doubt Archives - Kristen Anne Glover

Manna on the Ground: Day 19 of 31 Days.

To begin at Day 1, click on the photo above.

I have never written so much in so little time, and published it immediately for public consumption. This 31 Days experiment is something completely new to me. Every day, I feel vulnerable and raw because I have to get up and put words down on paper and hope that they’re right because I don’t have much time to fix it before I send them out for all the world to read.

Of course, not all the world is reading, but that doesn’t matter because the most important people in the world to me are, and that’s the thing that leaves me feeling a little sick when the page is blank and the clock is ticking right through the early morning.

Because I forget sometimes that these words are not mine. I forget how God has never failed to provide the words for what He has called me to write. Still, I wake up, frantically searching to see if there will be manna on the ground today.

I wonder if God gets tired of proving Himself to me over things I should never doubt at all. Because I sure get tired of doubting. How many days does the manna have to fall before I trust Him?

By His grace, I have spent the last nineteen days dwelling on His lavish love of me, a love that covers a multitude of sins—including my faltering faith. It is a love that is infinitely patient and altogether incomprehensible because it goes beyond pity to full and complete acceptance. It is not just a love that saves us from death; it is a love that grants us richness of life.

Those words have rattled around in my soul for days and days before they spilled out onto the page, and I am grateful because I am slow to learn, and I easily forget. He did not save me just so I would not die. He saved me that I might live richly.

Why, then, am I willing to settle for the bare minimum when God longs for me to embrace the full inheritance He has laid out for me? Perhaps, like Jewel, I am afraid. Perhaps I feel unworthy. Or perhaps, I have been in the kingdom so long, I have forgotten the details of my rescue and I actually think I can do it on my own.

That is not rich living. That is bare survival.

Do you know, dear friends, how much your prince longs for you to have more than that?

Manna on the ground

As we continue with the story of Jewel and her all-gracious prince, I want you to reflect on just one question: Am I living richly in Christ? Am I embracing the inheritance He has given me?

If you’re like me, the answer probably changes day by day, or even moment by moment. My challenge to you, and to myself, is to ask why. Why am I willing to settle for the minimum when God longs to give me everything? Why do I clench my fists instead of grasping hold of His riches?

Then, in those moments when you or I am about to walk out of His treasury with our hands empty, let’s remember the verse that started it all. “His divine power has granted to us everything we need for life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.”

We do not have to go through life on empty. We do not have to wonder if the manna will fall on the ground today. We are the bride of Christ!

He has withheld nothing from us.

Please continue to follow along with the story, From Enemy to Heir. You will see just how rich He longs for us to be.

The plan for the day improved greatly with one phone call Jeff made this morning. He needed to pick up some building materials from a friend, a friend who happens to have three giant trampolines lined up in a row in his backyard. The first one is directly under his roof.

You have no idea how fun it is to have three trampolines lined up in a row just inches from the corner of a roof unless you’ve tried it, or unless you’re under the age of ten and can imagine it.

“I’ll tell ya what,” Gary said when Jeff asked if he could drop by. “You can come on over as long as you bring the family and stay for some lemonade.”

It was settled.

The only trouble was, I’ve been fighting some fierce kid-germs, and they’re still “winning me.” I thought about this as Jeff announced the plan to the kids.

“Yahoo!” they screamed. “We can jump on the trampolines!”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to go,” I said through my stuffy nose. “I’ll probably have to stay home.”

“Even better!” one of the children shouted gleefully.

The words sliced through the air and made a direct hit.

Even better.

Even better if you don’t come.

Even better without you.

It was said carelessly because even very small children can toss heavy words about as if they weigh nothing at all, as if they mean nothing at all.

But they meant something to me, and I felt myself bleeding out right there in the middle of the kitchen because those words cut deep.

Those words were not the words of my child; they are the words of my Enemy.

They are dark words, and deep like the depths of the ocean. When all the house is asleep and the moon brings in a tide of self-doubt, I feel myself getting sucked into the currents and drowning into that ocean. It tells me that I am not enough, that I have messed it up, that I am not cut out for this. It gurgles up in me and I hear the rush of it in my ears: they all would be better off without me.

My child does not know that I have heard these words before, and often, in my own heart and my own mind. He does not know how they leave me clinging to the rocks and chanting to myself, “It is not true. It is not true.”

This child does not know how it cuts me to hear in broad daylight the words I fight in the dark.

Those words hang in the air between us and for an awful moment, I am swept out to sea by a sudden wave and I cannot breathe. It is true. All my failings, all my shortcomings, all my inadequacies: every single one of them is true. They would all be better off with someone else.

But wait…

They are not true, and they are not the words of my child. They are the words of my Enemy. I come up for air, grab hold of a bit of craggy rock, and see it for what it is. How dare my Enemy use my child’s lips to utter his lies! How dare he tread on that holy ground.

Because this calling is not my own. I did not bear these children out of my own desire, nor was I given them out of my own goodness or ability. A thousand women with empty arms deserved this more. I know it. I think of Mother’s Day, looming large on my calendar, and I weep for them because I feel so undeserving of the gift they desire. Why me? Why not them?

It is a whirlpool that easily sucks me in. I can drown in my inadequacies and I can grieve the probability that another mother could do it better, but it doesn’t erase the fact that God gave me a name I did not earn.

He called me mother.

It is a grace-calling. And grace-callings are the hardest ones to answer, I find, because they never-ever-never-ever fit right.

Because if it fit right, it wouldn’t be grace.

If it fit right, it wouldn’t leave me stumbling and tripping over my own mantle like some kind of misfit, or wrestling with doubts and uncertainties like a kid who can’t figure out how to put on her own dress.

If it fit right, I wouldn’t have to trust that God knew best, despite how I perform…

…despite what my kids think of me…

…despite the fact that I am impatient…

…and also selfish.

Despite the fact that I can’t get my arms in my own sleeves–despite all of it.

I was not called to be a mother because I was going to be good at it.

I was called to be a mother because God could make something good out of it, despite me.

I am wet and dripping, half-drowned and inglorious, yet God bends to whisper in my ear,

“It’s better with you here.”

I struggle to believe it.

It is better with you here because I AM the One who called you.

That is the truth I need to hear, and often, a truth that speaks in a whisper but shouts above the waves.

It is better with you here.

100 Beautiful Days of Motherhood: 41

{19} Manna on the Ground

Better With You Here