• Home
  • About
  • Archives
  • Contact

Kristen Anne Glover

Five in Tow

  • Marriage
  • Parenting
  • Faith
  • Christmas

The Truck Didn’t Come

Home is where the Army Sends You

We woke up early because it was the day a semi-truck promised to pull down our street, big and bright and beautiful to two boys who still had a week of being four left in their bodies.  Semi-trucks are always worth getting up early for, especially if they intend to park right in front of your house, close enough to touch.

The kids scrambled out of bed and stood in the empty living room, noses to glass, waiting.

But the truck didn’t come.

They pulled themselves away from the windows long enough to devour cold cereal from four borrowed bowls and a mug.  Then they raced upstairs to put on shorts and t-shirts so they could stand under the hot sun and bake a little on the sidewalk while they waited.  Any second now, it would be here.

But the truck didn’t come.

Jeff packed up the folding table and chairs we’d checked out from the military lending closet at Ft. Bliss and filled the minivan full to bursting with the foam mattresses we had been sleeping on all week.  The kids followed him to the garage, begging to be allowed to use them to slide on down the stairs just once before he took them back.

Foam mattresses

“Don’t you have a truck to watch for?” he said as he stumbled out the door.  They watched him go and listened for the rumble of eighteen wheels barreling down our street.

But the truck didn’t come. 

Lunch came and went and so did every entertaining activity we could think of to do in an empty house.  A few discarded Matchbox cars spun idly to a stop on the bare floor, wheels to the sky, mimicking the dead June bugs the boys were collecting in the garage.  I bought a necklace I didn’t need online and Jonathan burned pricker bushes with his magnifying glass.  Faith read the same book for the fifth time.

But the truck didn’t come. 

Long into the afternoon we waited, watching the shadows of the neighbors’ houses stretch out across our lawn like lazy cats.

Suddenly, the shrill call of the phone broke the silence.

“How is the move going?” asked the chipper voice of our moving coordinator.  She reeked of happiness, the exclusive kind of happiness that comes from sleeping in one’s own bed the night before.

“Um…they’re not here yet,” came my reply.

“What?”

“They haven’t arrived.  Our stuff hasn’t arrived.”  I let my mind wander to a thought of my beautiful bed, and sighed.

“Oh.  JustasecwhileIchecksomething.”   She rushed to hang up the phone and left me listening to the hum of the dead receiver.

The truck was not going to come.

I knew it even before the moving-coordinator-who-got-to-sleep-in-a-real-bed called me back and told me so.  I knew it, but I could hardly believe it.  It seemed a cruel trick to play on a woman who had been sleeping on 2 inches of foam for days when she wasn’t even camping.

I wanted to cry.  How could I get settled without our stuff? 

I thought back.  Three weeks before, that truck had pulled away from our house, loaded down with all the things we call ours.  Everything we owned was neatly packed in cardboard and bubble wrapped and inventoried so we’d half-know what to do with it when it arrived on the other end of a seventeen hundred mile journey to our new home.

The truck didn't come

Which one of you has my stuff?

I had stood by a window and watched as the crew slowly drained my house of all its possessions.   I thought of my new house, which was two-dimensional in my mind, flat like a photograph of a place I had seen but never really been.  It was hard to imagine what it would actually be like, and harder to imagine how I would make it feel like I belonged there.

“How do you make a place feel like home?” a friend had asked, but I fumbled at the answer.

“I’m not really sure,” I said.

“Some people like to hang up curtains right away,” she offered, but we looked at my windows, still curtainless after five years in the house, and we both knew that wasn’t my thing.

“I guess I’ll just get unpacked as quickly as I can,” I told her.  “I think once all of our stuff arrives and I get unpacked, it will feel like home.”

But the truck hadn’t come.

And all of the things I had counted on to make a house a home where stuck somewhere between Washington and Texas.

Except six. 

That night, those six people sat around a rickety card table in an empty house and shared a beautiful meal made by a new friend in honor of what we thought would be our moving-in day.   It was a meal the kids declared the best thing they’d ever eaten because my ability to microwave soup and Minute Rice were no match for Mrs. Harvey’s baked spaghetti and homemade bread.

We wrestled the black foam mattresses back up the steps after driving back to the military installation to re-borrow them,  and arranged all five kids in the largest room.  Sleeping on foam mattresses in a great big room is loads of fun when you are not yet old enough to know that sometimes, you wake up and your back hurts.  Giggles erupted down the hallway as Faith recounted our made-up leprechaun stories and Micah declared Paul the winner of his stinky foot contest.

Epic Sleepover

It occurred to me, as I arranged my bones over my borrowed bed, that home is not about the stuff.

It’s about the story.  And all the time I had been waiting for our stuff, the story was already being written.

God has opened up a fresh new page and started writing the words He loves to write:  “In the beginning…”

 It is beautiful to be in the beginning with God, to be nestled into the pages of the story He’s writing for us and to know that we are wanted right where we are.  Any other place on this earth would never feel like home now, whether all of our boxes arrived or not, because God is not writing the story anywhere else.  He is writing it here.

(With the exception of my bed), none of the stuff really matters.  We are here.  We are safe.  We are together.  And we have one grand adventure unfolding right before our eyes.

Home is where the story is written. It is the place where God molds the characters and reveals the plot.  It is where His story becomes our history.

This story, so full of the thoughts and intentions of God, will be told around angel fires long after the stuff has crumbled into dust.

The truck didn’t come.  But the story is off to a great start. 

The Truck Came

Finally!

 

 

Uncategorized 9 Comments

On Separation (Six Things to Help You Understand)

Saying good-bye

The first time my husband left, our third baby was just six weeks old.  He was going to England for continuing education, and it was impossible for us to join him.  When he came home eight months later, I vowed we would never be apart like that again.

I could not imagine that one day, he’d enlist as a chaplain in the Army Reserves.  I would not have been willing to entertain the idea of him going into the military full-time.  I would not have been able to talk about deployments or endure the duty and training that takes him away from us for months on end.

But here we are, acquainted with separation once again.  It is a unique place to be, and if you are a friend to someone whose spouse is sometimes far away, you might struggle to understand.  If I could presume to be the voice of the countless mothers who have had to say good-bye to their husbands for a period of time, knowing each situation is different, this is what I would say to help you understand what it is like to be one of us.

1)      Know I am fragile

Separation is like surgery.  The most important person in my life has been removed from me, at least for a time.  Like flesh being torn from flesh, it hurts.  I know he is safe and will come home again, and that helps.  Still, he is not here, and I find myself struggling for balance, fighting for comfort, longing for the rest I have when he is home.  His absence is always present.

In a sense, I am in a constant state of recovery, of learning how to manage alone.  In some ways, it gets easier every time we do this.  In other ways, it gets harder.  Most days, I am up for the challenge.  But I might not be up for more.  Know that I am vulnerable.  You might be surprised at what I can’t handle right now, even if I seem so strong.  Seemingly insignificant things might be too much.  It’s because I’m already handling enough.  Give me grace to be weak to everything else.

Worn out

2)      I am exhausted

Separations are mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually taxing.   I am responsible for everything.  There is no duty-sharing, no working together, no team-work.  All the housework, discipline, boo-boo kissing, oil changes, bill paying—it’s all me.  Every day.

At the end of the day (and sometimes first thing in the morning) I feel like I’ve run a marathon, and I am not accustomed to running marathons.  I am using muscles I rarely use.  I have to think about things I never think about.  I am sore.  My feet hurt.  At the end of the day, I just want to collapse into bed.

Over time, some things get easier.  I get used to the new routine.  The kids start to adjust.  I no longer feel like going to bed at 4 pm.  But by then, a different kind of exhaustion sets in.  It is more emotional than physical.  I’m tired of being strong, but there’s still a lot of race to run.

Be understanding.  If I forget to return a phone call, turn down a request to make cookies for a bake sale, or fail to keep my house clean, it’s because I’ve been really busy running lately.

The long road home

3)      I am concerned about my children

One of the most difficult aspects of separation is the potential impact it has on my children.  I worry about their emotional well-being, their relationship with their dad and his with them.  I wonder whether or not they feel safe and secure when our family is glued together by Skype dates and intermittent phone calls.  I worry about my sons, who long for a wrestling partner, a bonfire maker, and a comrade.  I worry about my girls, who are missing the most important man in their lives.

Loving my children is one of the most important ways you can support me.  Take the time to give them extra hugs.  Sneak a piece of gum into their hands.  Arm wrestle my boy.  Tell them you’re proud of their daddy, and you’re really, really proud of them.

Daddy time

4)      I am not a victim—don’t let me act like one!

There are very few true victims in the world, and I am not one of them.  My husband is separated from us because of choices we made.  We are adequately cared for, our needs are supplied, and while we miss him terribly, we are safe and so is he.  A separation like this is uniquely challenging but it is not the worst thing in the world.  Not even close.

Still, indulging in self-pity is a temptation, especially when all the kids are sick, I haven’t talked to my husband in days, and the bathroom sink is leaking.  You might think you are being a supportive friend by giving me a shoulder to whine on.  But you’re wrong.  No one ever leaves a pity-party feeling better about her situation.

Instead, let me know you want much more for me than to just hope I survive.  You want me to overcome.  And that takes a lot more work.  Hold me to that higher standard.  Then help me figure out what’s wrong with that sink.

5)      Ask better questions

“How are you doing with your husband gone?”

It’s a question I hear countless times every week.  It’s a natural thing to ask, and while there’s nothing wrong with the question, it doesn’t engage me the way a better question could.  In fact, it tends to shut me down because there is just too much to say.

If you really want to know how I’m doing, take a second to imagine how you would feel if you were separated from your spouse.  There now.  Don’t you feel like you understand me better already?  Now you will stop before asking things like, “Are you looking forward to your husband coming home?” because you know I ache for him to come home.  Some questions do not even need to be asked.

But better questions make me feel better cared for.  I know you’ve really thought about me and really want to know how I am.  Can’t think of any better questions?  Here are some to get you started:

“What time of day is hardest for you?”

“How do you handle the weekends?”

“Have you come up with any special traditions to help mark the passing of the days?”

“What’s one thing you’ve learned from this separation?”

“How can I pray for you this week?”

Saturday Sticks!

6)      Recognize victories

Every Saturday during my husband’s absences, the children draw a Saturday stick from a jar.  Each stick is labeled with a surprise activity for us to enjoy that day.  It is our little way of celebrating being another week closer to Daddy’s next homecoming.

We have found that we need these celebrations, these small recognitions of progress.  They remind us that this season is not forever and that we are achieving something significant.  We are making it through a tough spot together.  We’re doing it!  In fact, we’re having some fun in the process.

Celebrate with us!  I don’t expect you to remember how long my husband has been gone or when he’s coming home, but I love it when you recognize that we just made it through one more Monday, and that’s one less Monday we’ll have to go through before we’re together again. Simply saying, “Hey!  You’ve made it through another week!” reminds me that I’m not in this alone.  And oftentimes, that’s exactly what I need to know.

You  may also expect that separations like this can bring about significant personal and spiritual growth.  Ask me about it.  What have I learned about myself?  How have I grown?  How has this season changed how I parent?  What has it taught me about my husband?  How have I seen God provide for me while my spouse is away?  Wait for the answer and listen for the blessing.  At the end of the separation, these are the things that are going to last.  These are the things that are truly worth celebrating.

Always something to celebrate

How about you?

Have you experienced separations in your marriage?  What would you include in this list?

Parenting 24 Comments

We Are, All of Us, Americans

I remember the flags, the flags flying at half-staff in almost every yard in Wenham, flags carefully hung up on the sides of houses or draped sorrowfully over white-railed porches.  Flags flew from the backs of pickups, and children stuck them in their backpacks and taped them to the mailboxes.  When the hardware stores and shopping malls sold out of their summer supply of flags, people made their own.

It was almost a compulsion, this need to fly a flag in the days that followed 9/11.  We needed to identify with the victims and their families, to stand with this violated country, our country, and to proclaim with vehemence, “We are, all of us, Americans.”

An attack on any one of us is an attack on us all.  We crouched in our living rooms, huddled around our TVs, watching the horror of innocence lost, and wondered how such an evil could come into our own harbor.  How dare they step onto this soil where so much blood was shed in the name of freedom.  How dare they try to control us with fear.

We flew our flags in defiance to tyranny and we proclaimed, “We are, all of us, Americans, and we will never again bow to fear.”

Nearly a year after 9/11, I stood in the sweltering heat and looked down at the gaping wound where two buildings once stood.  The streets had been cleared of debris but plywood boards still covered the broken out windows of the buildings surrounding the Twin Towers.  It was still so fresh, still so agonizing, even though so many months had passed.  Up above me, the neighboring buildings stood like empty sentinels, marked with shrapnel from the shattered buildings.  They would never be the same.

But someone had draped those ragged walls with flags, and as we came from all across the country to look at what our minds could not comprehend, we stood under those flags and felt a certain sense of solidarity.  We are, all of us, Americans.

Today, Ground Zero is a memorial, and 9/11 is a day of remembrance.  Flags are flying on my street, and I am telling my children.  Each one of us has a story of where we were on that day.  Each of us has a memory that will stay with us forever.

We are, all of us, Americans, and we will never forget.

Fiction 5 Comments

I believe you can find grace for the mother you are and help to become the mother you long to be—a mom who has the freedom to choose the better things and enjoy her kids right now.

Recent Posts

  • Mr. Whitter’s Cabin
  • Stuck
  • When Your Heart is Hard Toward Your Child

Popular Posts

  • Mr. Whitter's Cabin
  • Stuck
  • When Your Heart is Hard Toward Your Child
  • Why She's Sad on Sundays
  • Failing Grade
  • I Should Have Married the Other Man

Sponsored Links

Copyright © 2025 Kristen Anne Glover · All Rights Reserved · Design by Daily Dwelling

Copyright © 2025 · Flourish Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in