Kristen Anne Glover

Five in Tow

100 Things About Me, Items 11-20

Part 2 in a series of 100 Things About Me.  Read the first 10 items  here.

11) I am an only child.  I mean, I’m the only GIRL.  Growing up, I thought that meant the same thing.

Photo evidence that I am an only child.

12) I love flying.  I get it from my dad.

A very tall man in a very little plane. Everybody point!

13)  Even though I’ve gotten to fly in lots of different planes, I really want to ride in one of these:

Anyone have one I can borrow?

14) My parents were missionaries in the Philippines, where everybody spoils white kids by giving them water buffaloes.   I mean candy.

Where’s MY water buffalo?

15) We lived on a coffee plantation and climbed cocoa trees for fun.  I know.  This explains a lot.

Forget about the toothless kid. That’s a COFFEE tree I’m standing by!

16) I am not responsible for my addictions (see #15).  I like my coffee light and my chocolate dark.

Best coffee mug caption ever.

17) My dream is to take my family back to the Philippines.  In a hot air balloon.

The view from the hot air balloon is spectacular!

18) While in the Philippines, my older brother and I went away to boarding school during the week.  Ron and Sandy Lashuay were our dorm parents, and their three kids were the best playmates.

I am not in this picture. I am around back eating coffee beans.

19)  My dad was killed in a car accident when I was eleven.  He’s been busy praising Jesus ever since.

Finally free.

20) My Aunt Sandy Lashuay, as we called her, died when I was 19, after a long and horrible battle with cancer.  She was incredibly brave.  God brought my mom and Ron together and joined our two families and gave us “beauty for ashes, strength for fear, kindness for mourning, peace for despair.” (Crystal Lewis)

My mom has great taste in men. Just like her daughter.

Read on here for ten more things about me!

The Trouble with Juice

Juice=love

Every Thursday morning, Jonathan puts on his boots and heads over to Mrs. Smith’s house to take out her garbage and recycling containers.  It’s a job he’s had since Mr. Smith died over a year ago, and things changed.  Mrs. Smith walks with a cane, and even though she’s as spirited as a much younger woman, it’s hard for her to do some things on her own.  Jonathan lives to help others, but he’s given up telling Mrs. Smith not to pay him a dollar every week to do the very thing he loves to do for her because she won’t hear it.

The truth is, Mrs. Smith loves my children just as much as they love her, and she can’t resist taking every opportunity to show them.  A little candy tucked in here or a package of cookies sent home there—even though her budget has been tight since she became a widow, Mrs. Smith delights in finding ways to spoil her “grand-neighbors.”

One day, Jonathan came back from garbage duty lugging a jug of apple juice.  His siblings rushed him at the door, eager for a glimpse of the prize.  The twins jumped up and down and the girls cheered.  Apple juice is a rare commodity at our house.  The kids have become accustomed to drinking kefir water and kombucha tea, which I make in abundance, but juice…that’s something to celebrate.

“Can we have some?  Can we?”  They begged.  It’s hard to say no to children who are hugging a carton of juice.  Besides, breakfast was almost ready so the timing was perfect.

“Sit up at the table!” I said, and five bodies scampered enthusiastically up to their places.  Faith had already put the skillet of fluffy scrambled eggs on the table.  She had made them, all by herself.

“You’ve gotta try them!” She beamed.  She was so proud and she’d done such a great job, I decided to serve the eggs before getting the juice.  Everyone was happy with this arrangement, except for Micah.

“I want apple juice, Mommy,” he said.

“I’ll get it, Micah.  Just a second.  Why don’t you eat a bite of eggs while you wait?”

Micah looked at his plate and wrinkled up his face.  “I don’t yike it,” he sulked.

Faith looked offended.  “They’re good, Micah!  Try a bite.”  Everyone agreed.  Faith was becoming quite the little chef.

“I want JUICE!” he stated again with fervor and banged his spoon on the table.

I stopped with the eggy spatula in mid-air.  “Micah!  That is not how you talk!  I will get you some juice just as soon as I’m done.  Now, eat your eggs.”

The other kids were making short work of Faith’s breakfast.  “Mmmm!” Paul said as he gobbled up his share.  “It yummy!”  Paul could eat his body weight in eggs.

Micah pouted and wouldn’t eat a bite.  “Micah,” I said sternly.  “If you don’t eat your eggs, I’m not going to give you any juice.”  I opened the jug and began filling glasses.  I didn’t even water it down.  It was like Christmas.

Micah refused even to taste his eggs.  He pushed his plate away and said, “I only want JUICE.”

“I am not going to give you juice when you talk to me like that.”

Quickly, he descended into the biggest tantrum we had seen since an unfortunate incident at the dentist’s office.  We all watched him, feeling sorry that he was making the choice to behave so poorly.  The juice was a delight.  It should have made him happy.  Instead, he was choosing to be disobedient and defiant.

I gave everyone else their juice, but Micah was too far gone.  I made him get down from the table and said quietly, “Micah, I have juice for you, but I can’t give it to you when you behave like this.”  He squirmed in my arms and wouldn’t look at me.  “I won’t reward you for your disobedience,” I repeated a line he had heard often from me.  But instead of melting into submission like the others do, he began to cry, not soft, repentant tears, but hot, angry ones.  I had no choice but to send him away so he wouldn’t ruin breakfast for everyone else.

The kitchen was quiet except for the sound of Micah crying in his room.  The kids ate their eggs solemnly.  “I wish he’d just eat his eggs,” Faith said.

“Then he could have juice!” Kya added.

“He ready now, Mom.  He ready.”  Paul was always willing to come to the defense of his twin.

But we could hear Micah downstairs, and he was most certainly not ready.

What Micah didn’t know is that I wanted him to have the thing he wanted.  I stood there in the kitchen with his cup in hand, ready and willing to give it to him.  It wasn’t a question of sufficiency; I had an abundant supply.  It wasn’t a question of willingness; I desired for him to have a share of this good gift.   It wasn’t even a question of timing; I was ready to give it to him now.

It was a question of obedience.

As much as I wanted Micah to be happy and to enjoy the good thing we had been given, I would not grant him happiness at the exclusion of obedience.  I loved him too much for that.

From his behavior, I knew Micah thought I was being mean and unfair.  What he didn’t know was that my heart was breaking for my son, who had taken a good thing and turned it into an idol.  He had taken a privilege and made it a right.  He began to demand something he had already been freely given, and instead of producing joy and happiness in him like a good gift does, it drew out his selfishness and anger.  His heart was tight and closed, hardened by stubbornness and defiance.

Just like mine.

I listened to his tantrum and I couldn’t help but think of the many times I have behaved the same way. How often have I railed against my Father, demanding what is not mine, idolizing gifts without thought for the Giver, thinking I deserve something I have not earned, giving ultimatums like a person who has never tasted grace?

Just like a child.

In my stubbornness, I forget the truth about God, who says he’s my Father.  I wondered if his fatherhood of me is about more than just his unconditional love, which I hold close even when I’m being particularly unlovable.  I wondered if it’s about him standing in my kitchen, waiting to give me good gifts that I’m too stubborn to accept on his terms.  I wondered if it’s about him letting me press into his power and riches and glory, if I’d just turn around and go to where He is, instead of running headstrong in my own direction and expecting him to meet me there.  I wondered if he’s ready, like a good father, to give me everything I need for life and godliness.  I wondered if he’s waiting for me to stop feeling sorry for myself so he could show me how he’s already conquered, already victorious, and already willing to give me everything I need.

I wondered what kind of Father God would be to me if I’d simply let go and obey.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.  Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?  If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!  Mt. 7:7-11

Junk Eddie

Grandpa with Jonathan, May 2007

 

For as long as I can remember, people have called him Junk Eddie.  He lives in a junk yard a few miles down the road from my grandparent’s farm.  Although I’ve never seen it myself, I’ve been told he sleeps in an old abandoned house trailer that seems to drift about in the sea of used tires, household appliances, and rusty farm equipment that covers his property.  Since his house burned to the ground several years back, he’s made the trailer his home, though it has no running water or indoor plumbing.

Ed is a quiet, elderly man who likes to keep to himself.  He doesn’t talk to many people and very few people talk to him.  He isn’t a drunk.  He isn’t homeless.  He doesn’t abuse women or hunt down children.  He gives his money to the local Catholic church and slicks back his hair once a week to go to bingo.

But people treat him like a criminal.   They turn away when they see him, walk on the other side of the street when he’s coming toward them, and laugh about him when he’s close enough to hear.

For his part, Ed doesn’t do much to raise people’s opinions of him.  He takes particular pride in the fact that he has never in his life paid more than a quarter for a piece of clothing.  To demonstrate the fact, he walks around town dressed in filthy, ill-fitting clothes, a pair of worn out shoes, and an old hat that makes a half-hearted attempt to cover his stringy gray hair.  More than once, I’ve seen him rummaging through a curbside trash heap, looking for discarded clothing and putting on anything that fits.  Sometimes it’s an improvement.  Most of the time, it isn’t.

Some days I see Ed behind the grocery store, pulling soggy lettuce heads from the garbage bin.  He waits by the back door for the manager to dump out all the rotten or expired food.  He tries to be there early so he can salvage the meat and dairy products while they’re still cold.  If anyone asks, Ed says the food is for his dog, but no one believes him.

The truth is, most people are a little afraid of Ed.  People like him could be dangerous, unpredictable.   They lock their doors when he comes down the street and pull down the shades.   They avoid him because they don’t understand him.

But not my grandpa.  Grandpa has been a friend of Ed’s for years.  I don’t know how my grandpa, a former missionary and an elder on the church board, got to be friends with this eccentric outcast, but I have a feeling it has a lot to do with Grandpa’s relationship with the Lord.

I never knew my grandpa when he wasn’t a Christian, although he tells stories of his wild days before he came to his senses.  He used to be an alcoholic, although it’s hard to imagine him that way now.  As long as I’ve known him, he has had a passion for God.  Every morning, he gets up before daylight to read his Bible and pray.  He sits in his favorite chair by the window and begins his day with God.  He commits the things he reads to his heart and applies them to his life.

Maybe that’s why Grandpa started reaching out to Ed.  He read that those who follow Christ should walk as Jesus walked, and he believed it.  He read that Jesus walked among the sinners and the outcasts and the untouchables of his day, and Grandpa decided that if he was to be like Jesus, he’d have to do the same.  So he started walking with Ed.

Every week, Grandpa makes a trip down the road to visit Ed.  Very few people ever stop in to see Ed.  They can’t get past the smell of rotting food and the trash that seems to cover every inch of his property.  Sometimes he gets a visit from a high school kid looking for some odd car part, or a from a city council member looking for some way to throw Ed in jail for health code violations, but that’s about it.  I imagine Ed must get awfully lonely at times, which is probably why he enjoys Grandpa’s visits.  Grandpa is probably the only true friend Ed has ever had.

And Grandpa considers it a privilege to be a part of Ed’s life.  When he comes home from an afternoon at the junkyard, his face is glowing.  Usually, he walks in the house with an armful of food Ed salvaged from that day’s trip to the grocery store.  Sometimes he brings home a piece of scrap metal or a machine part he can use in his shop.

He comes home with stories too, stories about how God is working in Ed’s life and how Grandpa has had a chance to love him like Jesus would, not always with words, but with deeds.  Inevitably, when Grandpa talks about Ed, he begins to cry.  Tears well up in his eyes and run down his weathered face.  “I hope he knows how much I appreciate him,” Grandpa will say.  “I hope he knows.”

It is in those moments that I begin to see clearly what it means to walk as Jesus walked.  I understand what it means to love without condition, and what it means to be a light to the world.  I begin to realize that if Christians hope to impact the world for Christ, they must first live Christ out in their daily lives.  When my grandpa, in his worn leather vest and straw hat, leans on his old blue Dodge and talks to Ed while the work piles up in the shop, he looks a lot to me like Jesus.  Not the pristine, stained-glass Jesus reserved for Sunday school and Easter cards, but the friend-of-sinners Jesus, the Jesus who mixed mud with His hands, who smelled of dust and the bottoms of fishing boats, the Jesus who kept company with corpses and allowed sticky children and scandalous women to touch Him.  He looks a lot like the Jesus who loved with His life and not just with His words.

Some people might want to pat my grandpa on the back and tell him what a noble thing it is he is doing by befriending Junk Eddie.  Still, not many of us would go in his place.  But Jesus would.

 

*This story was originally published in Moody magazine, which is no longer in print.   I entered it in a writing contest sponsored by best-selling author Jerry B. Jenkins.  Since I had written it the night before and printed it just minutes before the deadline, I was shocked when I won.   But I was thrilled that this story could be told because it captures the heart of a man who has deeply impacted my life.  My grandfather lost his battle with cancer last year.  His was a life well-lived, and this is how I will remember him.