Sometimes, you find a community that is doing a thing, and it works out so well, the year you choose grace as your word, so poignant, so perfect that you try it again for 2013.

Sometimes, your heart asks your God if you can have the word free and your God answers back, “I have something more specific than that.” And sometimes He gives you your word and it fits so perfectly it feels like a flesh-colored body suit, like wearing it makes you practically naked. You hang on to it in your heart, you don’t even tell your husband (even though he has seen you actually naked, even nine months pregnant and has always had nothing but nice things to say).

Sometimes, you take a deep breath and publish unashamed your word and your prayer. You speak a little bolder than you usually do and it feels good, if not a little breezy. You feel like 2013 is going to be a big year.

Sometimes, your very favorite christian-lady-speaker comes to a church near you and you really want to go. You would before shrug it off and figure no one else would want to come and remind yourself that your husband has PhD reading to do so he couldn’t watch your girls. But then you claim your word. So you tell him you want to go and discover they have free childcare. You post it on your church’s women’s group Facebook page and you end up spending some very treasured hours in a car with a neighbor and friend who has the same word you do.

Sometimes, in the spirit of unashamed, you admit to your friend that every single time you have ever seen a christian speaker, even a great and entertaining one like the one you just saw, your heart whispers I could do that. I could be that good. You had never spoken it aloud before, you assumed these thoughts were prideful, you were a little bit ashamed. 

Sometimes, when you choose to be unashamed of your heart whisper your friend tells you that no not everyone thinks that. She tells you that she is un-surprised, she thinks you could be that good too.

But it feels so confusing. How do you even start a speaking ministry? It isn’t as easy as starting a blog. You have to be invited. You have to have an audience, and you go to a church where theoretically women can speak on Sunday, but practically speaking there has never been a woman in your pulpit. Even if they are consistently over half of the congregation.

You have BIG feelings about all of this. You want it to be easy and feel easy. Conflicted is not how a Christ follower is supposed to feel about her church, especially a church she loves, that loves her. But your BIG feeling remain, and you attempt to embrace them, unashamed.

Sometimes, you make a speaking page as a part of your blog and hope someone who needs a speaker stumbles across it. Sometimes, an internet shot in the dark is all you know how to do. You know how to talk to your pastor too, but those BIG feelings keep getting in the way.

Sometimes, the holy spirit intervenes and you tell your pastor you are being called deeper into ministry. With 2 in diapers and a PhD husband, a full-time job you love and a blog that is picking up Facebook likes here and there you don’t really understand the timing, but you decide to tell him, unashamed.

Sometimes, your pastor clears his schedule and meets with you at 8 on a Thursday because it is the only time you have available. You sit at your dining room table and put on Ponies for your daughters and spill all but the speaking part. Sometimes the Holy Spirit convicts you the second he walks out your door, and you send a weird email and he receives it graciously.

Sometimes, on a Wednesday right after work, you load your husband and babies into your minivan and drive through the rain into the hipster part of town. Sometimes your husband wonders out loud if you are having an early mid-life crisis. Your teacher gear and gold minivan do not fit in at the piercing place with the funky African decor. Your husband waits outside with the girls in the car listening to a children’s cd and feeding them happy meals. You pick out a pretty blue opal-y stud and lay down on a table and in one breath in and one breath out you get your nose pierced.

Sometimes you wanted to do something for a very long time, but it was never quite the right time. You convince yourself that girls like you don’t do that. Even though you want to. Sometimes you are afraid that other people will think it is silly and stupid, so you convince yourself it is.

Sometimes, you finally reject the lie that things that you want are silly, petty, dumb. Sometimes you stop caring that you are 29, a mom of two, a suburban teacher, an academic wife. You just want to live unashamed. So you get your nose pierced as a flag on the place where you decided that if it was important to you, than it was important, even if other people think it is dumb. You look in the mirror and you think that you look just a little bit more like you.

Sometimes you ask for the word free, your God gives you unashamed, and at the end of the first month you feel more like you than you ever have before.

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