Clinging to the Cross

Dannah Gresh: Here’s the problem: no mom is perfect! Kristen Wetherell says the solution is found in the good news about Jesus.

Kristen Wetherell: This is precisely why He came. He came for sinners. I think that I can cling to the cross and to the victorious resurrection of Christ, in which He not only forgives all of my sin, but covers me with His perfect obedience.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast for May 9, 2024. I’m Dannah Gresh with our host, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, coauthor of Seeking Him.  

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: If you’re a mom, today’s program is for you. As we get started, I want you to think of some of the ways that you use your hands, and how sometimes there can be a disconnect between what your hands are doing and where your heart might be at that moment.

For example, maybe you’re at that stage where your hands reach out to hold and to rock a newborn infant. You love that baby with all your heart! But there may be times, even as you’re rocking that baby, when you may feel overwhelmed. Maybe you just find yourself missing some of the freedom that you had before kids came along.

Maybe you’re a mom with a houseful of preschoolers and toddlers, and you’re using your hands in this season to plop them all in the bath at the same time, because there’s so much to do! You’re trying to be efficient, and you’re trying to manage some of the chaos.

If you have elementary age kids, you might use your hands to brush knotty hair into neat ponytails. But maybe, just today, you found yourself zoning out while your daughter rattled on and on and on. (Know what I’m talking about?)

Or you might be the mom of a high schooler, and you find yourself often telling your kids, “Get off your phone. Don’t be on social media all the time!” But then you find your hands scrolling endlessly and mindlessly through your social media feeds, maybe using your phone as an escape.

Maybe, like me, you’re not a biological mom, but your hands reach out to many around you to fill a mother-like role in their lives, and you’re just plain worn out from trying to be everything for everyone. 

Whatever season of life you’re in, what you’re about to hear is for you! It’s really for all of us, because all of us at times feel that gap between what our hands are doing and what our hearts are feeling. 

Today we’re going to hear what Jesus and what He has done for us, bridging that gap. Our guest today is Kristen Wetherell. She’s the author of a book that we featured in the past on Revive Our Hearts called Hope When It Hurts. She has also written a book called Face Your Fears.

Kristen is a wife and the mom of two toddlers, and she and Dannah Gresh connected on a video call to discuss her book called Humble Moms: How the Work of Christ Sustains the Work of Motherhood. Don’t you love that title? Because the work of Christ sustains our work, whether it’s the work of motherhood or any other work that we might be called to do. 

Let’s listen now together to this conversation between Dannah and Kristen Wetherell.

Dannah: What is the best thing about being a mom?

Kristen: Oh! You can’t ask me that question! There are so many good things about being a mom! I think it is getting to spend the bulk of my days watching my kids discover things . . . things that to me have become boring. 

I was thinking about that earlier today. My son was playing with Play-Doh. We have this Play-Doh Fun Factory Machine that makes shapes, and he was enthralled! I just loved looking at his little face, because how many things to us just get so boring the older that we get? And so, I love it!

Dannah: Yes, the awe and the wonder, that’s something to see on a toddler’s face. I just saw that last week in my granddaughter Zoe. I took her to meet otters for the first time. Otters are pretty amazing and wondrous. But seeing that look on her face made me look at otters with new eyes! It’s a beautiful part of motherhood (and grandmotherhood, I might add!).

Okay, what’s the hardest thing about being a mom?

Kristen: Well, I have two very little ones. I have a four-year-old and a two-year-old, so I think right now the hardest part is the physical exhaustion. It is very physically demanding and like nothing I’ve walked through before.

You know, you’re on 24/7, as you are until your kids leave the house. Even then, you’re a phone call away. But right now, it just seems that the physical demands are tough. I personally still struggle with some chronic pain, so that woven into the physical demands is just hard.

Dannah: Yes. Alright, I want to get honest for a minute. Have you ever had your hands in the work of motherhood, but your heart was just not there? Can you take us to a time when that may have been true of you?

Kristen: Oh, you mean this morning? My kids and I were walking to the park this morning. I live in Chicagoland; winter is finally breaking, we’re seeing signs of spring—hallelujah. So my kids love it because now they can spend their energy outside and not bouncing off the walls inside!

I’m physically really tired for a number of reasons. We’re walking to the park, and I am just praying because, I don’t want to be here right now. I don’t even know what I want to do, that’s the funny thing. It’s like, “What would bring me rest right now? Maybe kicking my feet up, maybe reading a book?”

But I really had to confront that feeling, because it’s just not true that certain things are going to give us the rest that our hearts and our souls really crave. But even this morning, thinking, Man, I’m doing all these things for my kids, but my heart is just not in it.

So, pretty much all the time it’s something that I have to fight.

Dannah: So, are you saying that, at least this morning, it was the exhaustion that led to the disconnect between your heart and your hands?

Kristen: It could be a factor. We’re whole people. God created us body, mind, soul, and so I wouldn’t deny that being physically exhausted might promote that feeling, moreso, but I think it’s just a condition of the human heart. 

At our core, we would rather be served than serve. That’s just our natural inclination because of what sin has done to the human heart. So I think that in itself is something we’re having to reconcile and deal with. Even as believers, we still struggle. 

Dannah: Even as we’re talking, I’m thinking of the fact that Jesus came for us to have not just life, but abundant life; and not just eternal life, but right now, right here in Chicagoland when you’re tired with two preschool kids. He wants you to have an abundant life there!

So what has worked for you in bringing you back out of that place where your heart is zoned out?

Kristen: I’m amazed, and yet not surprised, that you just brought that up. That’s the verse that I was praying this morning [John 10:10] as I was walking! I’ve been in the gospel of John so much lately and have really found that promise from Christ to be life-giving to me!

And I love this. Our senior pastor once said in a sermon based on that verse, “Jesus has more to give to you than you have yet to receive from Him.” And what an exposition of that verse! It just helped me understand it better.

 

And so, this morning, I think step one was just to acknowledge the place that I’m in and to recognize that Jesus is not shoving me away for what I am feeling. What a beautiful thing that He is both fully God and fully man. 

He lived in this flesh. He knows what it is to be tired and to be weak, and He draws near to me in that. So I think step one is just recognizing He’s near, and He cares, and I can actually acknowledge the state of my heart right now.

Dannah: C.S. Lewis said something like (and I’m probably going to misquote this), “Bring to God what is in your heart, not what should be in your heart.” What an honest thing! Sometimes we want to come with all the right words and with the right feelings. God already knows you feel zoned out and tired and overwhelmed by motherhood. Just tell Him, take it to Him.

Kristen: Yes, Jesus Himself invites us. Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, [you who are weary and] heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” It’s not, “Come to Me if you think you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get a happy face on first.” No, it’s, “Come to me in the place that you’re at.” I think that is a beautiful invitation for weary moms!

Dannah: Right, it’s a beautiful invitation for weary moms, weary grandmas, weary dads, weary grandpas, weary single women. It’s such a good invitation for all of us. If you’re feeling weary and tired today, come to Jesus!

Kristen: He has life, and He will give it abundantly! 

Dannah: Okay, you said step one for you is . . .

Kristen: Just acknowledging the place that I’m at before Him, and just praying through that. But then I think it’s asking of Him. So many times in the Gospel of John, Jesus tells His disciples to ask!

You know, “If you ask in accordance with my will, you are going to receive. You’re going to have this life that I’m to give to you” (see John 16:24). I often wonder how often I don’t come to Jesus with my need because I somehow don’t really believe that He can fill it. 

I somehow don’t really trust that He’s good, in some way, or that He is life and that He imparts life to us. I’ve been really convicted about that, actually. How often do I end up scrounging around, searching for life in other things that are not inherently bad . . .

Like getting a nap on my couch is a good gift from God, but if I’m looking to that nap to supply some kind of deep soul satisfaction that only Jesus can, I’m not turning to the right thing in my weariness. So I think I just often don’t actually trust that He’s good and that He’s actually going to fulfill this promise.

Dannah: What are some other things we turn to in our exhaustion as mothers that might be an indicator for us to be like: “Am I receiving that as a good gift, or am I relying on that and believing in that the way I should be believing in Christ?”

Kristen: A huge one for me is control. Naptime is a good example. If preceding naptime activities don’t go the way that I would like them to go and on my timetable, the fruit of that is evidence that I’m probably idolizing control, because it just makes me angry. 

Rather than saying like Jesus did so beautifully before His Father, “I have come to do the Father’s will. My food is to do the will of the One who sent Me” (see John 4:34). That would be so freeing! To just say, “Okay, God, You are sovereign; You know this day even better than I do. You’ve planned it, and so I can trust You in this moment when it’s not going according to my plan.”

But I think that I tend to control things, and I’ve been also very convicted of that. 

Dannah: Yes, so that naps, the control. Do any other things come to mind that we’re prone to turn to as moms, instead of Christ?

Kristen: Yes, means of escape, like entertainment. I think entertainment is probably the biggest one. Maybe for some women it’s food or some other pleasure that we can take enjoyment in. 

And again, these things in themselves are not evil things; they’re good gifts from God. But do I turn to social media, do I turn to email, or the work that I’m doing, or Netflix as a means of trying to forget . . . or not “be mom in this moment” (even though your job never ends)? I think that’s the difference.

Dannah: One of the things a lot of my friends who are still in the throes of motherhood have told me is that the past two years or so of just unpredictability. The not knowing: “Is children’s church on or off? Is Bible school on or off? Is camp on or off?

They’re saying, “You know, I realized how much I looked to that one week where my kids were all at camp to be my refreshment.” It’s not that it isn’t a good thing. But one mom said to me, “I was relying on that. It had become something of an idol for me and my husband to have that week.”

She said, “I love that week! I’m not saying I don’t want that week. I’m saying that I want to approach it differently.” And if these things are in your life, you might just say, “Okay, wait. Am I receiving them as good gifts, or am I relying on them and having faith in them in a way that I should be directing my faith and my belief towards God?”

That’s a big thing you just said there. It’s a crisis of belief sometimes for us.

Kristen: Yes, it is. I think it exposes in our hearts when these things are becoming more important to us even than other people, than our kids. God calls us to love Him first with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. He has to give us the power to do, and He does, praise Him for that. 

Then He calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves. So, we’re called also to love others, but how often am I shoving others aside (aka my kids) for the sake of getting what I would prefer in that moment?

So I think it’s when these things or these opportunities become more important to us than God’s priorities for us, but also the people. That’s when it can become a problem.

Dannah: Yes, it’s a big deal. You know what I’m thinking? As a mom, and now as a grandmother, the moments of my true deep need for Jesus to show up . . . Moments like when the baby has a fever, when your kid has chicken pox, when you’re not sure if your freshman is going to make the basketball team, all those things . . . I run to Jesus, and my faith is big. I believe, “Lord, I know You care about me. I know You care about my child.”

But where I struggled, and still sometimes struggle, are those mundane hours where I become bored or exhausted. Why am I not inviting my faith to rise up in that? I mean, isn’t that easier for the Lord to handle than the fever or the basketball? Right? Do you find that to be true in your life?

Kristen: Right, absolutely! I have found personally (and I know that this is not true for everyone) in seasons of hardship, suffering even, I cling more tightly to the Lord. I think it’s because we’re perhaps made more aware of our need for Him.

Those circumstances kind of strip away all of the self-sufficiency and strength that we think we have, and it’s so obvious that we don’t have it! And so, it’s so clear we have to go to the Lord. But I wonder if in the more mundane moments, the desperation isn’t as pressing or isn’t as obvious.

I’m just thinking out loud here, but I think what it could be for me, is that I’m just not convinced that I need Jesus in this mundane, normal ordinary moment like I did, ten years ago when I was struggling with that health crisis, or whatever it might be.

But what you’re saying is that the invitation for life abundant is in every ordinary moment, because His grace is for every ordinary moment. It’s good.

Dannah: Amen! It’s good. Okay, so, I’ve acknowledged where I am. I’ve asked Him for help. What’s next? He shows up and everything’s fine? (laughter) Wouldn’t that be wonderful?! “Come, Lord Jesus!” I also pray that prayer often! That would be glorious, to see Him come soon!

Kristen: Yes, so I’m going back to this morning. I’m on my walk, I’m praying. Jesus connects our coming to Him and our love for Him with our obedience.

So He says in John 14:15: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Then I have to ask myself, “Okay, by the power of the Holy Spirit at work in me, what does it look like to obey my Lord Jesus right now?”

And that’s going to look different in every situation that you’re in. But in that moment for me, it was to care for my children, to enjoy their presence, to be present and not flip out my phone and start looking at my text messages, trying to escape. 

Being present with my children and faithful to what Jesus is calling me to do in that moment with them. I think included in that is the knowledge that God sees. So, He’s not far off, but He sees our obedience. He’s pleased by it.

Dannah: So true! In fact, you know what comes after John 14:15?

Kristen: What are you thinking about?

Dannah: Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” This is one of my favorite passages in Scripture. “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:15–17).

What a gift! What a trade-off for obedience, right?

Kristen: Right! What did Augustine say? He said, “Father, command what You will, only give what You command.” So, “Command my obedience . . . but I need You to help me obey!” And that’s what Jesus is saying here. I love that you pointed that out. “If you love Me, you will obey My commandments, but I’m going to make my home with you and I’m going to fill you with My life.” And what a sweet promise that is to receive!

Dannah: So beautiful! Okay, so let me play the “devil’s advocate” and imagine that there might be (I’m not saying there is, but there could potentially be) a mom listening who didn’t joyfully obey the Lord in one of those mundane moments of motherhood. Like, what then? What happens then?

Kristen: Right, well that’s also me, just so every mom who’s listening knows. I think it’s all of us, because even our best desires and attempts for obedience are laced with sin. We are not yet in glory and our hearts have not yet been perfected. Not one of us is walking around perfectly obeying Jesus, right? 

I think that we need to acknowledge that as well, but this is me also all the time, because I don’t always joyfully obey the Lord. I instead get upset with the situation, that my kids are not doing what I wanted them to do. I yell at them and sin against them and against God.

And so, for that moment, for that angry blowup, what is the hope that we have? How does Jesus draw near to us and serve us in that moment? And we see that this is precisely why He came. He didn’t come—as He said—to heal the healthy, but to heal the sick. He came for sinners (see Mark 2:17).

And what He means by that, He came for those who acknowledge their need of Him. And so, in that moment, I think that I can cling to the cross and to the victorious resurrection of Christ in which He not only forgives all of my sin, but covers me with His perfect obedience. 

So in that moment when I did not obey, where my obedience was laced with selfishness or you-name-it, Christ’s record is still mine. He gives me that beautiful gift! And so, I am free to continue pursuing joyful obedience! It’s just a beautiful gift that He gives to us.

Dannah: That is good stuff! I feel like I just drank the remedy for mom-guilt, right there! 

Kristen: Oh, good.

Dannah: Thank you. You said a moment ago a phrase. I think you said, “Jesus serves us,” or “Christ serves us.” That’s such a beautiful thought, that in the middle of all this work of serving our children, serving our family, serving cantankerous toddlers when they’re still throwing fits, serving ungrateful teenagers when they don’t understand the sacrifice, that it’s not just us serving; it’s Jesus serving us. How big a deal has that been in your heart and life?

Kristen: It’s been a bigger deal in the last four years than it had been prior to that. So my daughter’s four, and I think coming into a new season of stooping low to serve these little ones in a way that I really hadn’t been required to do before.

It caused me to think first of all, what is God asking me to reflect to my children? How’s He calling me to be a reflection of Himself to them? Which is a high calling, right? We are called to be holy, as He is holy. But then, like we just talked about, when I’m not holy, what does that mean for God continuing to help me and serve me through that?

I think, coming to this place of being utterly spent physically and emotionally has made me cry out more to the Lord than I have in the past. It’s just so evident that Jesus comes. As we read the accounts of the Gospels, Jesus doesn’t wait for us to get our acts together. 

He comes, He condescends into a broken world—the world He made out of love. He enters that world in order to rescue His people. If He did that, will He not help me in those moments?

Dannah: So, if I’m a broken mom, He’s at the ready to come and be my Savior and my rescue, right there in that, on that broken day, at that very moment.

Kristen: It’s His delight to do so! In the first chapter of John’s Gospel, John writes about the condescension of Christ in flesh, which is what we call the Incarnation. So, Jesus being fully God and fully man, willingly gave up His supposed rights as God. 

He could have stayed at the right hand of the Father in glory, right? But He didn’t; He came to us. I once heard a pastor at our church describe that as: imagine us becoming an ant. Why would anyone do that? Humans are so much better than ants. 

And yet, the God of all the universe, John says the Word of at the beginning, even before the beginning, who created everything, comes into His world only to be rejected, hated, maligned, and tortured (see John 1). It is the most beautiful act of service that we’ll ever see! It’s matchless; we can’t match it, what Jesus did for us. 

Dannah: Right. I’ve heard it described once as: Imagine if Jesus were a prince in the wealthiest, most peaceful nation in the world, and He took off His crown, and He took off His royal robe, and He sent His servants away. And He took those bags of wealth, and He emptied them. He said, “I’m going to become like the poorest of the poor in the land, in the village because I love what I see, I love who I see. (He loves you!) I’m going to become as poor as I can be—as poor as you are—in the hope that you’ll love me back!”

That’s easier for me to relate to than the ant thing, even though the ant thing is a beautiful thing. Like, “I’m no prince, and I have no great wealth in this world, but I don’t really want to give up what I do have.” He loves us so much!

Okay, so let’s attach that love and that sacrifice and that service to the everyday act of mothering. I love how you took us on this walk with you today in Chicagoland and how you honestly just called out to Him. 

But, can you tell us another story, maybe, where you really felt the service of Jesus, the humility of Christ, being your remedy for weariness in motherhood?

Kristen: Well, moms do a lot of dirty work, right? I’m thinking about everything from the kitchen and the food-strewn floors that we’re cleaning up every day to the laundry that we’re doing. But I think one of the most humbling things in motherhood is (can we say this on the air?) cleaning up a child’s messes, right?

Dannah: Are we talking diapers here?

Kristen: Well, I’m talking about diapers, but I’m also talking about the other end, because it’s like one of my worst fears, Dannah. 

Dannah: I understand, some of us are afraid of heights, others are afraid of that—upset tummies.

Kristen: Yes. But I mean, that has happened to our family, and it is so stinking humbling! I don’t want to clean that up! That doesn’t negate the fact that it is hard work, right? It’s gross, it’s difficult to do, and yet in that moment, my love for my sweet child is so full. I don’t want them to hurt anymore.

It makes me think about the love that the Son of God has for us. Love so much that He would enter into our mess, and not only our mess here, but the abyss of the wrath of God on the cross, bearing the sins of all of us so that we could be free of it! All for love.

It’s a very small picture of that, but that’s what it makes me think about. So, mom, the next time your child pukes and you’re the one having to clean it up, I pray that that thought might help you a little bit.

Dannah: I love it; that’s beautiful. Kristen, I wonder if you’d pray for a mom who may be feeling some conviction today. I don’t want you moms to feel condemnation if you’re listening today and say, “Man! I think I’m the mom who yells more than obeys!” That’s okay. That’s why you need Jesus today. Today’s your opportunity to push the reset button. 

Would you pray for that mom who’s feeling that to a deep degree right now?

Kristen: Well, Momma, I am that mom, too, I just want you to know that. Every single day I struggle with that thought. Yes, it would be my joy to pray. 

Oh, Lord Jesus, we thank You that You have come so that we might have life, and not just any kind of life or degree of life, but life abundant because we have You! You say that You are the way and the truth and the life.

We thank You, Jesus, that You did not wait for us to clean ourselves up, to be the perfect mom, or mom enough (or whatever the world might call it, or whatever our flesh might want to call it). But You entered into our experience so that we would come to You with all of our need, with all of our mess ups, with all of our sin, even and cast it upon You. We know that You dealt with it once and for all at the cross.

And this is not a one-and-done thing, Lord Jesus. We pray that You will help us to come to You every day again and again, until we see You face to face. Keep us pressing on with Your face in mind and Your “well done” ringing in our ears. We love You, Lord. Amen.

Nancy: Amen! Isn’t it a comfort, when our hands feel like they’re just going through the motions and our hearts aren’t totally in it, to remember that the hands of our Savior are there serving us and ministering to us and through us?

Dannah: Yes, we just heard from Kristen Wetherell about serving in motherhood, but really it applies to all of us in any stage of life. 

Again, Kristen’s book is called Humble Moms, and you can find more information about it linked in the transcript of this program at ReviveOurHearts.com.

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Tomorrow on our program, Kristen Wetherell will join us once again to help us get our eyes off of ourselves and onto Jesus. I know I need that day after day. So, I hope you’ll join us tomorrow, and as you do, we’ll pray that once again the Lord will revive our hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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