God Archives - Page 6 of 15 - Kristen Anne Glover

100 Beautiful Days of Motherhood: Hospitality {9}

We are having company for dinner tonight, which means I am in a mad scramble to make it look like no one lives here. I have almost finished the lasagna but the floor still needs to be mopped and the kitchen is a wreck and there’s an entire corner of the living room where random Christmas trimmings have been collecting since the morning of December 25.

I look up at the clock where the minutes keep on ticking by and I realize that I never fixed that tear in the couch. I notice that I don’t have enough matching dishes and I’m completely out of napkins. I have forgotten all about making the brownies for dessert but I have become acutely aware of the fact that my children still have not learned to flush the toilet in the hall.

Anxious thoughts flood my mind. I don’t know what to do next. I can’t think. Then the children stomp through and demand my time with comments and questions that seem so menial in the light of my greater responsibility. “I had it first!” “He hit me!” “Can we have a snack?”

I feel anger welling up. Why are they bothering me now? Can’t they see I’m busy? “I don’t have time for this!” I snap. “Go find something to do!”

But what I really mean is, you are too much of a bother. You are getting in the way of the little show I’m trying to pull off. You are messing up the mirage that we have it all together.

Why do I do this to myself? I think as I mop the floor. Every time we have company over, it’s the same way. I fall into a trap of trying to be perfect. I suddenly become dissatisfied with my home and my children and my husband and especially myself. My husband can never be helpful enough and the children can never play quietly enough and I can never do enough to make myself look much better than I really am.

It’s the old hypocrite in me coming out to play. I talk a big talk about grace, but on Friday nights when company is coming over, I don’t want it. I want a clean house. I want to keep up appearances. I will worry about all that sin that is death after the company goes home and no one cares if I have dirty dishes in my sink.

After every one goes home, I will apologize to my husband and the kids and say things like, “I’m sorry I was a little cranky,” because saying “I’m sorry I was a little cranky” is easier than saying, “I’m sorry I yelled at you” or “I’m sorry I didn’t have time for you” or “I’m sorry I loved a clean kitchen sink more than you.”

I will say it sincerely enough, though, as if I learned something. But really, all I want is to justify the tyrannical behavior that got me what I wanted. I acted unlovingly toward my husband and children but I got a clean house. It seems like a fair enough trade.

But of course, it isn’t. Trading grace for works is the ransom of a birthright for a pot of stew. It is a cheap exchange that leaves everything around me tainted no matter how hard I clean.

Today, getting the house clean in time seemed to be more important than love or grace or any of those things that tend to leave dirty footprints on my floor. Today, checking off the to-do list was more important than being honest and real and kind.

But on this beautiful day, God did not leave me in my sin. He reminded me of grace. Deep down, I know that a friend will not care if my house is clean or not. I certainly don’t care if hers is. In fact, I don’t mind if there are a few crumbs on the floor or dust on the windowsills because I can understand that. That makes me feel right at home and I love her all the more because she trusts me enough to know that it is okay for me to see her smudges.

And I am nothing if not a little smudgy. I fall short just like everyone else. I understand that, I think, until it’s time for me to be on the receiving end of grace. Then I don’t like it. Then, I want to work it out so I can give grace without having to swallow any of it myself.

But it’s not enough to give grace. I must receive it. I must let people in to the mess and the brokenness and trust that they will love me all the more for my weakness. I must hold on to the promise that Christ will indeed be more glorified through the broken pot than the whitewashed vessel.

On this beautiful day, I got to be a broken pot, an open door, a woman acquainted with grace.

100 Beautiful Days of Motherhood: The Stuff of Shadows {8}

The view sold this house. I walked into the living room, newly pregnant with the news of twins, and was captivated by what I saw in the window. On that crystal-blue day, I could see the rise and fall of the Olympic Mountains and the calm tranquility of the Pacific Ocean as it worked its way through the fingers of the Puget Sound. I could see trees where eagles sit and a valley hued in purples and blues. I could not take my eyes away long enough to notice the mint-green paint in the kitchen or the outdated gold light fixture above the table. It did not really matter when the house came with a view like that.

Nearly five years later, I have not grown tired of looking out my window at all that can be seen of this world. It is comforting and peaceful to be able to see so far, to know all that can be seen in miles and miles of looking.

But today, the view was hidden. The fog unfolded off the ocean like the fabric of a veil, keeping common things from sight, hiding both the known and the unknown. The valley below us descended into deep uncertainty.

Today, I was living behind a veil.

All my certainty faded away and I felt a little bit like a child, longing to see in the dark. I wanted the comfort of living on a mountaintop, but I was in the valley.

Some seasons of motherhood are like that, when the fog clouds my vision and I can only see in vague shapes and shadows. My eyes strain to focus, to deduce clarity from the dimness. But it is not there.

I wonder, some days, if I’m walking in the right direction, or if I’m making any progress. When the children fall into the same old fight or I find myself muddled by some unconquered sin, when my mind is filled with more questions than answers and I can’t even imagine how all this is going to turn out right, I wonder. How can I keep walking where I cannot see?

On those dark and uncertain days, when I cannot see where the next step leads and I feel uncertain in my footing, it is good to know that my destination is secure. I grab onto that when I can’t grab on to anything else. I am heir to a promise that one day, I will see clearly. One day I will know without shadows, understand without doubt, and see from one limitless horizon to the other.

But for now, when the fog settles in and I cannot walk where I feel most secure, I rest in the knowledge that what I know to be true does not change just because I can’t see it. The mountains are still there. The ocean is still there. And God is still there. Sometimes, His face is hidden so I can see His hand, leading and guiding me over the unfamiliar terrain and around the obstacles I cannot see.

I look before me and I cannot see the road. But it is okay to walk where I cannot see because it is not my eyes I trust.

I trust in the One who sets my feet upon a rock.

I trust in the One who makes shadows flee.

I trust in the One who tears the veil.

100 Beautiful Days of Motherhood: School {6}

When I first started homeschooling my daughter, I had no intentions of making it a thing. I was a mom who happened to be homeschooling, but I was NOT a homeschool mom. There’s a difference.

In the beginning, I was organized and creative and a little smug. I had a daughter who, at two, could spell her name, count in Spanish, and sing the order of the planets. At playgroup, she said words like otoscope, marsupial, and impertinent. At age five, she informed me that her favorite book was The Swiss Family Robinson. Unabridged. I proudly displayed her beautiful handwriting on the fridge and plastered gold stars all over her work.

Fast forward a few years and a few more children. I am no longer smug. I am no longer organized. I don’t even have stickers because someone stuck them all over the cat. I have no idea what I’ve taught to whom or if my third child even knows there are planets.

The counters are covered with suspicious jars of things for science and toilet paper tubes for art, which is ironic because the old me would have sworn toilet paper tubes could never be art.

I am a homeschool mom. Not just a mom who homeschools, but a bona fide, tried-by-phonics homeschool mom who teaches not just one advanced child, but five children of varying degrees of talent and ability, attention and cooperation, desire and will. I am not just a patient, creative, enthusiastic teacher but a distracted, tired, and sometimes frustrated teacher who hopes the grocery clerk won’t ask the kids any difficult questions like “What grade are they in?”

I am a homeschool mom, and the dirty truth is, I don’t really like it. At noon on most days, I am on my second pot of coffee and my first pair of pajamas. Even on the best days, when everything is clicking right along and no one has cried over math even once, I sometimes stare out the window and indulge a fantasy about a big yellow bus that makes house calls.

I’d like to quit. I think about all the other things I could be doing instead of teaching long division again. I am convinced that if there really was such a thing as Purgatory, it would involve teaching long division. Or beginning reading.

Every few months, when a new math lesson results in mass hysteria or cursive practice threatens to be fatal, I have a little breakdown. I go up to my room and cry and think about the fact that there are worse things than raising five illiterate children.

Of course, that’s an exaggeration. Only two of them are illiterate.

There are also worse things than doing something you don’t like. No one will tell you that, but it’s true. We want to believe that we were put on this earth to feel good and serve our own dreams and desires, but that’s a lie. We were put on this earth to glorify God, and that sometimes takes a different road than I would have guessed.

I think about this often on the “I Don’t Wanna” days. Like it or not, homeschooling is the best option for our children for now. I’ve done the math. It always comes out the same. That means that God is in this. He has led me here and He has called me to this trial challenge opportunity for His time and for His purpose.

If God has called me here, He will provide the strength I need to stay here. I realize I have an unparalleled opportunity to see God work. And do you know where He tends to work first? In me.

That is the awful beauty of homeschooling. It gets at the stuff I tend to shove in the corners. It gets at the cruddy parts and the broken parts and the parts that should have been refined by now but aren’t. I am impatient, still. I am selfish, still. I am lazy, still.

No matter how many times a big yellow bus stops at my house, it is not going to take away all that stuff that lingers in my heart. Only God can do that, but God will only do that if I am obedient.

So on this beautiful day, I am thankful to be where God is. It just so happens to be in a living room sprinkled with flashcards and library books. It just so happens to be in my own home teaching my own children. It just so happens to be in the refiner’s fire.

It just so happens to be right where I need to be.

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