I am a wife and mom of two boys, with a deeply rooted and burning passion for creating. I study and follow the ways of Jesus, who’s About Page can be found in the Bible. :)
I start with that because everything About me starts and stops with Him. We are here, meeting on this website and blog today, because of a journey I’ve been on, discovering and understanding the plans and purposes for a creativity that dwells within me.
MY STORY…
It started in elementary school when I discovered an exciting skill in drawing. The awe and wonder of being able to recreate something I saw with my eyes onto paper with a tiny lead-filled piece of wood! I was hooked.
As I got older and was exposed to many mediums of art, I dabbled in recreating not only things I saw with my eyes, but things which lived deep inside my imagination, and not only with a tiny lead-filled piece of wood, but with anything that could be manipulated with my hands, i.e. paint, clay, plaster, metal, wood, etc. I suddenly knew no bounds.
After studying at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, I was turning my creations into clothing. With the Lord’s help, I began a women’s athleisure wear company called Roic and Bru. What an exciting time!
About 4 years into that journey I gave birth to our first son, and a year into Motherhood, my relationship between myself, the Lord, and this purpose in creativity I felt called to began its true growth’s spurt. Only it did not grow within a successful business, it grew apart from that.
I was at a crossroads, I felt the struggle and hustle behind growing a business pulling my attention from the very sacred calling of growing a human soul. Something wasn’t working in my business anymore, and so what do I do?
Fast-forward a decade-ish
I prayed, and while answers don’t always come quickly, this one did. I felt a question form inside me…
“Do you trust me [God] enough to lay it [Roic and Bru] down?”
I had no reason not to! He has never let me down before! He has always been faithful in providing for me, for leading me and guiding me. He promises that he has plans for good and not for disaster, plans for a future and a hope, according to the Bible, found in Jeremiah 29:11 if you want to look it up. When God asks you to lay something down (even if it’s something He originally gave you!), it’s usually because He has something better he wants to put in your hands. So…
Before you hang me for thinking I needed to sacrifice my dreams when I became a mother, just keep reading and don’t miss the miracle of how God gave me both.
In surrendering the clothing line, I also, once again, surrendered my heart to the Lord; and
I fulfilled remaining orders, and ceased any budding business plans, including a health and fitness part of the brand I was working on. It was sad. It was disappointing. We lost a lot of money in terms of an ROI. However, I felt like I needed to be open to what the Lord had, not just for ME, but for Him. I wanted to know what His plans were? Why am I here? Why am I the way I am? The Bible says we are made for a purpose, HIS purpose. I wasn’t sure what the Lord had planned but I had a feeling He was about to open my eyes to something He was doing.
I abandoned all expectations, and laid down all my heart’s desires before Him. I asked him to align my heart’s desires with His heart’s desires. If creativity and design were something I manifested for my own selfish gain, I didn’t want them! But if they were truly put in me by Him, I wanted to know how I was supposed to use them for His purposes, and His glory. All I asked was that if He was asking me to lay down Roic and Bru, that He would show me a kindness in removing any desire I had for designing clothes.
This is where the miracle happened. Motherhood broke open for me. Oh the joy I found in slow mornings, silly horseplay, and lingering longer over things like dead worm carcasses in the backyard. I didn’t have anywhere to be or anything to do besides pour myself into the development of a human soul. I was so content. Within a year of shutting the business down, I not only found myself enjoying my family in a way I didn’t know I was ever missing, but there was something else, totally unexpected, unfathomed, and, truthfully, unnecessary, the Lord did to sweeten the deal. I found myself breaking into a cake decorating hobby I never knew existed within me, and I fell in love. Before I knew it, and with quite a bit of resistance from me, a cake hobby was growing into a cake business—and with that, Rachel Mansi Cakes was born.
A MIRACLE…or two
I didn’t emphasize it on purpose; it’s so simple, a silent power, and yet it has been the greatest gift and treasure I’ve ever received. CONTENTMENT.
CONTENTMENT
CONTENTMENT
CONTENTMENT. Ahhh, what a dream. I couldn’t have manufactured such a treasure if I had all the resources in the world. It wasn’t the beauty of motherhood, or the promises of a small, bustling cake business, although both of those things were byproduct miracles within the miracle. I was content.
Well, it’s hard to explain because it’s too good to be true. Let me put it this way. I didn’t come from much, in fact we had very little. Finances were always a struggle. My parents were divorced, and my mom went from a stay-at-home mom to a I-need-to-feed-three-kids-working mom. It was rough. At an early age I determined two things: I need to do well in school so I can always support myself, with or without a man, and I need to follow Jesus with all my heart. All to say, I’ve been dreaming of and striving towards a career for myself since I was 9. That meant something that brought in stable income for the long haul, and preferably something I loved, but most importantly something God called me to, because I’ve watched what living outside His will does, and I didn’t want that.
When Roic and Bru started I thought for sure I was building something that met all those criteria. Imagine my surprise when God asked me to shut that down, without any other prospects. It was as if He was asking me to do away with that criteria all together; I didn’t need to worry about income, I had a loving husband who fears the Lord, and has been blessed by God with a stable income. However, even WITHOUT that, He was asking me to trust Him to provide for me by asking me to remove the safety net I was trying to build myself within Roic and Bru. Furthermore, where I thought I was building something I would love, God gave me something I never knew I could love so much. It was as if He was saying,
So why was it amazing? Suddenly, there was no more hustling, no more striving, no more “one day…” thinking. Everything I had been looking for, and working towards my whole life, was actually available to me in the Lord, simply by being within His will for my life. It was His will for me to stay home and pour my creativity into my children. And WOW, what a gift that was to me!
By saying yes to Him, I believe, it made room for even more blessing. Although I can honestly say, I would have been completely content without more.
The cakes and cookies were just an added bonus!
With that being the case, I didn’t need the cake business to succeed, which is a powerful place to be. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. If I had orders, great! If I had no orders! Even better! More time to snuggle, play, and watch caterpillars turn into butterflies (which btw, is insane…).
“How far into this cake business should I go?”
In an attempt to care for and protect this gift of contentment, I went to the Lord and asked, “How far into this cake business should I go?” Having been down the road of business before I knew with a little marketing this thing had the potential to become a sweet little cake shop—pun most definitely intended. I talked to my husband and after praying together about it, we felt strongly that I was not to pursue it the way I would have in the past. The Lord impressed upon my heart, “I will give you the exact amount of orders that is perfect for you and your family; I will be the ebb and flow of your business.”
With that, I felt a peace to enjoy my contentment: my baby boy, our early year bliss, my husband, and decorating any cake and cookie orders that would come in. It was glorious.
A few years later, I felt the flow of business ebb. Which meant, as the Lord had promised, orders would start slowing down. It was timely; there was a rub somewhere. We had two boys now, and they were getting to an age where much more attention and care was needed for discipling and guiding their relationship. Orders started feeling too overwhelming, and my patience during the execution was…well…non existent. So I did the only thing I knew to do, more prayer. Both my husband and I agreed, it was time to take a break. Orders went from several a month, to once a month, to zero. What was constant, however, was my contentment.
Like I said, I didn’t need the cake business, it was an added bonus. What I DID needed was the contentment, and the Lord kept it for me as He gently guided me through family life and business life. I knew if I were to pick cakes and cookies up again, it would be led by the Lord, and it would be nothing more, nothing less than what it should be.
Little did I know, the ebb wasn’t just about my kids needing more undivided attention, the Lord was preparing us for what the next year would bring. My Father-in-law was soon diagnosed with Dementia, my Mother-in-law was on her eighth year of battling cancer, and we had the beginning workings of a home addition starting to move forward. With the culmination of these three things, we decided we needed to move in with my in-laws to help care for them. The fact that our house was under construction was perfect timing, my in-laws didn’t think they needed help, so we were able to make the transition under the guise of the home addition. Once there, I realized there was no way I could have kept up with baking demands while living with my in-laws. The Lord knew.
The Lord also knew my creative mind could use a new outlet. I found myself enjoying designing and building home decor for our new space. Prior to moving in with my in-laws, and when I was starting to slow the cake business down, I tried my hand at turning a cheap tv stand into my dream tv stand.
“UH, OH…”
I found another creative outlet! I love pottery and clay, and discovered I could manipulate wood and plaster, in much the same way. With that, I spent the ebb of the cake business working on some light fixtures, playing with ceramics, and building a list of home decor pieces I would one day make.
Eight months later, my Father-in-law’s dementia had not only significantly slowed, but he was on a pretty incredible medicine for Parkinson’s that almost recovered his mental capacity entirely. Enough to kick us out of his house. Ha! I kid. No, once our house was finished, we felt my Mother and Father-in-law were in well enough shape to manage on their own and we moved back into our home. At this point I still didn’t feel a strong urge to pick work back up again. I had a desire but still couldn’t manage to find the time. So, I waited, I prayed, and waited some more, pouring my creativity into my home, my family, my friends, and bread making.
…and so begins
After quite a few months of settling back into our home, I felt a stirring happen in my heart. “Is it time, Lord? Do you want to use my hands?” I prayed. It was. It was time to get back to it, but it was going to look different this time. There were many details and many roads that converged to get me to where I ended up landing, here, on this blog, and it hasn’t been easy to fully understand or clearly envision. All I know is, a website and blog were the next step.
So here I am; I built this site to hold all my creative passions in one place, to document and share some fun creative DIY projects, to provide an easy ordering process for all my loyal bakery customers, and to share a bit of myself with all of you who might stumble over here. I hope in some way you might feel inspired, or spoken to if not through my story, then perhaps somewhere else on this site. I hope you reach out in some way and connect with me, whether that be through email, Instagram, in-person decorating classes, or ordering some homemade bakery items. Regardless, if you’re here, reading this, then we’ve connected, and I thank you so much for your time.
FOR THE EMAIL WEARY
FOR THE EMAIL WEARY
Newsletter
One thing you should know about me is that I’m not your typical business blogger gal, with a team behind me and targeted marketing strategy; I don’t love emails for anything other than absolutely necessary info. That said, I must disclaim that I don’t have time, nor bandwidth to send you regular emails about every detail and happening here at the Rachel Mansi Blog, because…well…I am a mom of two young boys, and my work weeks are not typical. HOWEVER, if you’d like the personal invitation to join me in the latest cake and cookie classes, new digital class offers or other updates, by all means, subscribe to the newsletter, it simply helps me know who is actually interested in that info.
