faith Archives - Kristen Anne Glover

Mr. Whitter’s Cabin

Mr. Whitter’s Cabin

Mr. Whitter lives two doors down on the opposite side of the street. He owns an old hunting dog named Rosie and a faded blue ten-speed which he sometimes pedals up the hill to collect his dog when she comes to call on our chickens. “Hey, Kiddo!” he says when he sees me.

It has been Mr. Whitter’s objective to get our family out to his cabin. His thirty-acre slice of Alaska lies along a river just past the town of Willow, where the Iditarod starts every year in early March. Decades ago, Jim and his wife built a cabin on the bluff overlooking the water. Over the years, more and more grandkids carved their names in the ladder leading up to the loft, and extra bunk beds have been built along the wall in the great room to accommodate them all.

In other words, it is the perfect place to share with the neighbors and their slew of kids.

coffee pot

Mr. Jim Whitter could not stand the fact that the silvers were running, wild raspberries were dripping on their canes, and the long summer days were already beginning to yawn—and not a single kid was running rampant over his land, taking advantage of it all.

“Just go on out there, and treat it like it’s yours,” Mr. Whitter said, pressing a hand-drawn map into Jeff’s hand. The combination to the padlock on the rusty chain fence was scribbled at the top, and Mr. Whitter had already hauled out the portable generator and an extra can of fuel to tuck into the back of our van.

“I think we’d better go,” Jeff said with a grin when Mr. Whitter left. The thought of being able to shoot targets with the kids at Jim’s homemade range was more than my husband could bear.

Mr. Whitter's flag

But it was Sunday afternoon. I was still in my church clothes, and the children were eating stale popcorn for lunch. Nothing was packed.

A few years ago, that would have been a deal-breaker. A spontaneous overnight camping trip for seven people would have stressed me out to the point of making it less-than-fun for everyone. I would have said no. I would have offered a million reasons why going right now was impossible: My refrigerator was bare, the laundry wasn’t done, and did we even know where the camping lanterns were?

cook stove

But I’ve grown a little, I guess.

Instead of saying, “That’s not enough time to get ready!” I said, “Okay!”

We fed the chickens extra, made a quick food-intolerance-friendly dinner in the Instant Pot, dug up fresh batteries for the lanterns, and hit the road. I forgot deodorant. At least two kids didn’t pack underwear. But I didn’t stress, and I didn’t give my family an extra chance to practice forgiveness.

Because of that, we got to spend the night in a cabin by the river, nestled in the trees, with beaming kids who couldn’t stop saying, “This is the best place ever!”

I would have missed it all—and forced my family to miss it—if I had given in to my nature that says, “I can’t do this on such short notice and still have a good attitude.” That little area of growth in my life opened us up to an incredible blessing that my weakness would have robbed from me.

campfire at Mr. Whitter's Cabin

I realized that perhaps I’ve been a little backwards in my thinking. I have operated under the assumption that God longs for my sanctification because He is tired of my immaturity. He is sick of seeing the same sins and mistakes day after day. Won’t she ever grow up?

But I am beginning to understand that God longs for my sanctification so that He can pour more of Himself into me. My Father wants to bless me with all that He is; He desires me to grow up into the riches of Christ in the heavenly places. I can reach some of it now, right where I am. But God’s riches are like the cherry tree in my grandmother’s orchard—all the best fruit is in the top branches.

raspberries at Mr. Whitter's cabin

The more I grow, the more of God’s abundance I have available to me. He has such good things in store just beyond the reach of my stubbornness, fear, and rebellion. I think I would be devastated to know how I have closed myself to God’s blessings because I have been unwilling to let go of my lack.

It makes me wonder, perhaps what saddens God the most about my weakness is not the fact that I am messing up, but that I am missing out. I am missing out on His infinite fullness, richness, abundance, and power to more than fill everything that is lacking in me.

teapot at Mr. Whitter's Cabin

Suddenly, God looks a lot like an old man on a rusty bike, holding out a hand-drawn map. “Hey, Kiddo!” He says. “The salmon are running and the raspberries are dripping on the canes, and I can’t stand that you’re missing it.“

The riches of God are there, waiting.

All you have to do is say yes.

lunch at Mr. Whitter's Cabin

Failing Grade

“Mom?” I heard my daughter’s voice slide weakly under the bathroom door. “Mom, I got a failing grade on my test.”

Her words quivered in the air.

“Wow, what happened?” I wrapped myself in a towel and opened the door. Rivers were running down her cheeks.

“I don’t know! I thought I understood the book, but then the test had all these questions that were confusing, and I didn’t know what they were asking and…” The words tumbled out with her tears.

We stood in the hallway dripping.

“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s just one test.”

“No, Mom! It wasn’t just one test. It was a really big test!” My conscientious first-born looked at the ground and wrapped her arms tighter to herself. “I don’t know what happened.”

All she could see of herself in that moment was her failure. She saw a kid who had successfully knocked her grade down a full letter in just one shot. She saw someone who hadn’t studied well enough, who didn’t read carefully, and who made the wrong choices when it mattered.

She couldn’t see everything else that she is.

All she could see was her lack.

Failing Grade

I saw my own reflection in her teary eyes. How often I evaluate myself on my failures and measure myself by my shortcomings! All day long, I collect little infractions and big sins. When the darkness sweeps over me at night and I’m left alone with my thoughts, I lay them all out on the table one by one to see just how bad of a wife and mother I really am.

I lost my patience.

I used “that tone” again.

I put off the project my husband asked me to do.

I made my daughter feel bad about her math mistakes.

I spent too much time on my computer.

I didn’t do the Bible reading with the kids.

It all stacks up to a big, fat failing grade. I wonder why I haven’t been able to do better even though I have tried and tried and tried. How could God love this stumbling, tripping child who can’t seem to go through a day without scraping her knees?

But I look at my daughter struggling with her failure, and I long to embrace her and show her who she really is to me.

She is so much more than a grade on a test.

She is my treasure, my beloved child. Nothing she could ever do or not do could make me love her any less or any more. She already has all of me.

Failing Grade

And suddenly, I know just how my heavenly Father feels about me when I fail. He stands in the hallway with me as I bumble on about my collection of infractions, and I know he longs to scoop me up and say, “Tough day, huh kiddo?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know something?”

“What?”

“You are my treasured possession, the very one I have chosen especially for this.”

I want to argue with God and tell him that he didn’t pick very well, that he should have chosen someone with a little more going on, someone who messes up a lot less, someone who doesn’t need all the grace she takes.

“Look at what I did today,” I manage to mumble.

“I didn’t choose you because of what you could do; I chose you because of what Jesus did.”

I look to the ground and nod. It’s the best thing to do when God is right but you’re not quite ready admit it.

“Can I ask you something?” God says.

“It depends.”

“Do you think there’s anything you can do that will undo Jesus?”

The question stops me cold. I’m sure there must be something. It sure feels like it. But that’s just it: all the guilt and self-reproach is just a feeling, nothing more.

I have absolutely nothing in my arsenal of failures that is more powerful than what Christ has done.

“You can’t undo what Jesus has done—you’re not God. Nothing you can ever do wrong or anything you ever do right will ever erase his sacrifice on your behalf. I planned it that way.”

I smile to myself because it is true, and because it is comforting. None of my shortcomings is strong enough to undo Christ’s sacrifice; in fact, the more I fail, the more profoundly his sacrifice cleanses me, adopts me, and defines me.

I am a mother who fails, but I have Jesus. I am a wife who neglects, but I have Jesus. I am a daughter of God who messes up, but I have Jesus.

When God looks at my failing grade, he doesn’t see less of me. He sees more of Jesus.

And for two dripping kids who can’t seem to do better than a failing grade, that is more than enough.

World Gone Mad

Gone mad

The whole world has gone mad.

That’s what people are saying. It’s the only way to make sense of what is happening in our nation at this moment. People must be crazy.

The temporary insanity plea is handy, and comforting, in a way. Madness is for a moment; one bad election season, we console ourselves, and people will wake up. They will get this madness out of their collective system, and the pendulum will swing back the other way.

Insanity provides us with a reason for the unthinkable while conveniently releasing us from any semblance of responsibility or taint of participation.

Madness is convenient.

There’s something in our souls

It is easier to think there’s something in the water than to accept the truth that there is something in our souls that could be causing a nationwide outbreak of recklessness in regard to our national elections.

It is far more difficult to face the reality that what we’re witnessing is not madness at all, but the inevitable outcome of a chronic disease. Our nation has been sick for a long time. But not only have we neglected the symptoms, we have contributed to the decline.

Decades of unchecked sin and selfishness and a gross abdication of roles and responsibility have led to where we are today. People are not crazy. They are infected. We are infected.

Our nation, far from being mad, is symptomatic. We are plagued with wrong thoughts about ourselves, our leaders, and our God. Wrong thinking, left unchecked, quickly solidifies into wrong beliefs, and wrong beliefs lead to wrong expectations, and wrong expectations become the demands that shape policy.

That is where we are today. It is not madness that infects us, but something much longer in the making and much harder in the healing: we have allowed our minds to become darkened.

We have forgotten Who is on the throne, and like God’s people of long ago, we have clamored for a king when we had a Sovereign. We have begged man to do what God has done while smugly calling ourselves a Christian nation.

We have no intention of being a Christian nation.

We do not want God’s truth, we do not want his righteousness, and we do not want his responsibility.

We have given the government the job of the church and given the church the job of the individual. With nothing left to give away, we have collected our rights about us and horded them with jealous suspicion. Those who do not think like us—worse, who do not vote like us—are enemies because they threaten the thin livelihood we hide behind.

Rage boils up in our mouths and blisters our speech. Differences are as unthinkable as a civil debate. We do not know how to have a conversation with someone who differs from us because we view those differences as a threat to our very existence. Instead, we throw around hate and justify it by talking about how much is at stake.

After all, we say, no one stopped Hitler.

In truth, we are afraid. We are afraid because we have forgotten that the Lord in heaven laughs—he knows what is to come. And he is in control of all of it.

We crouch about in our fear because that is all we have that is truly ours—fear. We fear what will happen if so-and-so is elected, or if so-and-so does not. We worry over the policies of the leaders we demanded to have and the politics of the neighbors who do not think like us, as if God is not still on the throne. We spend more time watching the news so we can remember what to be afraid of than we do reading the Word so we can remember why we should not fear.

We fear losing even one of our self-proclaimed rights as if anything we have is ours to keep, as if in any way we deserve the right to speak or think or live as free men.

We are not free men. We are slaves to our own flesh, and we cannot do better for ourselves in and of ourselves. We are sick.

The Lord in heaven laughs–Psalm 2

We are incapable, except by the grace of God, to choose well. We are incapable, but by the grace of God, to do well. We cannot even watch and pray long enough to raise up the next generation. We have abdicated our responsibility to captivate our own minds and teach our own children because there is something on Facebook that needs our immediate attention.

If we spent half the time conforming our minds to Christ as we do worrying over politics, we might have a hope. If we spent but a moment meditating on the truth of the Word, we would not fear. If we understood the reality of eternity, we would beg for God’s refining fire and the singe of sanctification because we would know how much we need it.

It is easy to chalk this election up to madness. But oh, that we would see it for what it is. It is sin-sickness, and it will not change with one election season. It will not change until we let go of the fear long enough to pray, “Come, Lord Jesus. Make us holy. Keep us humble. Be our Sovereign. Let your kingdom come and your will be done no matter what it costs me.”

That is madness, of course. But then, the world has gone mad.

Gone mad