A Mess Like Me

When God seeks to meet us in the sorrow, the struggle, the sin

Welcome to The Kingdom Mother (formerly Faith Embodied), a newsletter for Jesus-loving women pursuing healing, holy homemaking, and wholehearted living. I’m Rachael—a wife & homeschool mama of three, homemaker, and writer educator—exploring where embodied wisdom meets gospel truth. This is a grace-filled space where faith takes root in our bodies, our habits, and our homes.

I invest a considerable amount of time and effort into crafting every essay, which are written with prayer, reflection, and a heart for women who long to walk with Christ in the everyday rhythms of motherhood and homemaking. If you’re not already, I’d love for you to become a paid subscriber—as your support sustains this ministry. If a recurring subscription isn’t possible right now, you can also offer a one-time gift. Either way, I’m so grateful you’re here… reading, sharing with others, exchanging your thoughts, and walking this journey with me.

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I sometimes hesitate to use the word testimony. It can sound too… polished, like a final ending or a neat conclusion tied up and pretty with a bow.

But my story of grace isn’t neat—it’s jagged and unfinished, marked more by God’s mercy than how put-together I am or any appearance of success.

And yet, it is powerful.
Not because of anything I’ve done, but because it reveals what God can do.

God can work with a mess like me—a woman who once wandered far from Him. My old life was a parade of self-destruction: blackout drunkenness, perpetually high on substances, driving under the influence, tangled in sexual sin, arrogant, anti-family, proudly feminist, fiercely Marxist, and peddling new age lies like candy.

I was blind and lost, chasing anything that felt like freedom, when all I ended up with was another ball and chain.

And yet, God pursued me. He reached into the pit I had dug for myself and pulled me out by His sheer grace. Not because of anything I miraculously pulled off, not because I suddenly became worthy, not because there’s something unique or special about me—but because He is merciful and faithful.

My life today is not a monument to my strength, but to His rescue. Every step I take is evidence of His mercy holding me fast when I could not hold myself.

Still…

I often catch myself wishing for something bigger, more complete. A life where I no longer stumble, where I no longer have to face my own sin, where the ache of living in a fallen world is gone forever.

While that day will come—when Christ returns and makes all things new—today, that’s just not how God moves.

Today, He meets us in the very places we’d rather skip over.
The dark spaces of despair and weakness.
The hidden corners where we’d prefer to remain unseen.

Even Elijah sat under a broom tree and asked God to take his life.
Job wailed & cursed the day he was born.
David poured out psalms of depression and anguish.
Moses trembled with anxiety, convinced he was inadequate.
Hannah wept bitterly, barren and heartbroken.
Paul sat alone in prison, abandoned by family & friends.

These weren’t random people. They were God’s chosen ones—prophets, kings, apostles. They’re people from God’s Word that we are tasked to turn to, study, and find wisdom. Yet, I discover that their cries sound so much like mine. And, maybe like yours, too?

Just yesterday, I found myself in tears, at the end of myself, whispering through sobs: “Please God, help me. I’m struggling here and I need You.”

Just today, I had to apologize (yet again) for harsh, foolish words spoken too quickly—words I wished I could gather back into silence.

And, yet, isn’t this is the rhythm of life with God?

Not triumph after triumph, and glory once and for all… but weakness in the midst of His grace, lament softened by His compassion, sin met with His forgiveness.

As one of my mentors Mystie Winckler says, “Repent. Rejoice. Repeat.”

We fall.
We look to Him.
We repent.
He reminds us “it is finished.”
We soften in the arms of the Spirit.

And then we do it again.

For here is the hope:

God gave Elijah rest and a fresh call.
God restored Job and blessed him beyond what he lost.
God lifted David’s head and turned his laments into songs of praise.
God was there with Moses, revealing His glory in fire and freedom.
God remembered Hannah and gave her a son.
God used Paul’s prison letters to shake the world with the Gospel.

Their mess became a message.
Their weakness became a witness.
Their test a testimony.

And, so will ours be.

Because God doesn’t wait until we are put-together and perfect to use us for His Kingdom. He comes into the mess, into the darkness, into the middle of our very ordinary repentance and tears.

He meets us there and loves us anyways.
He meets us there and works all things for the good of those who believe.
He meets us there and shepherds us one shaky, imperfect step at a time.

All for His glory.

So if you find yourself undone today, know this: you are in the very place where God delights to meet you.

He is not weary of you.
He’s not grown tired of you.
He is not ashamed of you.

He is Emmanuel—God with us.

And He meets us in the storm.

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