glenna marshall

My Prayer for My Children

The world is in your eyes,
all is fresh and new.
You take me by surprise,
uncomplicated you.

There is much that I desire
though some would be unsure.
Success does not appear
in this my prayer for you—

Be broken, humble, set apart.
Fear the Lord with all your heart
Of flesh instead of stone.
Be rich in faith instead of gold.
Be known by love and obedience.
Boast in Christ and not in man,
Seeking first the Kingdom
With God’s precious Words always on your tongue.

The burden is not light,
I feel its heaviness.
But to shepherd you, my child,
It is my privilege.
Though I’m weak and do not know
All you need to help you grow,
It’s enough if all you seek
Is the Savior who makes me complete.

Be broken, humble, set apart.
Fear the Lord with all your heart
Of flesh instead of stone.
Be rich in faith instead of gold.
Be known by love and obedience.
Boast in Christ and not in man,
Seeking first the Kingdom
With God’s precious Words always on your tongue.

Happiness is overstated
Holiness far underrated
It’s enough if all you seek
Is the Savior who makes me complete.

 

Adapted from the song, “Prayer for Isaiah,” written by Glenna Marshall, ©2013

 

To the End of the Age, to the End of This Day

I navigated the drop-off line at my son’s new school with a bit of trepidation. One lane split into two, and I carefully rolled to a stop at the crossing guard’s persistent arm-waving. My son opened the car door and paused to tell me goodbye before leaving the safety of my presence.

On the way, we’d prayed for his first day at middle school. All summer my kids have been near me physically. And I mean that literally. It’s not unusual for me to sit on the couch to read or watch a show and find myself completely smothered with the weight of my two boys who find their mom a fine substitution for actual furniture. We call it “wallering” in my house, and while it’s mildly annoying, I know I’ll miss it one day.

I forget with each first day of school that odd sensation of watching your kid walk around and live independently of your body, your instructions, your protection. On our first day back, I prayed aloud as we drove the new route to the new school. I prayed for the teachers and the students. I prayed for my son to be brave and obedient, to work hard and to be kind to others. I knew he was a little nervous, so I prayed for him to be reminded that the Lord was always with him.

Praying our way through traffic and school zones, the words tumbling out of my mouth replaced my nervy anxiety with peace. I remembered my son’s baptism last spring and the fruit of young faith that’s blossomed since his profession of faith in Christ. As the Holy Spirit is always with me, He is always with my son. Even in public school. Even at the lunch table where he sat alone the first day. Even when I worked out the confusing pick-up line that afternoon and saw him waiting, looking young and uncertain and a little bit lost.

I’m slow to remember that when Jesus said, “I am with you always,” He really meant it (Matt. 28:20). He gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit, not as a substitute or a place holder, but as both a guarantee that our salvation is secure and as the way Jesus would keep His promise to be with us. When David said, “Where can I go from Your Spirit, where can I flee from Your presence?” he was both warning and comforting himself. When it comes to our sin, we cannot hide ourselves from the Lord, and when it comes to fear, we cannot get too far away from Him for “even then Your hand will lead me; Your right hand will hold on to me” (Ps. 139:7,10). I cannot protect my son’s heart the way God can; I cannot go with him the way God does.

Perhaps we believe we only need to be reminded of the Lord’s presence when we’re suffering or facing persecution, but we would do well to remind ourselves that because of Jesus’ work at the cross, the dwelling place of God is with man, and the Holy Spirit lives in each of us who have repented and believed in Christ. Of all the things I can tell my son when I’m entrusting him to the care of others—I love you, I’ll miss you, I hope you have a good day, work hard—there’s only one thing that brings comfort like nothing else: The Lord is with you.

So whether it’s sending your kid off to school or beginning a new job or moving across the globe to share the gospel in hostile lands, the Lord is with you. Even unto the end of the age. Even to the end of this day. His sovereignty is your shelter, and His presence is your comfort.

The Lord is with you. Even unto the end of the age. Even to the end of this day. His sovereignty is your shelter, and His presence is your comfort. Share on X

 

Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash

Our Only Hope in Life and Death

I never heard the word ‘catechism’ until I was an adult. Well, that’s not entirely true. I remember reading the word in a book once as a child and wondering what it meant, pronouncing it cat-a-CHism in my head, with a hard CH, like in the word cheese.

I grew up a Southern Baptist and attended a Southern Baptist university. I now attend a Southern Baptist church where my husband faithfully pastors, and even though we hold to Reformed theology, the idea of catechizing my children feels weird to a Baptist girl who grew up in the buckle of the Bible Belt in Tennessee.

My parents regularly led my siblings and me in morning devotions when I was growing up. We read through the Bible together before school, primarily from the book of Proverbs because you could read a chapter according to whatever day of the month it was. My younger sister learned to read during those morning devotions as we read the chapters a verse at a time, taking turns reading verses.

The concept of family devotions brings up a lot of sweet memories of my childhood; my profession of faith in Jesus occurred during family devotions. When my husband and I became parents, we eagerly began the practice of family worship with our son. No matter what education choices we made for our children in the future, we believed that their biblical education and discipleship was primarily our responsibility, along with the help of our local church. We still believe that, now that we have sons aged 10 and 3.

When my oldest son was a toddler, I watched a video on Facebook of a friend’s young daughter reciting the first five statements of the Westminster catechism. Impressed, I googled until I found a catechism for young children. (Again, my Baptist background did not lend itself to any familiarity with any form of catechesis.) I began teaching my two-year-old the short statements and added hand motions to help him remember. But, in the vacuum of rural Baptist church ministry, I didn’t know anyone else practicing catechesis, and I eventually quit. Our family worship patterns relied heavily upon prayer, Bible reading, and sometimes songs—all of which was absolutely sufficient for our family. We’ve continued in these patterns for many years now.

But when I was given a copy of The New City Catechism for Kids at The Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference in June, I thought it might be a good idea to add the practice of catechesis back into to our family worship. I have the book, but I downloaded the free app for the music that comes with each catechism statement.

Our family worship is conducted in two parts: 1) around the dinner table, which is regular because we usually eat dinner at home, and 2) just before bed. When everyone is finished eating, we recite the week’s catechism statement, listen to the accompanying song on the app, and then draw a name of a church member to pray for (I have a cup with popsicle sticks that are labeled with each church member’s name). There are 52 statements in The New City Catechism, which gives us a year to get them all firmly implanted in our heads and hearts. The songs on the app are short but catchy, and my three-year-old especially loves them. Later in the evening, when the boys are ready for bed, we pile on the couch and let our ten-year-old read aloud a portion of a children’s Bible before we pray together and tuck them in bed. Currently we are working through The Big Picture Storybook Bible, which is one of our favorites for its commitment to the cohesiveness of the gospel story throughout the whole Bible.

Our kids are young, so our family worship time isn’t lengthy. But I believe that establishing rhythms of grace in our family now will prepare our young boys for when they are grown Christian men who will lead their own families in gospel-centered living, Lord willing.  What we do with this generation matters for the next one. Think of it as future discipleship.

What we do with this generation matters for the next one. Think of it as future discipleship. Share on X

While we are still relatively new at catechizing our children, I already see the benefits of teaching them the important answers to important questions. It’s supplying them with information now so that when faced with questions later, the answers are already planted in their memories. They have only to remember and apply them. While we also want our sons to memorize Scripture, the catechism statements sum up our scriptural beliefs in short, memorable statements that can be called to memory quickly. It’s not a lot different than our church covenant which is made up of statements that summarize the scriptural calls and commands pertinent to church membership and community.

What sold me on The New City Catechism for Kids was the very first statement.

Q: What is our only hope in life and death?

A: That we are not our own but belong to God.

I’ve been rolling that statement around in my head for days, thinking of the ways that it applies to every corner of my life as a believer in Jesus. Fear, anxiety, financial stress, illness, trauma, danger, persecution, betrayal, death: the things we most fear for ourselves and our children are answered by the complete safety we have in belonging to God. When we are in Christ, we have nothing to fear. Whether we live or die, our hearts are safe because they are hidden in Him. Paul says in Romans 14:7-8, “For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”

I’m reminded of John 10 where Jesus explains that those who belong to Him will never be plucked from His Father’s hand. A heart tethered to Christ is eternally safe. This hope is an anchor for our souls. And I can see myself comforting a fearful child with the truth that because of Christ, we belong to God. I can see myself comforting myself with this truth. Because of Christ, I belong to God. This is my hope, my only hope, in life and in death. I want my believing son to get this, and I want his younger brother to have it for the day we pray he also believes.

The statement is also a correction and answer to pride. We do not appeal to our flesh or enslave ourselves to its desires because we do not belong to ourselves. We belong to God. We are called to be holy as He is holy (1 Pet. 1:16), to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel (Eph. 4:1). We do not lean on our own understanding but acknowledge that He is the One who directs our paths (Prov. 3:5-6). We belong to Him.

That’s good stuff to teach our kids. I’m grateful for tools that help us articulate big truths about sin, depravity, the Godhead, redemption, justification, and the sacraments in ways that my children can remember. Parenting is weighty in and of itself. But the responsibility of teaching our children the gospel, about the God who sent His Son as a ransom for many, about the beauty of atonement and redemption—that is a both privilege and a calling that feels insurmountable sometimes. Thanks be to God for the clarity and accessibility of His enduring Word and for the tools His people have developed to help pass on the heritage of our faith in Jesus Christ.

Can I Trust God with My Child’s Suffering?

He was eating a waffle. Just sitting across the café table from me, all gangly arms and legs, eating a waffle that he’d covered in maple syrup. He’s just turned ten, and I’m increasingly aware of the mere three inches between our heights. I picked at my salad, trying to decide if a cup of coffee might soothe the pounding in my temples. The caffeine wouldn’t keep me up at night any more than the swirl of medical information I’d just absorbed. I listened to my son’s animated chatter about summer break and basketball, and then he stopped short and looked me in the eye and said, “Mom, I don’t want to do this.” I blinked hard and fast, not wanting him to see my tears. I didn’t want him to have to do it either.

It could be much worse. I’ve watched friends parent their children through cancer and chronic illnesses. My son is healthy in the ways that matter the most. But the future holds at least a decade of incredibly restrictive treatments that will further isolate an already timid child. He’s not in pain now, but he might be in the future.

My son’s words hung in the air for a moment too long. We’d been with doctors and specialists for hours. You’re the mom, I reminded myself. Jesus, help me be strong for my son. I offered some calming words while trying not to picture what the next ten years might look like. He’ll be twenty by then. I swallowed hard. He asked for a storytelling podcast on the two-hour trip home, and with the children’s hospital in our rear view mirror, we distracted ourselves with someone else’s imagination.

Hours later I allowed myself to buckle beneath the pressure of a brave face and a long uphill climb. I hid in the bathroom and cried. As much as I wanted to stay home, I knew I needed to drag myself to our mid-week church meeting that evening. I wept and shared the day’s news because I needed someone else to lift a corner of this burden so it’s not so heavy. It is one thing trust the Lord with your own suffering. I get that. I’ve been there more than once. I have a t-shirt. But it is an excruciating exercise of faith to trust the Lord with your child’s suffering.

It is one thing to trust the Lord with your own suffering. But it is an excruciating exercise of faith to trust Him with your child’s suffering. Share on X

I don’t want hard things for my kids. I want them to be happy and well-adjusted. I want them to know the sweetness of God’s goodness and the faithfulness of His presence. I want to protect them from evil and suffering and sadness. Basically, I want them to trust God like their life depends on it without their life actually depending on it. But I know in looking back on my own years of physical and emotional suffering that that’s not really an expectation I can logically hold on to. It is the hard stuff that teaches us about God’s faithfulness. It’s down in the valley of the shadow when we know that He is with us. We forget we need Him in the green pastures by the still waters. We are more inclined to call for Him when we’re scared and it’s dark and the road is uphill all the way.

“…we know that affliction produces endurance…” (Rom. 5:3)

The church prayed for us at the end of that long day of doctors and waffles and concern. They prayed for discernment, for more options, for wise parenting that comforts our son. I thought of Moses when his arms got tired. This is why you share your joys and your sorrows with the body of Christ: so your arms don’t get tired. When I tucked my son into bed that night, he whispered his fear into the dark. “Mom, I just want my old life back.”

His words knifed an actual pain in my chest. I felt it throb right next to my aorta. I curled up next to him and cupped my hand around his cheek so he’d look me in the eye. “This is hard stuff. No doubt about it, God is having you walk a hard road.” I paused. It would be a hard road for an adult, let alone a ten-year-old.

“Did you know that when your dad and I got married, we had a really hard road to walk, too? A doctor told me something was wrong with my body. She told me it was called infertility. It meant I couldn’t be a mom. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to have it. I just wanted my old life back. I was sad for a long time. But then one day, years later, your dad and I adopted you. And we love you so much. If I had gotten my old life back, I wouldn’t have you. In my really sad days, God was being good to me. He was teaching me to trust Him. So maybe, what we do is look for the ways God is being good to you with all this hard stuff. He’s really good at using our sadness for good because He loves us. Nobody can do that like God can.”

A small smile. “Okay, Mom.” He turned over to go to sleep.

“…endurance produces proven character…” (Rom 5:4)

I slipped from his room and closed the door quietly. I would trade places with him in an instant. I feel one-hundred percent out of control. Though I’ve spent the days since researching treatment options and second opinions, there is little I can do to stifle the blow of suffering my son will feel.

“..and proven character produces hope.” (Rom. 5:4)

And this is where I find myself staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night wondering if God is God enough to love my son through his suffering.

I know that He is.

How do I know? Well, to quote the most repeated song of my childhood, the Bible tells me so. If I’ve learned anything about suffering in Scripture over the past few years, it’s that God can use it to draw us close to Him. In James 1, Jesus’ brother tells us that maturity in Christ comes through the perseverance born of trials. You can’t really learn perseverance when life is easy and you don’t need to persevere. No, perseverance is learned in the refining fire of suffering, and as Peter says in his first epistle, the perseverance we learn in hardship brings praise, honor, and glory to Christ (1:7). Hope must be anchored in the grace of Christ, of His work for us at the cross—not in trouble-free lives marked by comfort or ease. Hope that is anchored in Christ doesn’t disappoint because it cannot be plucked from our hands the way that health, possessions, normalcy, and relationships can. Hope in Christ is eternally secure.

“This hope will not disappoint us because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” (Rom. 5:5)

Hope that is anchored in Christ doesn’t disappoint because it cannot be plucked from our hands the way that health, possessions, normalcy, and relationships can. Share on X

My son is a new believer in Jesus. We’ve taught him the gospel from infancy, but the blooming of general belief into real, fruit-bearing faith has been beautiful to behold. While he is learning to follow Jesus, we are still learning to follow Jesus when we wish we could have our old life back.

In the same way that we have walked through suffering of our own, we are trying to look for the ways God is being good to us. It’s difficult to look into the eyes of a child and explain why certain things happen when we don’t know the answers ourselves. But I believe that looking for the ways God is being good to us in suffering will ultimately point us to the cross where He was good to us in ways we cannot fully comprehend. At the bottom of all of this is the truth that God loves my son more than I do. He is the One who hung the stars in place and planned to send Jesus to carry our sins and our sorrows before He even put those stars in place. He has promised us that “affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. This hope will not disappoint us because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Sprit who was given to us” (Rom. 5:3-5).

He is trustworthy when it comes to your own suffering. And He’s trustworthy when it comes to your child’s suffering. It might be hard to see His goodness when your child hurts, but your child will learn to trust Jesus by watching you learn to trust Jesus. While He may not give us the physical healing we desire for our kids, His hope does not disappoint. Ever. And really, that’s the hope we want for our children, right?

 

 

 

 

Photo by Michał Parzuchowski on Unsplash

Changing Diapers to the Glory of God

It was an exceptionally trying day. 
The motives of my motherhood must be anchored in the glory of God, not the glory of me.

My energetic and precocious two-year old had gotten away from me more than once during our quick errands to the library and post office. Employees at both venues laughed and nodded and offered commiserating quips about the “terrible twos.” I forced laughter while wrestling my squirrelly toddler to the ground before he tried to scale the bookshelves or dismantle the carousel of postcards and mailers. What I really wanted to do was shout help me to any individual in the room that might be physically stronger than me. By the time I got back to the vehicle and harnessed my son into his seat, I was thoroughly drenched in sweat though it was barely 50 degrees outside. Nothing makes me feel more ridiculous than running through a quiet library trying to catch a shrieking two-year-old who thinks it’s all a game.

I sat in the library parking lot with my head on the steering wheel for a few minutes.

This is hard. 

It’s been seven years since I have parented a two-year-old; I must have repressed some of those memories. I do not remember being this tired, this frustrated, this weak, or this aware of my shortcomings. Let me tell you, parenting is an absolute joy like none other in my life. Sometimes I look at my kids and I think my heart will explode because it can’t hold any more joy.  But, parenting is also the hardest job I’ve ever had. It’s not just correcting, teaching, feeding, and protecting. Parenting isn’t just structuring and setting boundaries (though it’s not less than that). We’ve also got the tremendous responsibility to shape our kids hearts and exemplify grace and the gospel that changes us. No pressure, right? Oh, sometimes it feels like so much pressure.

Later in that day of post office and library stand-offs, I found myself at the sink washing dishes for the third time while running interference between my kids who seemed to have made an agreement with one another to spend the evening bickering. My husband was tied up at a meeting, and the living room I’d straightened up minutes before was now a junkyard of toys, pillows, blankets, and blocks. I stood at the sink, hands in the dish water, and counted the minutes until bedtime, my bedtime. Then I remembered the loads of clean laundry piled on our bed, waiting to be folded and put away. The noise from the living room escalated. I sent one child up to get ready for bed and settled the other one in front of a movie. Returning to the stacks of dirty dishes, I tried not to cry. This is never-ending, Lord. I’ll be here tomorrow night doing the exact same thing and no one will ever know that my day was spent cleaning up messes that re-materialize moments later, fixing meals that end up smeared on the floor, washing clothes that will need to be washed again and again. I stopped scrubbing for a moment and put a soapy hand to my pounding head.

I see you.

It wasn’t audible, it wasn’t even a whisper. His voice is hard to explain. It was more like a sudden knowing, a memory I’d forgotten, a sliver of truth that surfaced and stretched out in my chest.  I see you, He said. Attached to the remembered words was the story of the mother in the wilderness, the pregnant, conjugal maid who was sent away to die in the desert. He saw her, too. He made sure that she, and we, and all of us would know that He is the God who sees (Gen. 16).

He sees every way that we serve our families–when we are glad to and when we drag our feet. He sees the motives of our hearts, for better or worse. He knows the significance of a hard-won battle between mother and toddler, and He’s present when the mother fights tears of defeat. He sees when her anger is out of proportion with the offense, and He sees the moments of victory when she offers grace instead of a harsh rebuke. In her strengths and especially in her weaknesses, He is using motherhood to show her who she is before Him: she is a child who needs to be parented with grace and kindness and boundaries and Jesus. 

 You’re doing this for Me.

It was the second thing He reminded me of when I scrubbed the remains of an uneaten dinner off a plate. It’s true. I know it’s true. Unfortunately for me, it’s also forgettable. I keep expecting a shower of gratitude or an applause of some sort when I finally get to the bottom of the laundry pile. I want a thank-you note for all the meals I’ve prepped, cooked, and cleaned up. But that’s not what parenting or serving is about. Certainly I did none of those things for my own mother, though I am now having deep regrets about my lack of gratitude. My mother did all the things I’m doing now because she loved us and she loved God more.

The motive behind serving my family, cleaning up the same messes every day, negotiating a crisis situation with a two-year-old, or teaching a child about loving his enemies at school–the motives of my motherhood must be anchored in the glory of God, not the glory of me. 

It’s a difficult thing to shift my thinking like this. The only thing I do consistently is fail at parenting, but there are tiny glimpses of eternity that aid in this mothering paradigm shift.

Changing a blow-out diaper when I’m trying to rush out the door to church is never convenient. Cleaning a couch cushion soaked in milk isn’t what I want to put on my agenda for the day. Explaining for the tenth time in ten minutes that children must stay in their beds during naps isn’t the way I want to spend my afternoons when I have so much work to do. Weaving gospel threads into a bedtime conversation when my bones ache with exhaustion isn’t the priority I want to have.  But, this is motherhood. This is the gift that’s been given to me, the gift I yearned for for years. This is one of the ways I will serve the Lord who loves me in my weaknesses. I will change diapers for His glory, clean up perpetual messes for His glory, teach my children about Jesus for His glory, place boundaries and teach obedience for His glory.

I am here on this planet to know Him and to make Him known. In a strange and wonderful way, I get to know Him and make Him known in the exhausting, beautiful ministry of motherhood. It’s not my only job, that’s true. Motherhood is not my identity, either. My identity is tethered to the One who is scraping away the ugliness of my selfishness, revealing my own layers of ingratitude, and molding my heart into something that looks a little more like His every single day.

Right now he’s using motherhood to do this, to break me down so He can build me into the image of His Son bit by bit. Day by day. Mess by mess. Response by response.

The bonus gift is that His glory is graciously tied to our good. He chose to do it that way. Persevering in the trenches of whatever path of sanctification He’s set you on is ultimately for your absolute good. Washing dishes in anonymity, teaching children the same lessons daily, wiping noses and bottoms without thanks, and folding a never-ending pile of laundry can all be done as an expression of belief that God is being kind to us in our work because He is enough for us in our work. We persevere because He is enough for us and He is enough for our children.

So, mothers, fathers, workers, caretakers, teachers, pastors, salesman, nurses, ministers, servants–take heart. Whatever you do, do it for the glory of God which is also for your good. Lean on the truths that He speaks to us from His Word: He sees you. He sees your work.

His approval is the one we need, and in Christ it is the one we have. 

A Thousand Times, Yes

I was sitting at a table in a Starbucks seven hours away from home. We’d come under the pretense of wanting coffee, but the real reason was we needed to feel normal for an hour. After ordering, we crowded tightly around the table. Our seven-year-old was watchful as I gently pulled the week-old baby from his car seat so I could feed him. To anyone watching, we were just a family of four enjoying a Sunday afternoon at the coffee shop. Except, my husband didn’t smile once, and from the time we’d buckled the kids into our van until the moment the barista shouted that our coffee was ready, I had been unable to stop weeping.

I was broken inside, shaken by yesterday’s call that announced how rapidly everything was falling apart. For hours, I had been unable to stop the flow of impending grief from running down my cheeks. Pretending to sip my coffee, I watched a couple in their late sixties at the next table over ask one another awkward questions. “Where did you grow up? What’s your favorite hobby? Do you drink decaf or regular?” They fiddled with their coffee cups and looked at the floor when conversation lapsed— the telltale signs of what was clearly a first date.

“What would it be like to start over?” I wondered. “What is it like to be on the other side of adulthood only to wake up one day and find you’ve got to start completely over?” I looked at the baby in my arms. Would I be starting over again tomorrow? If it all fell apart, would I be willing to start over again tomorrow?

 

Continue reading at Kindred Mom…

November is National Adoption Month. My family has grown through adoption, so I was pleased to be asked to write about this tender subject for Kindred Mom. Look for a follow-up podcast interview where Kindred Mom founder, Emily Allen, and I dig a little deeper on the issue of mothering without guarantees. The podcast interview goes live November 7.

I am a Real Mom

I felt like an impostor.

No one had ever called me “mom” before, and I had no swollen belly, no stretch marks, and no attempts at breastfeeding to prove that I was a new mom. But the hospital attendant insisted that I sit in the wheelchair with this stranger-baby while he pushed the two of us through the hospital corridors from maternity ward to exit. “Hospital policy, ma’am,” he said. “Moms and babies ride in the chair.” My husband jogged ahead to retrieve our car, awkwardly balancing the new car seat in one arm and a diaper bag full of diapers and formula in the other. This new practice of carrying baby gear must have felt as strange to him as my effortless trip through the halls of the hospital.

I cried the whole way. Maybe the orderly thought it was some kind of post-partum hormonal bout of tears. Maybe he thought it was new-mom exhaustion or fear of taking care of a baby for the first time. It was neither. It was guilt. I felt like I had stolen someone else’s child and had requisitioned the title of “mother” without earning it.

I’m guest posting on adoption after infertility at Kindred Mom today. Click to read more!

It didn’t matter how my son came to be my son. He is my son, and I am his mother. I found my mothering self in the nooks and crannies of my days with an infant, a toddler, a preschooler, an elementary student. In the changing of diapers, in the cleaning of messes, in packing lunches and washing clothes, in the nourishing with food and prayer and stories and songs—I found the mother that God had called and equipped me to be. She was there all along. And she loved her son fiercely. Her son.

Simplicity and Front Doors

Dishes are stacked high in both sinks, spilling over on to the counter tops. Of course, there are also the stock pots on the stove, waiting to be scrubbed down.
Trails of bread crumbs meander through the house, evidence of children who found the table to be too crowded with adult conversation. Hardened, dried spaghetti noodles litter the floor beneath the dining room chairs, and I quickly swipe one fossilized piece of angel hair from my toddler’s sticky hand.
kindness is the hinge that opens the door
It’s an hour past bedtime, and my husband is wrangling the oldest child up the stairs to take that shower we’ve discussed for the past twenty minutes. The toddler protests my noodle intervention and pulls on my pants legs while I try to wipe up the puddles of sticky pasta sauce on the table.
Soon, the kids will be in bed and my house will be (mostly) restored to order. I’ve got the routine down after a year of hosting weekly dinners for our church small group. It’s a tall order for a girl who struggles to delegate, who would prefer to be home alone in her pajamas, and who has nervy control issues. But when I discovered, quite by accident, that people are more apt to talk when there is a plate of food in front of them, I felt I had unearthed a secret to living more deeply in community. Serving up a meal for anywhere from ten to twenty people on a weeknight isn’t something I necessarily look forward to or excel at on the best of terms, but it’s especially challenging when teething toddlers or grumpy third-graders infiltrate the kitchen while I’m tying up loose ends before guests arrive. Some nights call for a brief time-out so I can gather my sanity while we wait for Daddy to come home from work and intercept the pregame chaos. What I’ve learned about opening my home while parenting young kids would barely fill a thimble, but through trial and error, I’ve found that simplicity reigns as the queen of surviving and enjoying the full house, overflowing trash cans, and paths of garlic bread crumbs.
Struggling to answer the biblical call to hospitality when parenting young children makes it seem impossible?
I’m guest posting at Kindred Mom today, so please hop over to read the rest of this post. While you’re there, peruse some of the other excellent articles on motherhood of all kinds and shapes in all seasons and changes. You can also join the discussion at Kindred Mom’s Facebook group, and follow them on Instagram, and Twitter.

You can find two more posts that I’ve written on hospitality here:

I Don’t Promise My Kids That God Will Keep Them Safe.

I was five years old and tucked into a bed that was pushed up next to a quaking window. Outside, tree branches bent and swayed beneath slashing sheets of rain and house-shuddering winds. Tornado sirens were blaring while lightning lit up the sky every few seconds. I remember curling up into as small a figure as I could in hopes that I would be safe. If I stay small, maybe it will miss me. My grandmother was in the living room watching the news, no doubt, but I was afraid. Of course she knew what was happening outside. I know now that she would have pulled me into the bathtub and covered us up with pillows and blankets if the storm had really been pressing down on us like I thought it was.

Soul security that is anchored in Christ is the best thing I can offer, and it is the thing our fearful hearts need the most.

I’ve mentioned anger being rooted in fear, and we all know that anxiety is rooted in fear…and sometimes I think everything I struggle with has something to do with the fact that fear is my heart’s default. It’s my pre-redeemed factory setting. I’m pretty sure I came out of the womb this way.

Illness. Loneliness. Lack of provision. Rejection. Natural disasters. Death of a loved one. (Death in general.) Loss. Broken relationships. Crushed hopes. Accidents.

Some things I’ve experienced, and some are the worst nightmares that I’m sure are waiting around the corner of my next uncertainty. Being prone to toe the line between what seems like normal fear and the need to hyperventilate into a paper bag, I have had to learn to combat my fears with truth. Some of the things that petrified me as a child have little effect now. Storms today don’t scare me like the ones of my childhood. My grownup fears are more complicated and more deeply rooted, and they don’t pass as quickly as a rumbling mass of clouds.

Fear can twist my stomach into a knot so fast that I know I won’t eat for a long while. It can jerk me awake in the dark when I’ve finally felt safe enough to doze off. Sometimes it’s my overactive imagination and a result of too much what-iffing. Sometimes it’s a lack of trust in God’s sovereignty over my life. Sometimes it’s the whisper of the enemy, spoken in my ear at just the right moment because he knows how given I am to unraveling.

I’ve been fighting fear for as long as I can remember.

So, it’s no wonder that I’ve had a fearful child under my roof.

I often wondered if his childish fears are somehow a reflection of what he sees in me. Did I show him how to be afraid during that spring when he was two and severe storms seemed to roll in every other night? Did he internalize my frequent fretting over our tight budget? Does he pick up on my anxiety and take it as his own?

I’m learning not to dwell on all the ways I have probably failed–am failing–my children.  Nothing good comes from guilt. Maybe my son did borrow some fear from me.  Or maybe it’s wired into his DNA to be fearful like it seems to be in mine.  The “why” may not always be important when it comes to raising a fearful child (and honestly, I can’t think of a child who hasn’t struggled with fear at some point). What IS important is teaching him how to confront whatever he’s afraid of. As I seek to put fear to death in my own life, I’ve pared down my responses to my son’s fears to one thing I can’t promise and one thing I can.  In the middle of the night or at the end of a broken confession, there’s not really mental space for much else.

Here’s what I can’t promise:

I can’t promise his physical safety.

Let’s be honest, moms.  We want to tell our kids that they’ll always be safe, and that God will always keep them safe. We think we’re making much of God when we say this, but we can’t promise those things in good faith. We could have a car accident that results in very unsafe bodily harm.  Either of my sons could develop a terminal disease. War could come to our shores, or natural disasters.  I cannot promise my kids they will always be physically safe, and so I never do. God doesn’t always spare us from physical suffering. It might make my son feel better in the moment if I tell him he’ll always be safe, but that’s a promise I’m unable to make or keep. I’m not going to set up for him a faulty view of God based upon something that isn’t actually promised in Scripture and can fracture with the first painful thing he encounters on this broken planet.

Here’s what I can promise:

I can promise that his heart will be safe.

When it’s the middle of the night and lightning brightens the dark sky while the windows rattle with thunder and high winds, I lie in bed with my son and assure him that God is with us and that He controls the storm. I talk about Jesus standing up in the boat and yelling at the raging sky and sea. It’s one of my favorite things about Jesus—His authority. But storm aside, this is when I promise my son that God keeps safe the ones who follow Him. No one and no disaster can steal us out of His hands because His authority extends beyond the physical to our hearts. “When your heart belongs to Jesus, your heart is always safe,” I tell my son. He wants to know if he is safe, and I assure him that ultimately, in Christ, he is. “When you belong to Jesus, He keeps your heart safe,” I tell him.

Maybe you want to know if it helps.

It does.

I watch fear lose its power when the realization comes that God is in charge.  Darkness flees in the wake of God’s strong arm. Fear is shattered when the promise of God’s presence sinks down deep.

Soul security that is anchored in Christ is the best thing I can offer, and it is the thing our fearful hearts need the most.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.  I and the Father are one.

John 10:27-30

I’ve failed many times to encourage my son to confront fear rightly; some days my own poor wrestling with anxiety speaks louder than my midnight promises. But I take what I can and cannot promise and confront my own worries about the future as I mother my kids. I cannot promise myself that they will always be safe, wise, or good.  But I can promise myself that if they follow Christ, then their hearts are forever safe in Him. When I take apart my fears and sift through what’s at the center, knowing that their hearts are safe cures my fear. And then my panicked pleas are shaped into prayers for them to follow Jesus with their whole hearts.

In Him is the only safety I can promise.

The Lord is my light and my salvation—
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life—
of whom shall I be afraid?

Psalm 27:1

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Ordinary Grace

Concern sat in the passenger seat next to me on Tuesday, kept me company while the miles spun out in front of us with the familiarity that comes on a road well traveled. I’ve made this round trip three times in the past month. Concern is always a willing traveling companion.

The last several weeks have mostly consisted of driving back and forth across state lines to be with my mother. From the moment the phone rang in September until the moment I left just three days ago, it’s been a series of realizations proving how much her existence is woven into mine. Living a state away while she’s recuperating from such a serious operation hasn’t been easy. I feel the pulling conflict of needing to be with my kids while also needing to be with my mother.

What you’re doing is understanding that God is gracious in the midst of trouble, and that the gifts He gives encourage you to trust Him with all that’s difficult and discouraging.

Shifting from the quiet presence of company and a bit of care-taking to the reentry of being Mom full-time has been a strange, unsettling rearrangement. And while the pull to be in two places at once feels strong—I would worry about either place on both ends—I can’t let the opportunity pass to soak in the moments of ordinary grace that I might have otherwise missed.

It’s reckless to focus only on what’s hard. To ignore the new memories that are presently unfolding, however strangely they fit, is to argue that I would have done things differently than God. After the last month, I’m so glad He’s in charge. I would have screwed up my corner of the universe in one keystroke, in one panicked conversation, in one troubled glance.

This week I’ve been meditating on John 3, and what is so mind-bogglingly calming is the assertiveness of Jesus’ authority. Direct in conversation and backed up by the always-knows-his-place John the Baptist, Jesus is so clear about being from God. When John tells his friends, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven,” I’m struck by the authority given by God to Jesus. “It’s Jesus who’s God, can’t you see?” John seems to be saying. The manifestation of God Himself is Jesus Christ, and He has the same authority as the Father.
That’s deeply comforting to me. Not because I have trouble holding on to Jesus’ divinity, but because I need to remember His authority extends to all of creation, big and small.

Direct in conversation and backed up by the always-knows-his-place John the Baptist, Jesus is so clear about being from God. When John tells his friends, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven,” I’m struck by the authority given by God to Jesus. “It’s Jesus who’s God, can’t you see?” John seems to be saying. The manifestation of God Himself is Jesus Christ, and He has the same authority as the Father.

Last night was one of those nights that I live for and draw from later when I’m scrambling in frenetic activity. An empty blank on the calendar, quiet phones, and an opportunity to just be without expectation or care. I stood in my kitchen, stirring a fragrant sauce while my family huddled together on the couch in the living room doing whatever it is that boys do—sports stuff, I think. Music poured through the house while I simmered and roasted, stirred and served. The children had ravenous appetites that resulted in clean plates, and as usual we laughed our way through our loose translation of family devotions. The eight year old reads the cluster of verses, stumbling hilariously over the pronunciation of “Melchizadek,” and the baby squeals appropriately during the prayer. We leave the table full and happy. There’s football in the living room while I wipe down the table, scrub pots and pans, and when it’s all over I’m just a girl standing alone in a dark kitchen while a song about Jesus streams through speakers and carrying such a deep awareness of His nearness that the tears on my face are a surprise. In the middle of these challenging worrying weeks, there have been moments of ordinary grace that I might have missed if not for the gritty, fearsome days.

Maybe you know what I’m talking about. The niggling fear that keeps you up at night, the concern for the one you love, the piles of bills you can’t bring yourself to open—sometimes it feels like too much. But then you stand outside on a finally-autumn day, and you give yourself to the coolness of a breeze that caresses your face, washing the worry away for just a moment. You remember the story about Jesus speaking to the wind, and you know that even this breeze obeys Him. It’s okay to stand still for a minute and give yourself to the goodness you could never earn, to crawl under it like the consoling heaviness of January’s down comforter. You’re not denying the current circumstances or pretending they don’t exist. What you’re doing is understanding that God is gracious in the midst of trouble, and that the gifts He gives encourage you to trust Him with all that’s difficult and discouraging.

It’s a neighborhood walk at dusk, it’s the baby working hard at climbing up the stairs on his own, it’s the arms that encircle you while you stand at the sink elbow deep in suds. It’s the verses about Jesus’ strength that you didn’t realize you memorized, coming to light and settling around you like a well-loved blanket. It’s the steady cadence of laughter and conversation around a wobbly, third-generation table. It’s standing in the kitchen, just you and the Lord and a tear streaked face. It’s the gift of praying until sleep finally pulls you under for the night.

Let the small moments of ordinary grace propel you to trust in the good, sovereign purposes of God.

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