About Natasha Metzler

Once upon a time there lived a young woman. She was often insecure and often afraid and continually questioned her decisions and ideas and dreams. She was also chosen and loved and made beautiful by her King but she usually forgot that part. 

One day a friend called and asked if she would be willing to make cupcakes for a party. “Of course!” she said, planning to just toss some cupcakes in the oven and maybe make some powdered sugar frosting to top them with. Until she heard the news.

She was not the only one making cupcakes.

The other woman who was making cupcakes was slim and gorgeous and everyone knew she was capable of creating perfect masterpieces in the kitchen.

The girl froze and wanted to cry. I will be measured and found wanting, she thought, I can’t do anything perfectly. It was just cupcakes but it was also something far, far deeper. It was her wild insecurities and her unchecked fears and her secret stumbling pride.

So she made plans. Elaborate plans. She bought piping tools and store-bought icing. She searched Pinterest and studied cake decorating blog posts. She would create perfect cupcakes. How hard could it be?

The day for cupcake making arrived and she put her supplies on the table.

As she began mixing the batter a knock sounded at the door. It was a friend with two little girls who had sparkly blue eyes and hopeful smiles. They wanted to spend the afternoon.

How could she do anything but invite them in? When she loved children so desperately? When nothing made her heart sing more than teaching little darlings about life and God and beauty?

The six-year-old wanted to do the piping.

The two-year-old wanted to put the candies on top.

All the young woman’s best laid plans fell into crumbles like the ones that littered her floor. But there, with icing smeared on her cheek and handfuls of candies disappearing into tiny mouths, she heard her Father speak. His voice seemed to swirl through the crazy mismatched cupcakes:

“Perfection” is found in doing what I created you to do.

She was not made to bring flawless cupcakes to parties. She was made to dance with dollies in her kitchen with icing dripping off noses and words whispering soft that God loved and created and made beauty, even with messy mismatched cupcakes. 

Even in young women who struggle with insecurities, fear, and pride.

Even in me.

Tell me, friend, how does this parable apply to your life? Is there a place where you are struggling with insecurities? Fear? Pride? Cupcake decorating? 😉 Are you blogging, writing, living, the way that God created you to? Because if you are, oh, dear ones, if you are— then you’ve found perfection. 

This year was hard for us. 

• Farming took a nose-dive and finances tightened until I had a hard time breathing.
• Infertility still stalked and some hoped for fertility aides did nothing.
• Adoptions fell through. As in more than one. 
• Our heater died at the beginning of winter. No joke. 
• My four-day-a-week job dropped to only Mondays and Fridays. 
• Almost every single calf born in our barn died within six weeks and it took us almost a year to figure out what was wrong. 

Every year around Thanksgiving, I jump at the chance to thank God for His gifts. I love listing them, rejoicing in them. 

But this year I felt God say something different. 

–> Thank me for the hard things. <–

I didn’t want to. At all. I’d rather focus on pretty, poetic words. But the Spirit wouldn’t let me be. The nudges continued until I began to whisper in broken, tear-filled moments… 

Thank you, God, for infertility. Thank you for limited finances. Thank you for the days when farming drains every reserve I have. Thank you for less work. Thank you for the money that is owed to us that has not been paid. Thank you… 

And as I whispered thanks, I began to see. Glittering. Clear. Glorious. 

I saw my husband kneeling by the bed, gripping my hand and crying out to God. I saw the hardship and wounds to his pride refining the David-Heart in him. I saw his broken words of surrender touch the hearts of those around him, causing them to look and surrender again to the true Ruler of All. 

I saw the book that was born from sorrow come into being– and ran fingers over words on the computer screen: Thank you, Natasha, for writing about your pain being redeemed… I saw the written remembrance of my pain birth healing. 

I saw deep inside this self-sufficient, prideful heart– and found safety and restoration, again, at the feet of my Redeemer. The One who breaks down every layer that I build between His cleansing fire and my flesh.  

I’m not saying I like it. In fact, some days I hate every single minute. But I’m thankful. 

And I rest in His promise that this world is not the end. The fire does not last forever. Once the gold is purified and refined, it is shaped and molded into beauty. 

What hard things do you need to thank Him for this year?

In Him {and only through Him}, Natasha

I’m a mother.

My babies call me “Ta-ta” instead of “Ma-ma” and they change depending on the day. Some days I have a houseful of boys with dirty bare feet and frogs in their pockets. Some days the doors are bursting with giggling pinkness and polka-dotted tea parties.

I never quite know who I will have but I always know who I am. 

I’m a mom. One that runs a farm beside her husband with a baby strapped to her back. One that milks cows and helps young boys learn to do chores and care for sick animals. One that reads Pilgrims Progress and sings Bible verses to teach her little ones the way to life eternal.

Tonight my right arm is aching from having a two-year-old in a baby sling on my hip while I worked in the fields. I John 5:3 is running through my mind from teaching a six-year-old about the importance of obedience. The barn is quiet but all day it echoed with children’s voices. There is no doubt that I have become the mother I’ve always longed to be—even though this body has never born a child and these hands have never signed an adoption certificate. 

I didn’t always spend my days mothering.

For years, I spent days in tears.

After that last doctor’s visit, after I finally recognized that there was no possible way for me to claw my way out of the pit I was drowning in, after every door slammed shut in my face, I broke.

The words stretched my soul until it cracked and bled agony but I spoke them.

“God, I surrender my desires to be a mother. Make me what you would have me be.” 

And the Author and Finisher of my faith reached down, lifted my feet from the miry clay, washed my wounds and sores, rubbed oil on my scars and said, “I would have you be…a mother.” 

It doesn’t look anything like I thought it would. My babies leave at night. They didn’t grow inside me and I’ve never decorated a nursery. They weren’t handed to me by an orphanage worker or a midwife.

But they sit at my table day after day. They wrap their arms around my neck and ask for kisses on stubbed toes. I teach them to pray and to sing and to dance in the rain.

Just like birth or adoption makes some women mothers these little ones have birthed motherhood in me. For years I looked around and only saw a glorified babysitter, passing time until her own babies filled her home but now I see true. I see what I am. I see who they are. I see God’s redemption painting my life with brilliant colors of freedom.

And I’m learning to claim the title that I earned with every diaper change, every meal cooked, every hour spent, every prayer whispered, every lesson taught and every mess cleaned. I’m a mother. 

God made me what I always longed to be, in a way that I never expected, and my one simple step to start the process was surrender.

I’ve seen it over and over. First the surrender, then the change and the doors swinging open to redemption and glory. In motherhood. In my writing. In my friendships. In my marriage. 

May the lost dreams that are building sorrow in your life lead you to the foot of the cross and may you taste the miracle of heart-longings redeemed. 

Are there titles that you long for that are staying just out of reach? Do you dream of being a writer but your audience seems too small, your words too raw and broken? Surrender is always the first step towards redemption. Let’s embrace it, together, and claim the titles that He gives us.