Kristen Anne Glover

Five in Tow

Rain Like Horses

Clouds like horses

The clouds mount up, dark and ominous, like great muscled stallions, ready for war.  I stand in my yard on my dead grass and watch them, waiting.

A lightning bold jabs swiftly into the wounded sky, but I am too far away to hear it groan.  All around me, those horses circle, thundering to the back of me and charging like a single, solid sheet to the front of me.

But my yard opens its yellowed mouth and not a drop falls in. 

“That’s the thing about the desert,” I say to the kids.  “It can be flooding in one part of town while the other part is bone dry.”

A single fat rain drop plummets to the ground and vaporizes on the burning cement.  At least it could have fallen on the grass, I mumble to myself.  I gaze up at the burning yellow orb hovering just above my house and I think about how much I really don’t want to water my lawn that night, and how much everything would be so much better if it would just rain, even a little.

I have lived in the desert just long enough to know that here, the earth holds its breath for rain.  Days and weeks go by without a drop, then all of a sudden God throws open the gates of heaven and lets his steeds run free.  They thunder down to the earth with the sound of a thousand hoof beats, and are gone.

The grass is watered and the cacti flower and the people in the puddles are reminded that there is a God in heaven who causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike.  But on the other side of town, where the horses didn’t run, the people stand on parched ground and wonder why God held back the reigns for them.

I looked at the spot where the raindrop fizzled.  “I should be grateful for that drop,” I chastise myself.  Even one drop is better than nothing.

Another drop falls.  It is not exactly a war horse,  but I get out a wash bin and put it under the eaves as an act of faith.  Maybe it will rain enough to drip off the shingles so I can water the flowers tucked under the roof, close to the house.

Then the horses come, slowly at first, as if to find their way, then charging in at full force.  The waters fill my pathetic little wash bin and trample the thirsty grass.  I put another bucket out, and another, but those are overflowing before I can grab any more.

God has let his cavalry run right through my backyard.

I run too, trying to collect all the water I can because tomorrow, it will be dry again.  Tomorrow, the rain will stop and I’d better be smart enough to get it while I can.

But I can’t contain it.  I do not have enough empty containers to fill with the water that is pouring down on my house.  I dump hand-me-down shoes out of plastic storage bins and fill those too, but the rain keeps coming and I am soaked.

It rains all day.  Then the next.  And the next.  Great pools of water form in the hollows of the desert.  The horses rush together in a foaming frenzy and course through dry riverbeds in a blur of motion.  Everything that was empty has been filled up; everything that was dry has been saturated.

And I am out in my yard with buckets and bins, looking every bit like a widow who has cared for a growing boy through famine years, who thinks her son might die even while filling every last vessel in her home with oil while a prophet pours.

I am ashamed, just a little, at my attempts to hoard God’s provision as if I would run out.  The water drips down my hair and off my chin, it gathers in herds in my yard, and there I stand in the rain, trying to save a bit of it in a blue plastic bin.

Here I am, with all my jars filled, and I realize something about God that I should have known before: I should fear overflowing more than I fear running out.   God does not run out.

I do.

I have limited his hand because my mind tells me what God can do and my faith doesn’t have the guts to disagree. 

I stand in the rain, drenched to the core, and I am reminded that God is not limited by my limitations.  He is able to do exceedingly, abundantly, more than I could ever ask or imagine.  He can command the horses of heaven to charge swiftly through the desert.  He can make oil flow from clay jars.

He can even refine a rain-soaked child with just one lick of fire.

The rain is still coming, and I nothing to put out except the jar that is cracked and brittle, the one that I hold back because I don’t believe it can ever really be full.  But it’s under the eaves today, and the rain is coming faster than the cracks can let it out.

It is raining horses, and I am overflowing.

Coming Out Clean

Dust rises softly as I pull books from the shelf.  It floats up with the heat from a sunbeam,and I watch it for a second, waiting.

Each book holds a memory for me, and I look at the covers and run my hands along the spines, prolonging the decision that must come. Does it stay, or does it go?  I wish I could keep them all.

There’s a box on my bed for the ones that are staying, and a box on the floor for the ones that are going.  The box on the bed is winning.

There are piles in the hall, too, where I’ve been rooting through closets and bedrooms, and stacks of our things down by the garage door, waiting to go to Goodwill.

Jonathan has taken it upon himself to sort through his treasure collection.  The trash can is full to overflowing with rocks, rusty nails, and broken bits of toys.  I notice, with a twinge of sadness and relief, that Jonathan has finally decided to throw away the shredded aluminum cans he’s been saving since last summer when he got to shoot a .22 with his dad in the field.  The bullet had gone in clean.  But it didn’t come out that way.

That’s a little how I’m feeling these days.  The bullet went in clean.  But it didn’t come out that way.

First house

A first look at our house

This house was our first house.  The housing market had just taken a huge hit, and the house was in foreclosure.  It was owned by a couple with two kids, and things had not turned out the way they had hoped.  I noticed the pencil markings on the kitchen wall and saw how their two babies had grown since they’d been here, and my heart broke for them a little bit.  The leaving couldn’t have been easy.  There was something special about this house.

It was the first house I had seen that was anywhere near adequate for a family with three young kids and two more on the way.  We couldn’t stay where we were living with five children, and we couldn’t rent for less than the cost of a mortgage, so on Valentine’s Day, after we’d worked our budget out on paper a dozen different ways, we decided to buy it.

We called the realtor, but she had news of her own.  “You won’t believe this,” she said.  “Someone else put in an offer on that house today.”

I hung up the phone and looked at Jeff, who put his arms around me and said, “It wasn’t meant to be.”

I blinked back tears.  That was my house.  Whoever was trying to buy that house did not love it the way I did.  They did not have three babies and two more on the way who needed that house.

I could not give up on it.  Secretly, I watched the house online and waited for the “Sold” sign to appear in place of “Pending.”

It never did.

A month later, after viewing a dozen inadequate homes and very nearly giving up hope that we’d be able to find a decent house in a nice neighborhood for the money we had, that classic gray house, my house, was back on the market.

We bought it.

Then, we watched God provide.

Samsung Refrigerator

Jonathan is super excited about the new fridge

The house was in need of some serious repairs and upgrades.  We found free paint at a paint recycle station, a bathtub for $10 and a pedestal sink for $25 and a chandelier for $50.  We found hardwood flooring on Craigslist and a brand-new stainless steel Samsung refrigerator for $100.  There were solid wood doors for $30 each at a local liquidation store, strapped to the top of our minivan, and a series of scavenger hunts for just enough discounted tiles for the downstairs bathroom.

There was the carpet we saved for, agonized over, and ended up getting for free when it turned out to be defective enough to void the warranty but not defective enough to replace.  We were given beds for the children, dressers that could be painted, and even a dining room table when we outgrew the one we had.

There was a brand-new lawn mower that had been returned to the store and marked down just before we came looking for one.  The yard is bursting with plant starts from my mother-in-law, spring bulbs from my neighbor, and even a free rose bush from a lady who likes to talk to the children when she walks her dog past our house each day.

And everywhere, in every part of our house, there was the handiwork of people who came and helped, just because they love us.

I see it as I’m packing up and sorting through, preparing for the move we know will come.  God is leading us on from here.  I know it, and I am grateful, but I am shredded too.  The bullet went in clean, but it did not come out that way.

In my humanity, I want to dig my roots in deeper instead of yielding to go.  I want to hold on to this house because I have seen God here.  I have been loved by God here.  There’s a part of me that hurts to prepare this home, my home, for someone else, to share my neighbors with someone else, to leave my friends and my church to someone else.

I turn in my Bible and I read of all the wanderers, all those God called out of the places that were safe and comfortable, called out of the places where God had revealed His glory, shown His hand, and showered them with provision.  There are many.  Some seem to go without a second thought.  But others ache with the going.

It is so tempting to stay.

But it is an act of faith to go, even when it hurts.

So I sort through the years of things that have filled our home and I yield to the sharpness that comes from leaving the places that have been most pleasant and I trust that even though it hurts, God’s going to make it come out clean.

*A little over a week ago, we learned of a significant turn of events in Jeff’s chaplaincy application. He missed the original deadline because of a computer error, which included all applicants with prior service.  We were told there were no options but to wait for the next review board.  However, the military granted an unprecedented extension to anyone who was affected by the computer error.  It was a complete shock to his recruiter and to us!
Jeff resubmitted his application and will be considered for active duty by the Chaplain Review Board which next meets on April 14, 2013.  If accepted, we could be reporting to a new duty station in as little as 30 days (chances are they will not keep him at Ft. Lewis, where his reserve unit is located). We are trusting that God will continue to open doors to minister to the military, as it seems this is where He wants us, and preparing for the move so we’re ready when called.