Kristen Anne Glover

Five in Tow

{3} Outside the Gates

 

31 Days: From Enemy to Heir

Day 3 of 31.  Click on the image above to start at Day 1. 

The savages who pressed against the gates of the prince’s kingdom did not know that only the prince could open the gate to his kingdom.  They thought they could force their way in by means of their own strength and brute might.

They were wrong.  If they wanted to get inside, they’d have to go through him.  Only he wouldn’t open the doors for a banging, cursing mob.  They would have to come one at at time, like invited guests, and knock.

Others had come, and the prince had always thrown open the doors and embraced the seeker so quickly and earnestly, he soon forgot any hesitation in the coming.

But there were still so many on the other side who counted the prince an enemy.  If only they knew how much he longed to call them friends. 

Every day, the prince looked out over that enemy kingdom and was filled with sorrow and a deep, unfathomable love for these people who had declared their allegiance to an imposter.  He knew the truth about the beautiful Enchanter, and he knew that every member of that kingdom was marked for death.

The gates

So early in the morning, while most of his kingdom still slept, he put on beggar’s robes, mounted an old horse, and rode out the immense iron gates of the castle walls, seeking out a people to save.

That dangerous, dreadful land welcomed him greedily because it seemed to recognize that this prince had the power to undo it all.  This prince had the power to break the Enchanter’s spell. 

The curse

But the people’s eyes had become so accustomed to the beauty of their self-proclaimed sovereign, they could no longer recognize true royalty.  Instead of running to embrace him, they received the prince with violence and scorn.

One day, the prince was returning to the castle, bearing on his body the marks of an excursion that had not gone well.  The people he met had cursed him, thrown rocks and sticks at him, and tried to pull his horse down off the road.  Blood oozed from a gash in his forehead and trickled down his cheek.

Wearily, he road for home just as the sky was beginning to brighten with the day.  The early morning light made the road ahead hazy and more difficult to navigate than it was in the dead of the night.

Suddenly, something caught his eye.

The prince thought he saw a creature crawling in the mud along the side of the road.  He looked more closely.  It was only the waking shadows playing tricks on his eyes.

Or was it?

He guided the weary horse over, cautiously, to get a better look.  It was a wounded animal, and it moaned and writhed in misery.  The stench of sewage clung to the creature like the mud on its back.

“Poor animal,” the prince said, wondering how he was going to get a wounded, wild beast home on his already-nervous horse.

Just then, the creature looked up, and the prince found himself staring into knowing eyes.

This thing before him was not an animal at all, but a person.

For a moment, the prince could not move.  His mind was stunned by the level of filth and depravity before him.  No one in his kingdom lived like this.  His temples pounded hot with anger against the powers of darkness that created this hell.

He got off his horse.

“What has happened to you?” he asked, squinting through the mud for signs of injury.  All he saw was a fierce blackness staring back at him.  Every feature of this person was so disguised by filth and misery, it was impossible to tell if the wretch was sick or injured, young or old, or even male or female.

“Please, I have come to help.”  He took a step closer, close enough that the stench of rotten flesh rose up and gripped his nostrils.  He felt a wrestling in his stomach and fought to subdue it.

Just as he advanced, the creature retreated further into the shadows.

“Come…” he offered, reaching his hand down into the vileness.

At the sight of his pure, clean flesh, this person, this inhabitant of the enemy kingdom, leaped out at him.  Baring animal-like claws and half-rotten teeth, it cursed and shrieked and tore at him like the beast it resembled.

That’s when he knew.  It was a woman.

*Join us tomorrow as the story continues.  Day 4 is up next! 

Outside the Gate

{2} Once Upon a Time

Once Upon a Time

31 Days: From Enemy to Heir, Day 2

Click here for Day 1

Once upon a time, in a kingdom not as far away as you might think, there lived a prince.  This prince was good, kind, and fair.  His people adored him.  And he loved them more than they could ever imagine.

But just beyond the shadow of the castle and the security of the rough-hewn walls, evil and darkness reigned. 

Long ago, the prince’s land had fallen under the spell of a beautiful deceiver, who through lies and betrayal wrested a kingdom away from the prince.

It was a victory that came with a curse.  Thorns stole up through tender ground, and for the very first time, futile sweat and innocent blood spilled onto sterile dust.  Great, grotesque dragons swooped through the air and skirted over the wasted land like clouds, raining fire on the earth below.

From Enemy to Heir 2

Fear, not love, governed all who lived there because while the Enchanter was lovely, he was not love.  He wooed the people with his beauty but married them to death.  His only thought was to consume them, body and soul, so that all traces of princely identification vanished like smoke.

It was a very effective plan.  Little good remained in the part of the kingdom the Enchanter claimed.  Sometimes, a flower bloomed or a child was born less marred than the others.

That was the worst fate of all.

Beauty born in evil is not beautiful for long.  Quickly the good curdles in the foul air and becomes the most putrid thing of all.  The beautiful girls would become the prostitutes that fetched the highest price; the fearless little boys would be the murderers who took advantage of the shadows.

The Enchanter grinned when beauty was born within his kingdom.  He, of all people, knew what to do with that kind of power. 

Still, there was a beauty the Enchanter had no power to control.  He was reminded of it every single day of his reign when the sun came up and he saw the prince’s castle looming large over his own pathetic domain.  It was so majestic and glorious that even the Enchanter had to shield his eyes to the sight of it. 

He could not stomach what that castle proclaimed, and neither could his people.  Rage boiled inside them.  But they would never dare to approach those walls in the day.  They would wait.

Dragon shadows

When the night pressed down on them like a heavy hand and the darkness gave them a perception of strength, they gathered outside the castle walls and clawed at the stones with bare hands.  They desired to consume the goodness inside the way their ruler consumed them.

But those walls would not crumble.  The gates never even rattled.

Try as they might, the enemy could not break through the walls the prince had erected.  They could make a great noise and prowl around like a pack of wild beasts, but it was as if they had no teeth. 

What they did not know was the one thing that could have changed everything.  On the other side of the wall, standing out of sight with his hand on the latch, stood the prince.  He heard every miserable groan and every empty threat.  He was waiting.  If any of them had knocked, if any one of them had begged entrance rather than trying to steal it, he would have thrown the gates open wide. 

But they did not knock.  And they did not know that the prince’s gates were never locked. 

Join us tomorrow for Day 3!

linky

{1} 31 Days of Blogging Martyrdom

31 Days: From Enemy to Heir

If you’ve been around the blogging world for a bit, you may have noticed some of your favorite writers participating in a blogging challenge every October called 31 Days.  It is an opportunity for normal, busy men and women to inflict pain upon themselves for the sake of community.  It is blogging martyrdom, pure and simple.  Fall on your pens, folks!

I was not about to do it.

Last year, when I had not even been blogging for a full twelve months, I stumbled upon this whole thirty-one-days-of-group-torment a little too late.  Posts started popping up on October first and I had no idea why.  “Huh, running a series must be a great way to grow a blog,” I thought.

Then I found out the real reason.  It was like a blogging version of an Ironman competition, and I had just missed the starting gun.

“Whew,” I said to myself.  “That was close.”

Still, the idea intrigued me: thirty-one days of straight writing, thirty-one days of posting brilliant content.  At the end of thirty-one days, I would have so many words.  I would have disciplined myself to write and post content every single day.  Since I am not very disciplined, I couldn’t help but think, “This will be so great!”

November rolled around and all my blogging buddies were sleeping off their thirty-one day comas, and I began a series of my own.

It was only thirty posts, and that’s as close as I came to replicating the kind of diligent writing my friends had accomplished the month before.

See, I wasn’t very far into the first week of writing when I discovered that I am incapable of posting brilliant content every single day for thirty-one days.  I have a two, maybe three-day brilliance capacity, max.  My thirty-one day series turned into a six-week series, which turned into a two-month series.  I think I managed to wrap things up before Christmas but I’m not really sure.  Everything that happened after Thanksgiving is kind of fuzzy due to blogging toxemia.

But then the series came to an end.  I slept again.  I ate again.  Actually, I ate all along it’s just that I was now conscious of the fact.

I reflected.  I realized that I was not the same writer who sat down at her laptop on Day One.  That series changed me.  When I think back to that time, when every spare second of my day was spent wrestling with the truth of the Scripture and pinning it down into paragraphs and coherent sentences,  I realize it was one of the sweetest, most difficult times of growth I have had in my adult life.

And I never wanted to do it again.

But I am.

Because it is October, and I believe God has something He wants me to write.  I have trembled about it and made up all kinds of excuses because I don’t really like hard things, especially thirty-one days of hard things.  I consulted the wisdom of my husband who confirmed that this whole idea is nuts.  After all, October is a very busy month.  We have extra responsibilities this month, and I’m already not doing very well at the responsibilities I have.

I am afraid.

I am afraid of failure.  I am afraid of getting to Day 2 and running out of steam.  I am afraid of writing at 3 am and sticking commas in all the wrong places and having you all know that I am not a very good writer after all.  I am afraid of neglecting my family and the house and forgetting to feed the fish.

Most of all, I am afraid of writing words that are not His just so I have something to fill up the screen. 

But then I think about burying talents, and I don’t think God likes it much.  It seems to me that if I have the choice between a shovel and a keyboard, I’d better pick the keyboard.  Because there is no failure like the failure to try.  There is no sin like refusing to step out on the waves if He calls.

I doubt.  I falter.  But that’s part of walking, and I am marching to the cadence of the Word pounding in my ears:

“His divine power has given us everything we need

for life and godliness through our knowledge of him

who called us by his own glory and goodness.”

–2 Peter 1:3

Do I believe it?  I’ve spoken on this very verse so many times.  I’ve gone to MOPS groups and said it loud over the noises of the babies.  I’ve stood in front of high school students and quoted it to crossed arms and slouched bodies.  Every time, the crowd presses in, hungry, because this is promise that is almost too good to believe.

Is it true?

Think about it.  God’s Word says He has given us everything we need for life and godliness.  Everything.  It’s almost too much to comprehend.

Sometimes, the best way to understand truth is to put it into story.  Jesus did that for us when he told parables.  I like to think about him gathering the big kids around and making profound things simple with a “Once upon a time…”

For the next thirty-one days, or however long it takes my frail self to get the words out, we are going to spin a tale so we can see the truth of what it means to be rich in Christ like Peter tells us we are.

Like any good story, it’s going to begin like this: “Once upon a time…”

Join me tomorrow for Day 2.