Kristen Anne Glover

Five in Tow

Beauty in Brokenness

 

I was about half-way through my workout when my ankle gave out.   My foot rolled, twisting my ankle under my weight with a loud “pop.”   I crumpled to the ground, unable to stand, and grabbed my leg.  My ankle was on fire with pain.   I held it in the air, gasping in agony, and begged my brain to get a handle on the pain so I could breathe.  My ankle swelled immediately and I could see the blood start to pool under the bone.

The next several days found me confined to the couch, my ankle propped up on pillows and loaded down with ice.  The kids gathered around to assess the damage.

“Your foot looks really fat,” Kya said, noticing the way my flesh puffed up around the Ace wrap.

“And it really, really stinky!” Micah said.  He didn’t care for the herbal ointment I had rubbed all over.  It created a strange, bluish-gray hue over my deeply bruised skin.

“And your skin is all different colors.  Like a crocodile,” Jonathan added.

“I think your baby toe looks like a beluga whale!”  Faith concluded. They all giggled.

But Paul was worried.  “Your leg is broken?  You need to glue it,” he advised.  Then, every so often, he stopped in to pat my leg.  “That make it better?” he asked, patting.

“Yes, Paul, I think it does.”

“Good (pat, pat).  I make it better.”  He brought books and snuggled next to me and told me he liked me.

The pain subsided after a few days, but I couldn’t even walk to the bathroom without my entire foot swelling up and throbbing.  The only thing I could do was sit on the couch and give directions.  The kids scampered about, eager to help.  Faith made scrambled eggs for breakfast, helped the boys to the bathroom, and changed a set of wet sheets.  Jonathan set the table.  Kya dressed her brothers.  In tutus.  They unloaded the dishwasher and swept the floor and got out their school books, working diligently despite many interruptions.

When my husband came home from work, he was met at the door with a day’s worth of requests by five kids who didn’t have a mother to help.  All of the household responsibilities fell squarely on his shoulders as soon as he walked in the door.  Dinner, jammies, brushing teeth, grocery shopping, cleaning up the kitchen—no matter what the task, he did it all cheerfully and scolded me if I so much as thought about getting up.

My neighbors sent over crutches and cookies, friends offered to bring meals, and my mother-in-law stopped in with a big pot of soup and cornbread muffins.  She washed the dishes in the sink and cleaned up the kitchen that had been neglected all week.  The children bragged to her about how much they were helping.  Their faces glowed.

But by Friday, I was exhausted.  Sure, my foot hurt, but it was more than that.  I felt discouraged.  Helpless.  Worthless.  I felt as if somehow my value as a wife and mother had diminished along with my ability to do.

Day after day, I was a mother who couldn’t take little boys to the bathroom or get children ready to go outside.  I was a wife who couldn’t make dinner or pack a lunch.  I couldn’t make my own coffee or carry my own dirty laundry to the hamper.  I couldn’t even feed the cat.

It was strangely terrible, being in a place where I had nothing to offer, where I was broken and needy and unable to do a single thing about it.  I could only ask for help and beg for charity from those who were already stretched thin and worn out with the demands of daily life.  I dug in my pockets for something to give, desperate to contribute so I could feel better, but I found nothing except my own insecurity.

Who am I when I have nothing to give?  I am a coward.  It’s one thing for you to know that I’m weak and broken, generally speaking.  It’s another thing for you to get close enough to diagnose my disease.   I do not want you to get up close into my specifics and see my dirty dishes and my daughter’s failed math test and hear the way I talked to my kids when I had to give the same directions three times in a row.  I do not want you to know me like this.

If I can’t be left alone, I will insist that I’m getting better.  I may be broken now, but I won’t be broken later.  I am not this needy, not always.  This is a fluke, a one-time deal.  Soon I will be on the giving end of grace, just like I like it.  Just wait and you will see—I’m getting better.

But love doesn’t wait.   Love comes into my messy house after a full day, looks into my blotchy face, and gets to work setting things straight without saying a word.  Love is my husband’s arms, enfolding me, carrying me up the stairs even though I say I can manage myself.   Love is my children’s hands, bringing me water and pillows and sweetly accepting my injury as an opportunity to serve.  Love is a friend who brings dinner even though I say I’m getting better.  Love knows I am not better. 

And I find that this kind of love–the kind I don’t deserve, the kind I can’t earn, the kind that pushes into my weaknesses and exposes my fault lines–is hard to take.  It is the kind of love that is bathed in grace, and I’ve always been a little uncomfortable with grace.  I want to deserve it.  I want to earn it.  I want to believe I am getting better.  I do not want to need it, and the horror of grace is that it necessitates weakness, brokenness, and emptiness.  It rushes in when I dig deep and find nothing to offer.

It is the kind of love that looks at a woman shrouded in excuses and loves her in spite of the lies, not because of them.  It is the kind of love that smears mud on sightless eyes and raises servant girls to life and replaces the ear of an enemy.  It is the kind of love that heals ten when nine will forget.  It is the kind of love that gave up the strength and power I crave in order to take on the weakness I abhor so that I might be saved with the grace I find so difficult to accept.

Who am I when I can’t give, when I can’t do, when I can’t be better than I really am, when there is nothing but me, on a couch, broken?  Who am I when I have nothing to hide behind?  Who am I when I can’t do anything to make myself more appealing to earn your friendship or your favor, your admiration and your love?   What if all I have is grace?

Then I find myself in the place I most need to be.

 

The Trouble with Juice

Juice=love

Every Thursday morning, Jonathan puts on his boots and heads over to Mrs. Smith’s house to take out her garbage and recycling containers.  It’s a job he’s had since Mr. Smith died over a year ago, and things changed.  Mrs. Smith walks with a cane, and even though she’s as spirited as a much younger woman, it’s hard for her to do some things on her own.  Jonathan lives to help others, but he’s given up telling Mrs. Smith not to pay him a dollar every week to do the very thing he loves to do for her because she won’t hear it.

The truth is, Mrs. Smith loves my children just as much as they love her, and she can’t resist taking every opportunity to show them.  A little candy tucked in here or a package of cookies sent home there—even though her budget has been tight since she became a widow, Mrs. Smith delights in finding ways to spoil her “grand-neighbors.”

One day, Jonathan came back from garbage duty lugging a jug of apple juice.  His siblings rushed him at the door, eager for a glimpse of the prize.  The twins jumped up and down and the girls cheered.  Apple juice is a rare commodity at our house.  The kids have become accustomed to drinking kefir water and kombucha tea, which I make in abundance, but juice…that’s something to celebrate.

“Can we have some?  Can we?”  They begged.  It’s hard to say no to children who are hugging a carton of juice.  Besides, breakfast was almost ready so the timing was perfect.

“Sit up at the table!” I said, and five bodies scampered enthusiastically up to their places.  Faith had already put the skillet of fluffy scrambled eggs on the table.  She had made them, all by herself.

“You’ve gotta try them!” She beamed.  She was so proud and she’d done such a great job, I decided to serve the eggs before getting the juice.  Everyone was happy with this arrangement, except for Micah.

“I want apple juice, Mommy,” he said.

“I’ll get it, Micah.  Just a second.  Why don’t you eat a bite of eggs while you wait?”

Micah looked at his plate and wrinkled up his face.  “I don’t yike it,” he sulked.

Faith looked offended.  “They’re good, Micah!  Try a bite.”  Everyone agreed.  Faith was becoming quite the little chef.

“I want JUICE!” he stated again with fervor and banged his spoon on the table.

I stopped with the eggy spatula in mid-air.  “Micah!  That is not how you talk!  I will get you some juice just as soon as I’m done.  Now, eat your eggs.”

The other kids were making short work of Faith’s breakfast.  “Mmmm!” Paul said as he gobbled up his share.  “It yummy!”  Paul could eat his body weight in eggs.

Micah pouted and wouldn’t eat a bite.  “Micah,” I said sternly.  “If you don’t eat your eggs, I’m not going to give you any juice.”  I opened the jug and began filling glasses.  I didn’t even water it down.  It was like Christmas.

Micah refused even to taste his eggs.  He pushed his plate away and said, “I only want JUICE.”

“I am not going to give you juice when you talk to me like that.”

Quickly, he descended into the biggest tantrum we had seen since an unfortunate incident at the dentist’s office.  We all watched him, feeling sorry that he was making the choice to behave so poorly.  The juice was a delight.  It should have made him happy.  Instead, he was choosing to be disobedient and defiant.

I gave everyone else their juice, but Micah was too far gone.  I made him get down from the table and said quietly, “Micah, I have juice for you, but I can’t give it to you when you behave like this.”  He squirmed in my arms and wouldn’t look at me.  “I won’t reward you for your disobedience,” I repeated a line he had heard often from me.  But instead of melting into submission like the others do, he began to cry, not soft, repentant tears, but hot, angry ones.  I had no choice but to send him away so he wouldn’t ruin breakfast for everyone else.

The kitchen was quiet except for the sound of Micah crying in his room.  The kids ate their eggs solemnly.  “I wish he’d just eat his eggs,” Faith said.

“Then he could have juice!” Kya added.

“He ready now, Mom.  He ready.”  Paul was always willing to come to the defense of his twin.

But we could hear Micah downstairs, and he was most certainly not ready.

What Micah didn’t know is that I wanted him to have the thing he wanted.  I stood there in the kitchen with his cup in hand, ready and willing to give it to him.  It wasn’t a question of sufficiency; I had an abundant supply.  It wasn’t a question of willingness; I desired for him to have a share of this good gift.   It wasn’t even a question of timing; I was ready to give it to him now.

It was a question of obedience.

As much as I wanted Micah to be happy and to enjoy the good thing we had been given, I would not grant him happiness at the exclusion of obedience.  I loved him too much for that.

From his behavior, I knew Micah thought I was being mean and unfair.  What he didn’t know was that my heart was breaking for my son, who had taken a good thing and turned it into an idol.  He had taken a privilege and made it a right.  He began to demand something he had already been freely given, and instead of producing joy and happiness in him like a good gift does, it drew out his selfishness and anger.  His heart was tight and closed, hardened by stubbornness and defiance.

Just like mine.

I listened to his tantrum and I couldn’t help but think of the many times I have behaved the same way. How often have I railed against my Father, demanding what is not mine, idolizing gifts without thought for the Giver, thinking I deserve something I have not earned, giving ultimatums like a person who has never tasted grace?

Just like a child.

In my stubbornness, I forget the truth about God, who says he’s my Father.  I wondered if his fatherhood of me is about more than just his unconditional love, which I hold close even when I’m being particularly unlovable.  I wondered if it’s about him standing in my kitchen, waiting to give me good gifts that I’m too stubborn to accept on his terms.  I wondered if it’s about him letting me press into his power and riches and glory, if I’d just turn around and go to where He is, instead of running headstrong in my own direction and expecting him to meet me there.  I wondered if he’s ready, like a good father, to give me everything I need for life and godliness.  I wondered if he’s waiting for me to stop feeling sorry for myself so he could show me how he’s already conquered, already victorious, and already willing to give me everything I need.

I wondered what kind of Father God would be to me if I’d simply let go and obey.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.  Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?  If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!  Mt. 7:7-11