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Kristen Anne Glover

Five in Tow

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Stuck

tag

My brothers and I used to play freeze tag on balmy summer nights when the fireflies dipped low across the grass and pesky mosquitoes delivered welts to our bare feet.

My older brother was just enough taller and faster to outrun me every time, and he tagged me down by the creek where the shadows of evening crawled into a hallow of trees and went to sleep. It was impossible for my team mates to see me there and even harder for them to sneak past his lanky arms to set me free.

I was stuck, frozen in some awkward mid-run stance while stars slowly blinked awake. The game continued on around me in squeals and shrieks while my feet remained planted in the cool, packed earth of the creekbank.

At first, being stuck wasn’t so bad. My burning lungs caught a breath; my muscles stopped screaming. I could notice the beads of sweat that trickled down my forehead and into my eyeballs.

It was a welcome pause.

But as the dusk melted into darkness, being stuck began to wear. I slung my body over my knees and squatted in the moonlight, wondering if anyone even knew where I was, or if I’d get a chance to play again before Mom called us in.

The longer I waited, the more I wondered if I even wanted to play anymore, if I wanted to run my legs into jelly and my lungs into fire. Trying to outrun boys was hard. Maybe I just wanted to read my Nancy Drew book and call it a night.

Probably no one would miss me anyway, I thought to myself. They hadn’t so far.

And clearly, I wasn’t the fastest runner, and I wasn’t contributing much to the game. In fact, I could see that everyone else was carrying on very well without me.

Stuck

That’s the stuff you think about when you’re stuck by a creek in the dark.

It’s also the stuff you think about when you’re stuck in real-life, when circumstances plow you over and tag you out, and you suddenly find yourself frozen mid-step and unable to move beyond the little space of ground right in front of you.

At first it can seem like a welcome reprieve, a chance for your soul to catch its breath. But after a while, even the rest can be wearisome. You spend your days warming the same spot of earth, head down and wondering about your contribution to life.

That is where I’ve found myself the past few years. Frozen. Tagged out. Stuck.

Within a few months of each other, three of my kids were each diagnosed with separate but significant learning issues. Their unique brains are mazes of strengths and weaknesses, and the older they grew, the more evident their challenges became. Our days were filled with trips to therapy, intense work at home, teaching and re-teaching the same material, and the daily effort of trying to communicate with kids who could not process language easily.

I found myself in a place that did not have room for much more than my husband and kids. I did not have the space to think or create or wonder. I had to step back from every ministry I had previously cared about. I did not have the capacity to invest in other people or even to let other people invest in me.

It was all I could do to manage the few things that mattered most.

At the end of each day, I felt as if God had taken everything I had, and out of my emptiness I had to trust that in the morning, He’d give me enough for another day.

I’d like to say that I did this really well. But I was often fearful and angry. I allowed impatience to fester where trust should have grown, and I made frustration my crutch instead of leaning hard on faith. I wondered then if God would ever allow me to use the gifts He’d given me, all the while failing to see how God was using me right then to do the things only I could do: be a wife to my husband and a mother to my children.

I felt like my feet were cemented to the ground, and every time I’d remind God that I was missing out, He would gently say, “There is no place more important than where you are right now.”

tagged

That’s a hard truth to swallow when you’ve been stuck in the same square of ground for so long, you wonder if you might be growing roots right into it. Maybe this is it for me. Maybe all those things I thought I’d do and everything I thought I’d be were just dreams and nothing more.

Those are the things you think about when you’re stuck, when little lies begin to creep into the slow and quiet.

You see everything that’s going on where you’re not. You notice how everyone else seems to be able to be and do and go while you’re just frozen.

You fail to notice that the little piece of ground you’re manning is holy ground. What felt like a punishment was really a planting, an opportunity to go to the deep places that busy doesn’t allow.

The truth was, I had not missed my calling. I was knee-deep in my calling. The God of the universe did not ordain me to be a writer or a speaker or even a stellar friend.

He made me to be a mother.

And a wife.

And a faithful child of God.

Those things are the irrevocable call of God on my life, the things that do not change whether I am standing in one plot of ground or running the field.

Everything else is an extra.

But those three things? Those things are worth getting stuck over.

Because it is in those moments of sacred stillness that God does the best work. My children are now reading. All of them. I could cry when I see Paul curled up on the couch with a book, voluntarily doing what used to be agonizing to him. Micah’s personality has come alive now that he is no longer afraid to speak in public. Kya is writing stories. Every single one of them has a relationship with their Father-God that is sweeter because life has been a little hard.

As for me, I would not have seen the hand of God unless I had been stuck up against a mountain that had to be moved.

And it has moved. All around me, the ground has shifted, little by little, until I realized one day that I am not stuck anymore. The days are not so hard, and I am not used up at the end of them. I have come to the end of my un-doing, and everything I thought was frozen is now free.

stuck
And to my surprise, I have not missed a thing.

Are you stuck? Do you feel as if your feet are frozen in place, and everything you thought you’d be and everything you thought you’d do are lost in an intense season of being a wife and mother?

Know this: There is a time and purpose for all things, even a time to be still and a little stuck.

But it is not for always.

One day, God will free up your time, your gifts, and even your dreams. And you will find that you did not miss a thing.

Faith, Homeschooling, Parenting 6 Comments

Noise

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.

noise

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

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.

Faith 6 Comments

Flesh in the Game

word incarnate

I did not intend to stop writing. 

I wasn’t even sure I could stop writing without having a serious emotional breakdown.

But that’s exactly what happened.  Shortly before Mother’s Day, I wrote a piece that would be my last for several months.  After that, I simply stopped writing.

I didn’t plan it that way.  In fact, I tried to get back to my keyboard to release the words that kept dripping into my brain, but I couldn’t do it.  I felt I owed readers an explanation, at the very least, but I couldn’t do that either.  Just as soon as I thought I had words to say, God said, Wait, I’m not done talking yet.

God was doing something in my quiet, and every time I tried to put words to it, I stopped hearing.  That’s the thing about listening: you can’t hear yourself and someone else at the same time. 

Besides the fact, the hearing was hard:

Are you serving me or protecting yourself?

Are you using your talents or building your reputation?

Are you caring for the lost sheep or feeding a fat flock? 

Are you willing to hear me without explaining away the very thing I just said?

Are you really willing to leave everything behind, take up your cross, and follow Me?

I was wrestling through all of these questions when God hit me with the knock-out punch.

Kristen, are you willing to be the Word incarnate?

 

Flesh in the game

Flesh in the game

Wait…what?!

Word.  Incarnate.  He said it over and over again in the quiet because I am so good at hearing and not listening.  Are you willing to be the Word incarnate?

I had no problem with the first part of that equation.  Word.  High and lofty, timeless, creative, powerful, awe-inspiring:  Words!  I love them.

But incarnate?  That’s where everything gets messy.  Besides, I was pretty sure the whole incarnation thing was Jesus’s job, and I was glad to let him have it.

Not that I wasn’t grateful–don’t get me wrong.  What a mess I would be in if God stopped with the one and not the other, if he was only Word and not flesh.  But he wasn’t.  Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  Jesus Christ, Creator of heaven and earth, willingly stepped into his own spoken word for me.

That is the gospel. 

That is the gospel I heard and said I believed while living exactly like it didn’t apply to me.

And God was calling me out on it.

He knew I spent more time justifying my lifestyle and feeling smug about my “ministry” than I did in actually considering what he said and doing it.  Widows and orphans?  I cried real tears for them.  The least of these?  I was going to do something about them just as soon as I figured out who was using the system and who was not.  Care for the sick?  I had just made a pot of soup for a friend with a kidney stone, I kid you not.  Feed the sheep?  Yep, I’d written a post or two about that, and I was pretty sure my words were generating a lot of sheep-feeding excitement in the virtual world, and I hadn’t had to interact with any actual lost sheep to make it happen.  That’s what I called leveraging my energy.

According to my calculations, I was rocking the incarnation.  I mean, I blogged about just about every aspect of my life, as honestly as possible.  How much more incarnational with the word could I get?

But God was having none of it. Stop hiding behind your words, Kristen.

It was completely ridiculous of God to say that to me because I wasn’t even doing that.

“God, I’m not even doing that.”

Yes, you are.

“No, I’m a writer.  Words are the way I use my gifts and talents for your glory.”

Ahem.

Words are the way you have been distracting yourself from my calling.

“I thought writing was my calling!”

No.

“What?”

No.

“It sounds like you’re saying…yeeeeeeeesssssss, but you need to speak up.”

No.  Writing is not your calling. 

This is not (ultimately) your calling.

This is not (ultimately) your calling.

It’s hard to have a conversation with a deity who doesn’t make sense, so I just shut up.  Strangely, it seemed like my silence was what God wanted all along.

You are called to be like me.  To love like I loved, to minister like I ministered, to be more than just word—to be flesh among flesh.  Because it wasn’t just the Word that saved you, child.  It was my body.  My blood. 

And when I tell you to go and do likewise, I don’t mean just write an essay on it. 

“I think I already wrote an essay on that…”

If you want to be like me, you need to become the Word incarnate. 

“Oh.”  I had no idea what was happening but it was scary and confusing  and I felt a little like a kid who didn’t know her dad’s favorite color wasn’t hot pink until just after she made him a Play-do creation in…hot pink.

Kristen, you are the Body of Christ.

“I know, Lord.  I’m the mouth.”

How about you start acting like the hands. 

“What do you mean?”  (That was just a stalling tactic.  I was hoping God was going to think it over and tell me to write a book).

I mean, it’s time to get some flesh in the game.

That’s what I was afraid of.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”  I decided I’d let God in on what I was thinking.

BE NOT AFRAID.

That was my phrase for the year.  Fear not.  Be not afraid. It was completely unfair of God to remind me of it when I was actually afraid because I had picked it when I was feeling brave.

I considered throwing up.

But before I could, the God who took on flesh for me opened a door for me to take on flesh for him.  He silenced my mouth and opened my hands.  I’ve been silent on the blog but only because I haven’t had a moment on the sidelines to catch my breath or find the words.

Until now.

*Stay tuned to hear what God’s been doing in the quiet. 

Faith 8 Comments

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I believe you can find grace for the mother you are and help to become the mother you long to be—a mom who has the freedom to choose the better things and enjoy her kids right now.

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