motherhood 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

When Your Heart is Hard Toward Your Child

hard heart

It was a long season of unrelenting conflicts. Day after day, they beat on me like a hot sun until I felt like I had all but dried up. My heart was baked hard and impenetrable, drawn out from my body like clay from a kiln.

I did not like this child of mine, not really, and any emotional feelings of love I had once known had long cemented into bare obligation. Fissures of anger and frustration ran through me like fault lines; I felt at any moment, I would break.

Of all my children, this one had challenged me the most. We rubbed each other against the grain until static sparked. And I was weary of it. The constant friction had skinned me of any tenderness, compassion, or delight until I had little toleration for even minor infractions or personality differences.

I had become quick to anger, slow to speak praise, resentful, irritable, and everything else that love is not. I had become everything I never thought I’d be as a mother.

There was a deadness in me that was terrifying, ugly, and shameful. I knew it. I felt it, heavy and horrifying within me. I thought about the unspeakable damage I was doing to this child by being overly critical and harsh. Why, God? I cried. Why did you give me this child if I was going to mess it up this bad?

But I had no idea how to change it. Maybe it was already too late. Can a dead heart beat again? Can something so hard become soft once more?

hardened heart

Then one day, everything shattered. It was the same battle we had fought before, on repeat. Only this time, I had nothing left. No margin, no buffer, no grace. What may have been normal childish behavior felt to me like willful disobedience and purposeful provocation.

It felt personal.

When my husband came home from work, I was so upset, I could barely speak, and what I could say was vile. “You have to handle this,” I said, “or I am going to say something I shouldn’t.”

He went to our child’s room and talked in low, patient tones, the kind I didn’t seem to have in my settings anymore. Then, a long while later, he found me. I didn’t want to talk about it, yet somehow, I ended up telling him everything. He listened until my anger slowly distilled into its true form: fear.

I was so afraid.

I was afraid of what I felt in my heart, afraid of who I was becoming, afraid of the trajectory of my relationship with this kid if I could not get a grip on this, and so afraid that I would not be able to fix it.

All that fear came bubbling out. Even shame could not hold it down, even though I wished it could. It is a wretched thing to vomit up all the bile in your soul. But once I started, I couldn’t stop.

“I think one day you’ll be great friends,” my husband said quietly when I was done. “But this is not something you can fix.”

In my frustration and bitterness, I had forgotten that. I didn’t want to ask God for help because I didn’t want him to know I needed it.

That changed the minute I confessed my struggle out loud. There in the bedroom before God and my husband, everything that had been stuffed into the hidden places of my heart was hauled out into the light. It was shocking. Unholy. Disgraceful.

And freeing.

What else could I be afraid of? What guilt could torment me and hold me down? I had already said it all.

A little space opened up in that stone of a heart for life to pulse. For the first time in a long time, I felt the heartbeat of hope. Perhaps it was not too late for God to raise the dead.

There was no Lazarus awakening, no sudden transformation, but only a slow softening, like spring. In fact, I found it hard to pray at first. I was still raw, and it’s hard to pray over the hurting places with any amount of faith that one day, it will be different.

But it only takes a little bit of faith to melt a heart of stone, and God was willing to supply it. The more I softened, the more I could pray, and the more I prayed, the more God rebuilt the relationship I thought was destined to failure.

Slowly, God began to show me the beautiful blessings of having a child so unlike me. The friction that created sparks in our relationship also sharpened us and drew us both closer to Christ. I needed this kid to be exactly the way God created them to be.

What started out as a set of circumstances that hardened my heart turned out to be the single greatest thing God has used in my life to grow it. Big ol' broken heart

Perhaps you have been in a difficult season of parenting, and you feel devoid of any joy toward the child you bore. Your heart is hard, and you wonder if there’s anything that can ever change that.

I’m here to tell you there is hope for you, mama, and grace. It is never too late for God to soften your heart and restore the relationship you have with your child. God will do the work.

What is keeping you from running to him for help? What is holding you back?
Perhaps today is the day to lay down your anger, guilt, and frustration. Perhaps today is the day to let God begin mending your heart.

The Sweet Middle

The sweet middle

He sidles up to me and takes my hand as we walk along past the reclusive tiger and the shaggy sloth bear. The sun tosses freckles across my son’s nose, and the air hugs us close.

His palms are rough from dirt-clod making and fort building. They are sweaty and sticky with boyhood, and I try not to wonder if he washed his hands after touching the snake.

He is seven, and the babyhood has stretched right out of his face. He tells me he knows how to spell “Mississippi.” It’s a secret he’s been saving for just such an occasion. “Oh yeah?” I taunt. “Show me.”

And he does.

“M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I.” Micah flashes the toothy smile of a second grader whose teeth are too big for his face.

My nose stings with the sudden urge to spill hot tears all over the pathway through Asia because it’s almost over—this salty-sweet season of his childhood is almost over. I squeeze my son’s hand tighter and look down into his thinning face and wonder if this will be the last time, the last time he puts his hand into mine and skips along next to me with cheerful acquiescence.

I won’t let go for anything in the world, snake smell or not.

Sweet season

We walk past the tree house playground. It is Way Past Naptime and the toddlers are eating wood chips and hurling sippy cups and using their words to communicate just how unlikely it is that they are going to leave willingly. The mamas are running on fishy crackers and juice pack fumes and looking every bit like they had no idea what they were getting into when their husbands said, “Honey, let me give you a massage.”

I want to stop and tell them that it is worth it. They are knee-deep in planting season, now, and torn up like a field in spring.

It is hard to imagine it will ever be any other way.

But I am just a few warm months further into the season, and those muddy, upturned fields are greening with the evidence of a work well done. I hold onto my son’s sticky hand and know that by the grace of God, some of the things I planted are growing. (And by the grace of God, some of the things I planted are not). Beautiful leaves are unfolding where furrows once lay, and I have the hope of a harvest in fields I once fought to win.

It is so worth it.

Beautiful leaves are unfolding where furrows once lay

It is hard still; of course it is hard. The labor doesn’t stop when the babies are birthed. It just…changes. There are weeds to pull and plants to prune—but I look down at that boy by my side and realize we are working together now, most days. The child who once would have gone to the cross over apple juice is now my companion in the sowing.

This is the sweet middle season, when my babies are not quite babies, but they’re not quite grown. It is the respite between tantrums and dating. My kids don’t need me as much now, but they need me enough. I can sleep for eight hours straight because they’re not driving yet. They can do their own laundry, and the house stays cleaner even if the fridge is emptier.

They are learning to pull their own weeds and plant their own seeds and work with me on becoming who they were meant to be. We stand side-by-side in the same field, more friends than anything, striving for the same beautiful unfolding.

Oh, yes. It is worth it.

I watch a mama wrestle her child down from the curly slide. She is up to her boots in the mucky part of motherhood, and I know she feels it. But I want to tell her that she is almost there–almost to the season where she can see the worth of her work. One day soon, she will look down and realize she isn’t dragging anyone along behind.

She is walking side-by-side with her child, right through the sweet middle. And she won’t let go for anything in the world.

We stand side-by-side in the same field, more friends than anything, striving for the same beautiful unfolding