life in Christ Archives - Kristen Anne Glover

{31} Return to Me

Return to Me: Day 31 of 31 Days (lalalalala!)

For Day 1, Click on the image above

When Jewel woke from her groggy haze, she saw the imposing castle looming before her eyes. The beautiful home she had shared with her prince was terrifying. It stood for perfection and holiness, and she was returning to its sacred halls as a ruined bride, clothed in the wedding dress she had defiled.

“I can’t go back there!” she cried.

“Jewel, you must go back.”

“But I am ruined!”

“Even more reason to return to the place where you can be restored. Why would you resist his love when you need it most?”

She was sick with dread. She had not considered what it would be like to return to her prince, covered in filth from the Enchanter’s kingdom, because she had not considered that she might be wrong.

Now her Advocate was leading her right through the gates, right past the sturdy walls where her betrayal was set in motion.

“Just put me down somewhere,” she pleaded, “anywhere.” She remembered her life in the shadows, when Obscurity ruled in Jewel’s place, and she longed for some of the old, comfortable anonymity. She thought if she could live on the fringes, tucked somewhere in the prince’s kingdom away from his gaze, she could yet survive the knowledge that she had failed him.

“Jewel, the anecdote for the Enchanter’s spell is the prince’s love. Do not shrink from him now. Do not let the Enchanter have that final victory. The shame you want to wear like a covering for your nakedness is no substitute for the covering that awaits you in him. This is where you must trust him the most. Now, let’s go greet him.”

That’s when Jewel noticed the obvious. She was so intoxicated by her own misery, she had not been aware of the flowing banners and abundant flowers. She had not seen the velvet runner and the colorful flags. Her prince had returned.

“He is here?” she gasped.

“He returned while you were away.”

It was worse than she could have imagined. While she was away, her prince had returned to find her absent. Her prince had returned to find her, not waiting, but wandering into the far reaches of enemy territory. She had no time to clean up before he saw her, no time to make amends and prove her penitence. He would see her exactly as she was.

She wished her Advocate had a slower gait, or that the walk through the village was longer, or that she could command the earth to open up and swallow her whole. She had not felt this disgusted with herself when the prince rescued her from the mud because she had not known him before.

She did not have the same excuse this time. This time, she had gone willingly. She had betrayed him when she knew him.

Just then, her thoughts were interrupted. They were not even half-way up the path when she heard his voice. “Jewel! Jewel! You have returned to me! Everyone, she’s here! My bride is here!” She saw him running, royal robes flashing, to embrace her. Great, joyful tears welled up in his eyes. “You have returned to me.”

Return to Me

The people of the kingdom rushed out of houses and shops at the sound of their prince’s voice. They gathered around Jewel in stunned silence. They were shocked by her appearance. It was not hard to tell where she had been. Some looked away, embarrassed for her.

The prince was not one of them. He clapped his adviser on the back. “Well done,” he said, “very well done.” The adviser bowed slightly.

The prince turned to his bride, beaming. “I am so happy to have you back.”

Jewel did not know what to say. Her infidelity blazed on her cheeks. “I am so sorry,” she stammered.

“Your Advocate has already told me, and I am glad. I can do something with ‘sorry,’ remember, Jewel?”

“But I took your riches for granted and I used the beauty you gave me to lead your people right over to the Enchanter’s kingdom. And I went there myself, looking for the ill-gotten riches of my old life. Only they weren’t there because they weren’t real, and now I have nothing to show you but the dirty rags I have made of the wedding dress you gave me.”

“Come here,” he said, but even as he said it, he moved to her as if he knew her feet were rooted to the ground and could not move. Then he spread out the corner of his royal robe over her filthy wedding dress. The rich purple of princely garments reached around her, wrapping her in radiance. Her guilty rags were completely covered.

Wonderstruck whispers rippled through the throng.

“All along, your beauty was found in me. You were rich because I am rich. That goodness you saw in the mirror was my goodness at work in you, Jewel. It was not your own, as you supposed it to be. Apart from me, you are nothing. That’s why your excursion to the Enchanter’s kingdom was in vain.”

Jewel studied her feet.

“Neither can you take anything from me, Jewel. You cannot shame me. Your ugliness can never mar my beauty or my goodness. I have enough beauty and goodness to cover it all, and I have covered it.”

“But you are just, too. Not just beautiful and good. How can you take me back, as if what I did was of no consequence?”

The prince’s face grew serious. “Well, there are consequences, Jewel, and there was a punishment. You could not have borne up under the punishment, so I took that for you.” He turned his back to her, and Jewel saw for the first time the fierce marks of dragon claws and the brutal scars where fire licked his flesh.

Tears flooded her eyes.

“As for consequences, well, you could have been living richly this entire time, Jewel, but you chose poverty instead. I think you can see the consequence in that.”

Jewel nodded, sober and heartbroken.

“But Jewel, return to me, and I will sweep your offenses away like a cloud. I will clothe you with new garments, and I will love you with an everlasting love. For I am gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love, and relenting of evil. You have tasted my mercy. Now drink of my grace.”

She fell into his arms then, and the people erupted with shouts of praise. Only their prince could take a story so hopeless and make it glorious with grace. Only their prince could take a twisted, sorted tale and turn it into a Happily Ever After.

THE END
*Only, this is not the end, not really. This series will be published in its entirety in e-book format for easy printing or reading on electronic devices. The e-book will included bonus content, including study questions and Scripture references. For updates, please follow me on Facebook or Twitter, or subscribe by e-mail.

{30} You Came for Me

As soon as she said the words, even before—as soon as it occurred to her to cry out for help, Jewel felt a hand reach out and snatch her up. It carried her to a place of warmth and safety. In her unconscious haze, she could not tell where she was, only that she never wanted to leave.

She heard the voice of her Advocate, and the voice of her enemy, although they seemed far-off in her mind.

“What are you doing here?” she heard the Enchanter sneer. “We have a deal.”

“You know perfectly well I don’t make deals with you.”

“Well, then, what are you doing here? Visiting?”

“You have something that belongs to the prince.”

“I do?” The Enchanter’s insolence was palpable. “I didn’t think I could take anything from you. Oh, unless you mean that woman of his? Well, I didn’t take her. She wandered here all on her own.”

“She is his bride, and you will pay for your part in deceiving her.”

“Bride? Oh! I’m sorry. I didn’t see a bride here, only a tramp. A vile, worthless tramp who didn’t need much encouragement to forget all about him.”

“That is not true. She is clothed by the prince, and you have no right to speak such words to her.”

The Enchanter looked at Jewel’s torn, stained garments with feigned surprise. “Do all the girls get the pretty dresses, or just the friendly ones?”

“You can talk all you want but you know you have no authority over her anymore.”

“No authority? Funny, for someone with ‘no authority’ I seem to doing a pretty good job of entertaining your people in my kingdom.

Don’t be sad, but I think she likes me better than your prince. Look how quickly she abandoned him for me. Not to mention the fact that you didn’t do a very good job of keeping her home yourself. Weren’t you supposed to be her guardian, her Advocate? Yet all I had to do was whisper a few pretty words in her ear, and she was gone. I don’t think she loves you very much at all.”

“I am not here because of how much she loves me. I am here because of how much I love her.”

“Well, if you ever get tired of her, I could show you a dozen more just like her.”

“Do not tempt me,” the Adviser said through clenched teeth, “or nothing on earth will be able to hold me back from giving you a painful reminder of how this ends.”

The Enchanter sneered. “You wouldn’t dare.”

In a flash of steel, the prince’s adviser struck the Enchanter with the broad side of his sword. The shadowy creature flew into the air and landed with an infantile cry. “Stop! Please, stop!” The Enchanter screamed like the coward he was.

The Adviser placed his sword under his enemy’s throat. “You are fortunate I am a very patient man or I would gladly run you through. But my father and I are not willing for any one of your captive souls to be lost. There are still some in your kingdom who will answer when I call, some who will yet be rescued, and it is for them I stay my sword. Not you.

“And if you think you can touch the bride of the prince without repercussion, think again. I am keeping track of every single vile thought, word, and deed you have done to her, and I will repay you a thousandfold. One day, you will see her, spotless like I see her, and you will know the gravity of the crimes you have committed against her and the justice of my punishment to you. Because you will be punished, and in that day, you will regret ever having laid a finger on her.”

The Enchanter quivered under the Adviser’s power.

“I will be back for you soon enough,” the Adviser said, then he, Jewel’s own faithful advocate, picked her up in his arms and ran across the rocky, rough terrain toward home.

Jewel was just beginning to come to when she felt the swift and startling movement. “You came for me,” she said in sleepy wonder. “You came back for me.”

“No, Jewel. I did not come for you. I never left you.”

“No…no. I didn’t see you there.” It was hard to form the words, but harder to stay silent when her heart was so heavy.

“You were too preoccupied to notice, but I was with you all the way.”

Jewel thought about that a moment. “I didn’t know you would follow me so far. I mean, I didn’t think you would go there.”

“What kind of rescuer would I be if I didn’t go where you most needed rescuing?”

“Then, why did you let me go so far? Why didn’t you stop me from myself?”

“I let you go just as far as you needed to go. I let you go until you had to turn around.”

Jewel knew it was true. She would not have come back so willingly if she had not gone so far. She was that obstinate, that stubborn, that much in need of rescuing…still.

“I’m sorry…I’m so sorry.” The warmth enfolded her and Jewel slipped back into the haze, grateful, at least, that she had been able to say that much.

{26} I Don’t Do Busy

I Don’t Do Busy: Day 26 of 31 Days

Click on the image above for Day 1

I have been dreading this upcoming week ever since I saw the traffic-jam starting to form on the calendar over a month ago. It makes me tense, seeing all those events stacked up in the same boxes in one little week in October because I don’t do busy.

At least, I don’t do it very well.

Like Jewel in our story, I struggle to keep my hands full of God’s riches when my feet are running in a thousand different directions. Before I even realize what is happening, I have slipped back into self-reliance and I am settling for bare survival.

Perhaps that’s why I chose to fill 31 days with a story about how God has given me everything I need for life and godliness…and how I totally ignore those riches sometimes because I’d rather come out on the other side, half-alive and over-stressed, and shout, “I did it MY way!”

That usually doesn’t work out too well for me.

Sure, I can accomplish the tasks and please all the people, but it’s like putting back on the dirty clothes I came to the kingdom in. I don’t look very good to my prince and I certainly don’t act like a radiant bride.

Consequently, I have made a habit of choosing my activities carefully and guarding my time so I’m not in those situations to begin with. Avoidance has always been my favorite spiritual gift.

I don’t do busy

Usually, it works.

But not this time. This time, the scheduling was unavoidable. Certain important things just happened to coincide with other important things. No one is to blame (except maybe my husband, who didn’t absolutely forbid me to do this 31 Days challenge when I first mentioned it), and nothing can be cut out. I look at my calendar and the impending challenge to my spiritual well-being and I think, “This is a great opportunity to practice what I’ve been theoretically preaching.”

Because sometimes, life is busy and chaotic and overwhelming and nothing can be done about it. It’s just the season. God doesn’t give us a free pass then and say, “It’s okay to be entirely vile and self-indulgent this week. I can see you’re over-committed. It would probably be a huge inconvenience to stop by so I can nourish and strengthen you.”

I treat my prince like that sometimes, like coming to His treasure room is just another box on my to-do list. When the days are particularly full, it’s easy to skip it all together because He’s less noisy about it than my other obligations are. I mean, I can neglect to feed myself from His Word, but I can’t very well fail to feed the children because they whine.

The temptation is to give in to my schedule and let my circumstances dictate whether I am full of Christ’s riches or not. I behave as if God has given me everything I need for life on the quiet days, for the days when I have time for Him.

It’s just too bad the Scriptures don’t actually say that.

God has given us everything we need for every day. That means circumstances can be perfect for filling up on Christ’s riches, or they can be an absolute hindrance to it. It doesn’t matter.

Trusting His provision has nothing to do with circumstances because it is not an obligation. It is not a nice-thing-to-do-if-you-want-to-go-the-extra-mile-for-Jesus. He does not hand out smiley stickers if you pray or read your Bible, as if doing those things earns you extra points with the Big Guy.

It might work that way if God’s riches were Law.

But God’s riches are a grace.

They are given to you, not so you are be obligated to them, but so you can be refreshed by them. They are not the rule book for the game; they are the fuel. If you avoid them, it is to your own detriment, not His.

That’s why, when life is most overwhelming, Christ’s riches are most necessary. On the busy days, we should think to ourselves, “Give me a full tank. I need all the help I can get.”

Instead, we—I—allow our circumstances to shift our priority. Suddenly, it becomes much more important to make 10 dozen perfect cupcakes for the church bake sale than it does to perfect the beauty of the bride of Christ. We might even feel a little guilty about missing an opportunity to spend time with Him, as if it is something we do for Him rather than a blessing He gives to us.

It is a grace. All of Christ’s riches are a grace. They are to be used liberally whenever we need anything for our physical or spiritual life. In other words, they are to be used for every situation in every part of every day, whether the calendar is full or free.

Always.

I am going to be reminding myself of that every day this week because I don’t do busy very well, and I have a very busy week ahead. Give me a full tank. I need all the help I can get.

*Day 27 is coming right up! I hope you’ll join us.

The reason this post is so late: A pterodactyl ate it.