Mothering Is “In Tents”

June 25, 2025 | by Heather Battig

Weathering the Storm

The heat was stifling in the close quarters of the tent. From our home outside Dallas, camping in Oklahoma had sounded adventurous, and somehow cooler. Now here I was, seven months pregnant, stuck behind canvas walls, while our 22-month-old ignored nap time and bounced recklessly in her pack and play. I had shooed the others off to the pool so she could sleep. Instead, I endured an infinity waiting for her to give in to heavy eyelids. Which she didn’t—until close to midnight, when night sounds and gentle snoring finally enveloped our tents. 

At 2:30 a.m., blaring sirens, flashing lights, and a booming megaphone announced an oncoming tornado. We had to evacuate immediately. Four adults, two toddlers, and a chaotic pile of camping gear, baby gear, and exhaustion high-tailed it two hours back to Texas, where we crashed on our friends’ living room floor.

Isn’t that a taste of motherhood? One minute you are wondering how you will make it until lunchtime. The next minute you are in a full court press to ensure your child survives a fall down the stairs or a lost stuffie. You cry out to God for his grace to sustain you, his hope to see you through the tension of not knowing how things will turn out, his mercy to help you both survive.

Abiding with God

When three children became four, I knew I was licked. The multiples had multiplied. Like money compounds over time, the laundry, the toys, the noise, the conflicts, the number of times I heard “Mommmmmy!,” had all compounded. 

Susanna Wesley, mother of hymn writer Charles Wesley, Pastor John Wesley, and their 17 siblings, would put her apron over her head as a signal to her kids that she was praying. She didn’t wait until there was an ideal time or place. In the middle of chaos, she prayed. 

So I bundled my kids into baby slings, strollers or wagons, in all kinds of weather, and prayed as I walked. Sometimes I handed out cups of cereal or a toy kept just for that occasion. Sometimes I walked with a wailing child and neighbors’ heads protruding from windows. Sometimes I went in the early morning so my husband would be home with the kids. Always I persevered, desperate for God’s help and grace.

Andrew Murray has said that abiding is “to have a blessed home in the Lord, where I can go in and shut the door, and kneel to my Father in secret, and am at peace in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and above is trouble.”

This was my place of abiding.

Expectations vs. Reality

I remember the day we showed our children our new pop-up camper. What an adventure we had planned! One month of travel, 2,560 miles, Mt. Rushmore, Glacier National Park, glowing mountain sunsets—we would do it all! 

The photos were epic. So were the cold nights in Montana, the hot days in Iowa. One kid copped an attitude. One sported a double ear infection and strep throat. (Did I mention it was the same kid?) There were indeed special times, but there seemed to be a gap between what we had imagined and the realities of seven people, ages 3 – 43, living in the same cramped space for 28 days.

Sometimes the appearance of motherhood is disconnected with the reality of it. We think motherhood is all Hallmark card images: cooing babies, special memories, wet kisses pressed to cheeks. Where does strep throat fit in, or angry outbursts, or sleep deprivation?

But God is not dismayed or surprised. He ordains the intense moments of motherhood to strengthen our faith, to give us a taste of our own childish ways, to help place our hands trustingly in his, to help us love messy children as God loves messy us and sent his Son to die for us that we might live for his glory, not ours. Our lives are not photo shoots to make us feel good about our beautiful children and their beautiful behavior and our beautiful mothering. Our heavenly Father abides with us, not for the lovely appearance of our lives, but in the dirt and grime, the weariness and work. 

Abide with Me

The days are long, but the years fly by. Along the way, with composer Henry Francis Lyte, we can sing and pray: 

Abide with me: fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O, abide with me.

Ask your heavenly Father to abide with you, in your sin, in the sleepless wee hours of the morning, in the park when it rains, in the grocery store when the money runs out before the grocery list, at the doctor’s office, in the precious times—in all the “in tents” moments of mothering.

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.” John 15:4

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About Heather Battig