blogging Archives - Kristen Anne Glover

Noise

Cutting the noise

“You’re so intimidating,” she said to me from across steaming cups of coffee.

The words tumbled off her lips shyly, like they weren’t sure of themselves, but they rumbled through me like a sudden clap of thunder.

I sat there with a fake smile on my face and a too-loud laugh in my throat while she talked about my blog and how she just wanted to sit and listen to me.

I would have thought it was funny, except she was serious. And that was devastating.

All this time, I had been writing real, or so I thought. In every post, I tore open my heart and parsed out the contents into print. I dragged my blog right through the daily muck with me, and prayed readers would hold on for the redemption. Sometimes it was funny. Sometimes it wasn’t. But all the time, I fought to be real—really real, not just the pretend real that gains readers but lacks sincerity.

I didn’t want to be insincere.

I didn’t want readers.

I wanted co-laborers. Journeymen. Sisters. I thought writing real was enough to keep us walking side-by-side. I thought that was enough to keep the words from elevating me as we all seek to elevate Christ.

But it wasn’t.

This woman thought, somehow, that I was worth being intimidated by, and it left me spinning. What have I been doing wrong?

Just as soon as I asked the question, I knew the answer because God is good like that. He often gives the answers first and provides the ram before I realize the altar is bare.

All along He had been whispering the answer to my heart. “Be the Word incarnate,” but I didn’t understand.

Now here I was, sitting next to a woman who thought I was intimidating because she knew my words and not my flesh. She knew only the bits about me that could be seen through the peephole of a blog.

Suddenly, I got it. I had been ministering in word only, and it was not enough.

I am called to be like Christ in word and flesh, inspiration and incarnation. One without the other leads to irrelevance or irreverence, and often, both. How quickly we elevate those with golden tongues or pretty words! And how easily lifeless words fall from the lips of those who have no connection to real hurt, real brokenness, and real suffering.

That’s exactly what I was doing–writing lifeless words from the safety of my laptop. I never had to show more than I wanted or get my hands dirty in a ministry I couldn’t control. It was all very tidy and conveniently removed.

But words are meant to be incarnate. Otherwise, they are nothing but self-promoting noise, no matter how honest or real they are. “If I speak [or write] in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”

If I write a viral blog post but do not have time to help a woman get through a deployment, I have not love. If my article is reposted by a big-name Christian personality, but I hate the people who leave insensitive comments, I have not love. If I land a book contract and have people waiting in line for my signature, but I can’t be bothered to feed the hungry or care for the orphan, I have not love.

What I have is a bunch of noise.

If there is one thing the world doesn’t need more of, it’s more noise.

We don’t need more professional preachers.

We don’t need more blog posts.

We don’t need more legislation.

We don’t need more people who sit on one side of the stained-glass windows, splitting hairs.

We don’t need more intimidating Christians.

What we need is Christ lived out in the flesh and blood of His body, the Jesus who had dirt under his fingernails and bags under his eyes, who gave out bread while his stomach growled and held out his heart to people who would not—could not—do right by it, the Jesus who did not write a single word of his gospel because he was too busy living it.

Word incarnate

Word.

Incarnate.

Anything else is just noise, and noise is not love, not matter how good the marketing is.

And I did not want to spend my life on noise.

I had been asked to apply for a position on the Executive Board of the Protestant Women of the Chapel at Fort Bliss. It is a ministry to military women, by military women. Every week, nearly 160 women and children come to us to get more of Jesus.

Only I didn’t want to apply because I thought I already had enough to do.

I already had a ministry, and lots of words to prove it.

But that woman said the one thing that could have changed my mind. You’re so intimidating. You are word but not flesh.

Just like that, God won the one-sided wrestling contest I was holding in my soul. I interviewed for a position on the board and was offered the presidency.

It blew the peephole wide open. No longer did anyone have reason to find me intimidating. After months and months of ministering together, it is clear that I am just as messy and inglorious and cracked as the rest of them.

Serving as president of this ministry has been beautiful exhausting, the most fun I’ve ever had, and the very thing God had in mind for me all along. Every day, the tide goes out in me, and nothing is left but the mud. But every day, God brings it back again, and everyone can see what is really worthy of praise in me: Him.

It is real. Messy. Incarnational.

Just the way words are meant to be.

{14} Down the Wandering Corridor

Day 14 of 31. For Day 1, click on the image above.

“Jewel!” the prince called from the courtyard. “Come with me! I have something I want you to see.”

Jewel sat at the window, looking out over the vast countryside. Over the past few weeks, the prince had taken her all over his kingdom. She saw the rolling green hills where shepherds watched over wooly, bleating flocks, and the sparkling rivers lined with willows. Docile cattle, thousands of them, lazy with sun, rested along the banks.

There were glorious, granite mountains that jutted up to the heavens, and lush, fragrant cedar forests, rich with wood enough to build a cathedral for every person in the kingdom.

Everywhere, abundance reigned, and beauty tamed.

Jewel was filled with the sense that she could not even begin to imagine all the wealth her prince held. If she spent her life thinking of the grandest request her mind could conceive of, she would not be able to outdo him. He could fulfill her wish without any pains at all, and then he would ask if there wasn’t anything else he could do for her besides?

It was such a shocking contrast to the meanness of her life before, when she groveled for bread and settled for crumbs when all along, a boundless feast was spread for any who would come to the prince’s table. How needlessly she had starved within sight of his castle. In fact, the only regret she still harbored in her heart was the fact that she had not been hungry enough to come sooner than she had.

Now, the prince stood below her window with a grin on his face, looking for all the world like a boy with a secret. “Come on!” he called. “I have something to show you!”

“I’ve been saving the very best thing for last,” he explained, grabbing her hand and leading her into the depths of his castle. She still didn’t know her way around very well, and within a few turns down the wandering corridor, she was completely lost.

“Where are we going?” Jewel asked.

“You’ll see.”

The stone passages wound around and down and under the castle until Jewel was certain they were going to come upon the very center of the earth.

At last, they turned one last corner and the prince said, “We’re here!”

They stood before a giant door, heavy with wood. Great, hand-forged hinges gripped the grain, and the latch and lock were of pure gold. They gleamed mysteriously in the dim light of the corridor. Hushed and holy silence filled the hall.

“What is it?” Jewel whispered, half-afraid to speak.

“It’s my vault,” the prince answered. “Go ahead, open it.”

“I don’t have a key.”

“You don’t need one. It’s not locked.”

His simple answer set her at ease at once.

“I guess there’s no danger of anyone stealing anything. No one would be able to find the way!” Jewel said as she reached for the door.

“Oh, there’s a faster way. See that staircase there? It leads right up to the great hall. But where’s the fun in that?” the prince said with a laugh.

“I didn’t know you were so funny.”

“Jewel!” he said with surprise. “Laughter is one of my favorite things.”

She realized immediately that it was true. She had never seen anyone laugh as freely as he.

“Now go on,” he said, “open it!”

Jewel put her hand on the great golden latch and pushed. It swung open easily after a long protest from the hinges.

“Oh!” Jewel caught her breath. Never in all her life could she have imagined anything like what was behind that door.

{9} The Prince’s Kingdom

From Enemy to Heir: Day 9 of 31 Days

Click on the photo above for Day 1

The prince opened the gates to his kingdom and Obscurity walked in behind him without a moment’s hesitation. All her questions and doubts had been erased by the kind instruction of the prince.

But she was completely unprepared for the scene on the other side of the gates.

From afar, the prince’s kingdom looked pure white. His castle sat up on a hill where it shimmered like a diamond. No matter where you were in the Enchanter’s land, you could see it, if you wanted to.

When she was younger, Obscurity had often gazed upon that castle and thought about how very boring it would be to live in a world where everything was white.

Now that she was there, she could see that the kingdom was not white at all. It was radiant with a myriad of brilliant, pure colors. Some of the hues she had never seen before, but every inch of earth or sky shimmered with them. It was like stepping into a magnificent gem, and Obscurity could not make her eyes wide enough to grasp the wonder. She thought she could look on it forever and never see enough.

It was midday then, and the town was bustling with the affairs of the day. Everywhere, people were hard at work, although it hardly looked like work to Obscurity because every person seemed to be doing the exact thing he or she most enjoyed doing. Here a person painted pictures, there a person swept floors, one taught little children, and another layered mortar between bricks.

But all worked to the best of their ability, so if she had to choose, Obscurity would not have been able to tell whose job was the most important. More intriguing still was the fact that she could sense no struggle between the roles. There was no abuse of power or lazy workmanship, there were no angry threats or insolent remarks.

Instead, the air was filled with a sense of mutual respect and cooperation and a delight in being able to do what one was made to do in the kingdom of the prince they loved.

The prince, who stood beside her, watched it all with a look of pleased satisfaction. Obscurity noticed that he looked more radiant than ever as his people went about the humble duties of their daily lives.

Obscurity, who had never had a skill or talent of any kind, suddenly wished she had something to do that was as good and satisfying as their labor seemed to be to themselves and to each other. When she saw how much it pleased the prince to see his people creating, building, and ruling like princes themselves, she wanted nothing more than to be a part of it.

But she didn’t have much time to think about it because suddenly, someone looked up and noticed the prince had returned. Immediately, he was surrounded, and she with him. They greeted him with kisses. One took his horse and one took his cloak and everyone was asking about the cuts on his face and the mud on his clothes.

That’s when they noticed her.

And everything got quiet.

It was not entirely uncommon for the prince to bring an enemy into the gates. Old people and children followed him wherever he went. Those kinds of enemies had not been taught to hate him, or they were too old to fight, and the Enchanter’s power was lessened on those who believed enough to be hopeful, and on those who had seen enough to be hopeless.

But this was unusual. Very rarely did the prince open the gate for someone in the prime of her life. Very rarely did he rescue someone so obviously entrenched in the Enchanter’s lies.

Entrenched was just the word for Obscurity. She looked like she had come right out of the sewers. Her hair was matted and she reeked of waste and it was apparent from her clothes that she was one of those kinds of women.

Obscurity was now aware of her own wretched state, but the prince’s people were unprepared for the level of depravity they saw in her. It was shocking. She was by far the filthiest person they had ever seen. Whispers skittered around the back row.

Obscurity felt her face flush and her heart fall. She realized these people were not perfect like the prince. When she had first seen them, they seemed so different from her own people that she could not imagine a single flaw in any of them.

Yet, there remained in them some ability to make assumptions and draw conclusions. There remained in them some need of rescuing, and Obscurity wondered if they could see their own muddy feet when they were staring at hers.

One of the men stepped forward from the throng.

“Would you like me to take your prisoner, Sir?” he asked with a gleam in his eye. His job as master of the guard was remarkably dull in the prince’s kingdom, and he looked forward to having at least one of his jail cells full.

“Prisoner?” the prince responded in surprise. “This woman is not a prisoner.”

Waves of whispers washed over the crowd.

“Shall I prepare the…uh…guest room, then?” asked the head butler, who was already wondering how he was going to get the linens clean after that woman left.

“No, she’s not a guest!” the prince said.

The crowd was silent. No one could think of a third option.

“My dear people,” the prince said, extending his hand to draw Obscurity to his side. “This woman is my bride.”