost friend’s birthday, so we were dressed the part for a party. Twirling and swaying and throwing our arms up and for a moment, just a moment, between my own laughs with interlaced tears, I closed my eyes and I felt her. Heyma was there.

And it occurred to me, I was passing her on. I was their Heyma.

There is no way I could ever be anything close to what an amazing woman Heyma was, but somewhere deep within me she lived. Her joy and enthusiasm and magic lived in me and instead of finding it and dwelling in it for myself, it was time to let it go and let it flow out of me to the next generation.

I realized the magic she shared with me I’ll never lose. I’ll have it forever because it was character changing for me to know her and be with her and be loved by her, but instead of keeping it all for myself, it is time to recreate that same beauty for my children.

I felt free. Dancing like I was four all over again. We were giggling and bouncing and twirling and before I knew it, the magic was there. A new magic. An infectious concoction of a little from my past, a little from Tosten and Olivea’s new, and the pure delight of that moment and the union of our two worlds.

Heyma would have been been delighted. And if I didn’t believe she was having a party of her own up in heaven, I am pretty sure she would would have been right there, twirling and giggling with us.

One Pink Line

Don’t think for one moment I have forgotten how crushing a one – lined pregnancy test is. I have only taken a couple hundred in my day; easily spending hundreds on both cheapies and the real deal tests that state as plain as day “not pregnant.”

I’ve actually grown to hate both kinds. The cheap ones I am constantly trying to decide whether to believe it or if maybe a slight pink pigment that showed for a second could be a sign that maybe, perhaps, possibly a little pregnancy hormone is coming through. The expensive ones are ridiculous, too. I spent the amount of money I could have spent on a gallon of chocolate peanut butter ice cream to console the painfully obvious (to you, logical plastic test) that I am NOT pregnant. What a waste of money for a stick to ridicule me.

I am not pregnant. I wasn’t trying to get pregnant. But when your body starts to slightly act like it’s pregnant, one begins to wonder. And after the initial accepting that I may be pregnant, though it would be possibly dangerous if I were because of my future plans in the next months, I had actually grown quite fond of the idea.

Last Saturday, however, it was very clear that these hormonal catastrophes happening to my body were just that, my body freaking out. I definitely am not pregnant.

To you women that have taken these tests copious times and have received the same devastating news: I’m so sorry. Just one month of my body’s confusion and I am catapulted back into the realization that my fertility and my hopes and my baby making ability is still as fragile as the next girl’s.

I told one friend that the realization that I really wasn’t pregnant, even though 10 tests told me the same truth, (don’t laugh – everything within me told me I was pregnant), felt in many ways I was miscarrying all over again.

Miscarriage. Such a drowning word. A word that suffocated me for so long and suffocates so many others. A word, and most definitely an excruciating event, that I was ignorant about until it actually happened to me. To ME.

My loss this time around was just the loss of an idea. I didn’t lose a child. I just lost the joy within to think I may have had another little boy on the way. And in many respects, I felt robbed.

Yesterday I received the baby book I ordered online for my future little man. I have bought all my children’s baby books on Amazon and I specifically chose this one because I had already assumed the gender and the name.

So what do I do with this? How am I allowed to feel?

My heart goes out to the women that have endured this far longer than I have. My brokenness secretly shakes my fist at God and asks “Why that girl and not this one?”

I have no answers. I only have tears. I have tears for you dear woman, my dear sister, my friend that I’ve known longer than my husband. I have tears for myself because this fertility thing, this wanting a baby so bad thing, well, it doesn’t go away.

This morning I was sprawled out on my back with Tosten next to me and we were looking at train books. He was talking his Tosten-two-year-old dialect to me, eyebrows raised, smile like a piece of heaven, and all of a sudden it hit me.

He’s my baby. He’s my impossible child. He’s my miracle. He was the plastic stick that I took to prove to the doctor I STILL wasn’t pregnant and I’d need to take more pills to get my body going again.

I have my baby boy. I have my baby girl. Two little human beings I thought I’d never have a chance to have. Those two toothy grins are all that matters.

So another month. We aren’t trying to get pregnant, but if I’ve learned anything, God has an interesting sense of humor. He can make life out of nothing. And the pain of this last month only reminds me of where God has brought me and the two little gifts He has already blessed me with.

To you women out there that have endured this pain…I know you understand me…and man, it feels good to not be alone.

Yesterday the heart, Today the mind!

I ran 8.5 miles today. I vowed from the day I moved into our little farmhouse by the ethanol plant that I would conquer my highway and run the little over 4 miles and back to a childhood memory house of Charlie and Carol Piekarski. It only took three years (and two babies) later for me to finally put my shoes on and start the trek, but I did it! I actually did it!

As I was running back from their house, every member on my face was curved in a smile. I was absolutely elated. Proud. I felt like I could have run forever, well, at least to my house. But then it occurred to me, man, Manda, how in the world do you expect to run a 26.2 mile race if your longest run is only 8.5 miles?

With that one thought, my whole delight deflated.

My gait started to slow, my breathing began to get heavier and more difficult and I realized, man alive, there’s no way I’m ready for a stupid marathon!

It was in that moment that I heard so clearly within a bulging question, “Manda, I have your heart, but what about your mind?”

I have never thought of that before. I’m pretty sure God has ALL OF ME, but maybe not. Probably not.

See, I have been on a heart kick lately: my new motto being about the transformation of the heart. I would say it is quite a bit more than a kick, more like a soapbox…

I am tired of the restraints I put myself and God into. I am tired of the outward holiness I and other Christians hold onto while we’re rotting inside of wretchedness and judgmental pride. I am sick of being bound by have tos and that I have lost what it means to be transformed from the inside out and just doing anything good out of the honest love for Jesus Christ. I am so tired of how some of those I love are judged by how many times they are in church a week. And I am even more disgusted by how many times we can beat those that desperately need hope with more Law and more things their failing at and more shoulds and have tos. Sigh. See, my soapbox. Sorry…but like I said, those are some things God has been working in me lately…well, until today.

Until today when not only did God question my heart, but my mind. The voice within continued, “I can do far more within you than your body can accomplish! Give me your mind.”

I am ashamed. While it is a continuous effort and surrender of my heart to Christ, it becomes easier and easier as He woos me and creates in me the peace and joy and unending contentment from being with Him. But somehow, in the messiness of life, I have divorced my heart from my mind. While I am asking for an undivided heart and one that follows what makes His heart beat, I have forgotten what it means to give Him (next to the heart) perhaps the most powerful and dangerous part of myself.

For most of my life, I have convinced myself that I was unlovable, too fat, genderless and the only way to feel alright again was to stuff myself with food. I allowed people to define me by their words and their glances and their interactions with me, which as you can imagine in this senile world, were not always positive. I allowed the very definition of Manda to be determined by confused, broken individuals just like me. And I only ate to continue their prophecies over me.

What.
A.
Mistake.

I wish I could say that this thinking is far gone from me, but I would be lying. I have grown up a bit from these thoughts, but instead of trying to measure up, I find myself trying to attain what I lost from the past. Longing to know what it feels like to be in “the best shape of my life” and to wear a fancy prom dress (I always wanted to go to some type of formal occasion) or even wear a wedding dress I felt knockout gorgeous in (don’t ask about my wedding dress experience).

And even stupid dreams like that, they are still dreams. I still have a feeling of wanting what was kept from me…and yet, what was truly kept?

I have allowed my morbid obesity to follow me. Whether I wear the label anymore or not, I have lived in its shadow and let it stop me from doing things I’ve always wanted to do.

So when do I step out and stop hiding? When do I rip off the chains and say so longto the painful labels and memories? When do I start to spread the transformation of my heart to clarify the confusion in my mind?

Today.

This year.

2014.

See, I have tried multiple times now to muster up some type of writing for this blog. Thoughts came. Sometimes I would start the first few sentences and then stop, only to be forgotten and abandoned. And since I started to finally coin myself as a writer, after writing for over two decades and even going to college for it, I felt like this was my new beginning.

But maybe that’s just it…maybe I’m still in the beginning.

I asked the Lord in January that He would do something different in this year. When I said different, I really didn’t know how that would look, but I was willing to roll with it. And the Lord definitely heard my prayer, in more ways than I could possibly comprehend or compile in a little writing on this little blog…so I haven’t written a word. In fears of belittling or stealing the mysterious beauty of what God was doing, I have felt like my hands were to be still and my words be hushed…

Until the right moment.

So here I am, in the awkward place for a writer. I have no happy ending or special pinpointed message for my reader to take away from my ramblings. I have thoughts spewed all over the screen. I have no direction and no special finish to make you feel satisfied. But to be honest, that’s exactly where I am in the process, too.

Is it okay to be somewhere in the beginning and still write about it? I assume I’m in the beginning. I mean, even now, I have no clue where God is taking me with my heart and my brain and my silly dreams of marathons and prom dresses and maybe even assisting Christine Caine in her ministry to stop human trafficking. I just know something needs to be fixed. Something within me is starting to surface and it’s about time I wake up to smell more than roses, but those prickly thistles that have lined my journey…I mean they give off some beautiful purple blossoms, too.

It’s time to let God do some rewiring in my mind…and maybe connect my heart and brain again.

As far as the running, well, I’ll just keep training. I need more protein and more strength training to get rid of that rubbing belly when I run, says the YMCA trainer. But I guess that may take years, so I’ll just keep going and see what else God says during my runs.

You Never Know

I only woke up every hour last night. In fact, I’m not even sure I really fell asleep but I was teetering between reality and dreamland.

I think that’s how it is with a loss. Immediately after it happens, you at first think it’s all a dream. You keep thinking that it’s all a nasty trick and the very one you lost will somehow miraculously appear.

Last night, a little five-year-old man was crushed to his death by a skid loader. For the privacy of the family, I’ll say no more than that, but in that one second everything changed.

I only know the family through other family, but as soon as I heard, I wept. That little curious boy could have been my Tosten. The very qualities that made this boy step into that place would have been the exact reasons my son would have done the same.

How do you sleep at night after that happens? How do you walk by his room? Wash his dirty clothes that he just wore the day before? How do you walk by the place you saw his lifeless, broken body? How do you drive or even touch the machine that crushed your little boy ever again? How do you even move on?

As I laid in bed last night, I was trying to grapple with these questions. I found myself sobbing in bed, then drifting to sleep to wake up and wonder if it was my Tosten that had died. I had to align my emotions and thoughts each time my dreams caused me to panic, but then as soon as I realized my Tosten was snuggled with his fleece blanket downstairs in his bed, I remembered that only an hour away another mama was having to try to survive the very thing I was at peace about. For that mama, this was not a horrific nightmare. This was her reality.

People always blanket a loss with “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.” I don’t want to seem faithless, but make me puke! Hey, I’ve used that verse, too, but it doesn’t bring that person back. Yes, the Lord gives and takes, praise His name, but we are left here on earth to somehow make sense of God’s logic.

Obviously, this little man is in a much grander place than what he had here on earth, but there has to be room to grieve in a time like this. You can blanket death with all the scripture you want, but there needs to be a moment to recognize the genuine void in your own life now that he is gone.

I’ve had my Tosten for over two years. I was madly in love with him as soon as I found out he was in my womb and that love has only grown as he has grown. To think the Lord could pluck him from my arms at any time breaks me. I trust God, I do, but I don’t know how to move on if that ever were to happen.

I guess I never will unless it occurs. I guess it would be a breath at a time. A moment at a time. An hour. A day. I guess I’d have to pick up his favorite pair of car rainboots and smile, probably with a whole bunch of tears, at the adventures he had in those boots and the puddles he splashed in with them on. I’d pull out his pictures and laugh as I remembered the hours chasing him all over our eight acres just to get one half decent smile on a photograph. I’d remember the dirt under his jagged fingernails and the two cowlicks on the back of his head that gave him a natural mowhawk. I’d try to remember all the days I had with him and the rough days would vanish.

And maybe that’s what I need to rest in today. I’ve had a lot of rough days the past weeks, yet I have my baby boy. Tosten has been testing his limits and his heights and what he can sneak away with without his mom or dad noticing or caring. Yet he snuggles in my arms and I get to still enjoy his snot globs on my pants. Some days I’ve wanted to yank my hair out at his toddler insanity, but I still want him. He may be the Lord’s, but somehow he’s part of me. He’s mine. He’s my baby boy. Even when he’s 16 and hormonal. Even when he’s going off to college or getting married. Even when he holds his first child.

Tosten Lee will be my little boy and my love will only grow as he does.

I never knew I could love someone so much, yet here I am, head over heels for a little short, thick man. He roars on an hourly basis and he loves to keep things in their place like his daddy.

So I’ll savor him for as long as I have him, because you never know. You never, ever, ever know.

And even if that hellish moment comes and Tosten is taken from me before I’m ready, I will nestle my brokenness in Christ’s strength. All these questions and fears and little deaths as a result if he leaves this earth before I do, Jesus will hold me upright and love me in my chaos.

A Writer

Someone told me today I was a writer.

I mean, I like to write and I do write so doesn’t that automatically classify me as a writer? Yeah, I don’t know either.

I went to college to be a writer, you know. I took a class about the very question I asked above and I still don’t know the answer…a certain thousand dollars later. I took all the grueling literature classes at Northwestern, writing classes that squeezed out every ounce of creativity, and a horrific class called Advanced Grammar. If you read any of my work close enough, you’ll notice I didn’t do so hot in that class…and on most days, I’m okay with that.

But yes, I am a writer.

I also went to school for psychology. When my English and Psych professors noticed I was double majoring in writing and psychology, they were naturally very curious about my plans with my duo. Well, I had none. I still have no plans. All I knew was that I loved writing and I loved attempting to understand people.

I don’t think I am the only college grad that seems to be grappling with the realization that maybe what they went to school for probably won’t land them a dream job like they once dreamt. Not only that, but perhaps they are realizing that the degree they chose won’t really lead them too far unless they go back to school or get some major experience or mentorship or internship.

This bothered me for some time. In fact, it still bothers me from time to time when I see practical friends (and financially wise friends) with nursing or accounting degrees that land some big, beautiful job with a huge paycheck. But in the past few years, my view has changed.

I have come to the point in my life that I have realized that my value as an individual has nothing to do with my career or how much money I am taking in. I don’t need to be running ragged, trying to keep up with the ever increasing materialistic world of wants that have somehow turned into needs. I don’t have to have a special label to be deemed important and I don’t need to have a crowd pleasing role in society to be valuable.

And well, to be honest, if you could see any scores from my math or accounting or any type of business class, it would be pretty clear that I was not meant for any of those careers.

What is beautiful is that I can be me. I can be a stay-at-home mom with two little munchkins. I can be a wife to a Coke Delivery Man, who went to school for carpentry. Ha. I can be a sister, a daughter, a best friend, a neighbor. I can be a home researcher of society, an undercover psychologist, and an amateur literary critic. I can be a runner, a singer, and man oh man, I can be writer.

I don’t write great. I hardly spend much time rereading my work or proofing it. I write it and post it…to my English professors (and probably colleagues) dismay and shock. I am blunt. I am simple. I am sometimes judgmental.

And yet somehow, in the quiet seconds of my day, I still feel the Lord urging me into a wider place; a place I cannot quite realize, but it is massive and wide open. This place is unknown and a place that might just birth something I obviously have not yet conceived.

Sometimes I hear His whispering in the deep canyons within, “Remember this, Manda. Hold onto this. Save it in that pile of experiences until you have mulled it over enough to understand my truth behind it.”

I have accepted that my calling in this world is nothing that can be reimbursed or somehow captured in a title or degree. I am not about to get rich off of anything I envision or think up. I have accepted that I am me, and this Manda that I write about likes to spill out her thoughts and feelings and ideas, whether people understand them or not and whether they like them or not. Because something deep within tells me that if I keep writing my nonsense, someday, something miraculous will birth, something I cannot fathom until it happens.

So here’s to the sweet compliment I received today. It actually did make me feel good, but it was a bit degrading at the same time. But you know, I needed to get my fingers typing again and you inspired me to do so. And you are right: I am a writer. So, here I go…

Our Debt

We paid off our credit cards and medical bills today. This was an impossible feat in my husband’s eyes. I just prayed. I didn’t dare stare the beast of finances in the face in fear I too would become a skeptic.

When anticipating 2014, I wanted something different than the empty goals and promises I made each year. I wanted to dare to surrender everything to God and to ask big things…to stop putting Him in a box and to lay it all out. One insane thing I asked was that God would “heal our finances” and to “slather our finances in healing salve.”

Yeah, it was kind of a silly prayer, but it was honest and yearned for. I didn’t know what healing our finances would look like, but I knew it was a process that was over our heads and a process that was best left to the healer of all things.

I looked for jobs. Full-time. Part-time. Night-time. Really, I was desperate. Some possibilities I pursued, and those doors closed (some even slammed in my face). Having my two kiddos complicated things slightly as far as daycare, too. Then the Lord conjured up a conversation between two women at my church, one of which knew I was looking for a job, and this produced my phone number to give, a phone call, a meeting, and a job twenty-four hours later. I was now employed full-time in my home, watching a little girl only two weeks younger than Olivea.

This was my answer! I KNEW it had to be! I started to write out plans of how to use this little extra income to our advantage! I wanted to pay off debt. I wanted to take a few camping trips this summer. I wanted enough money to cover the weddings I was participating in this year. This was God’s answer, so I thought.

But as winter rolled on, it was pretty clear that the only thing my income was to buy was a little food and lots of heat.

I kept praying. My hubby kept worrying (don’t get me wrong, Tyler is a great man! I’m the optimist and he’s the pessimist. I’m the dreamer and he’s the realist. Somehow this marriage works magnificently.).

There was one instance we were completely out of money. It just happened to be the time the propane prices were through the roof and we were the lucky ones that needed it just then to stay warm. An oversight by the insurance company and miraculously, a check came our way. Other little things, “coincidences” happened, and my faith immediately was strengthened and only grew. Mister Realist’s faith, well, it started to surface.

Was this God answering my silly prayer? He was answering it so beautifully and ironically with no help from me.

The devil always tries to break newly-stretched faith as soon as he sees it. It wasn’t long after our little victories that somehow we got an overdraft in our checking account. Apparently, only three dollars off and literally minutes missed of noticing. That was an extra thirty dollars we definitely could have used towards diapers or food or heat. Tyler and I had a mini World War III. Yes, over thirty dollars. It didn’t take much, did it? But to us, man, thirty bucks was like gold!

I kept praying my goofy prayer. The Lord was providing, so it must’ve not been too weird. I kept believing. God had already provided in ways we couldn’t have even predicted, why would he lack now? We might only have a dollar in our checking account, but we definitely had more than we could possibly ever need.

Early April, we went to get our taxes done. This has never been an enjoyable experience for us. Not that we ever did anything illegal or had any horrific experience, but we always got less money than we were hoping or we had to pay in. This year, well, this year was totally different.

This year, we had MORE THAN ENOUGH of a return to pay all our credit card debt and hospital bills and even have some left over.

We were dumbfounded. Yes, people sat down with us to explain how we received what we did, but to us, we didn’t care. This wasn’t a gift from the government or a tax break or a portion from the wealthy, this was a blessing from our God. I mean, after all, isn’t it all His anyway?

I was never looking for a handout or a sudden surge of money. I mean, I’ve lived enough life now to realize handouts can be amazing at times, but hard work and the waiting can be even better. I didn’t think He would give us money, but then I really didn’t know what He would do. All I knew was that I longed for Him to heal us financially. But somehow, in one thirty minute period of paperwork and numbers, the Lord paid it all.

Is that the answer to my prayer? Yes, but there’s so much more…I’m only guessing.

And as I was lying in bed, mulling over the craziness of our God and His storehouses in heaven, I couldn’t but wonder how much more debt He has paid for me.

He gave His very life. He paid my gigantic bill of sin…with His own suffering and His own blood. There was no way I could have paid it myself, racking up my bill minute by minute and sometimes moment by moment. But this wild God, He paid it all.

Can I just praise Him? Can I just shout His magnificence all over this huge cyber world and let all of mankind know that this God is astonishing? He knows your need, whether financial or physical or spiritual or even emotional…He knows your brokenness and your longing and your chaos and your craving and He hears you. He sees you. He knows you. He adores you. He loves to provide in the most impossible ways and He loves to come through when you think it’s too late and hopeless. And what is more miraculous is that even if you are crying out to Him and your circumstances may not be visibly changing around you, something is happening. Whether it is your circumstances or it is you, Jesus holds you in the midst of it all.

See, His greatest gift is not that He can give and provide at a whim, but His greatest gift is Himself. Your world could shatter in complete chaos, but the acceptance and tenderness and love from my affectionate God is more precious than any object or thing His hand could give.

So the Lord paid it all! He paid off my credit cards and hospital bills! He renewed my hope and faith and made this dreaming Manda a little more normal. The Lord eased our load and released me from my sin! But more importantly, my God heard my cry and in the dark and confusing moments, He held me. He continues to hold me.

This is my God. He’s so much bigger than my words can convey. He is more able than we can conceive and He is more intimate than we give Him credit for.

In Ephesians 3, “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

Amen, oh Lord, Amen!