writing Archives - Kristen Anne Glover

Flesh in the Game

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

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.

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.

{19} Manna on the Ground

Manna on the Ground: Day 19 of 31 Days.

To begin at Day 1, click on the photo above.

I have never written so much in so little time, and published it immediately for public consumption. This 31 Days experiment is something completely new to me. Every day, I feel vulnerable and raw because I have to get up and put words down on paper and hope that they’re right because I don’t have much time to fix it before I send them out for all the world to read.

Of course, not all the world is reading, but that doesn’t matter because the most important people in the world to me are, and that’s the thing that leaves me feeling a little sick when the page is blank and the clock is ticking right through the early morning.

Because I forget sometimes that these words are not mine. I forget how God has never failed to provide the words for what He has called me to write. Still, I wake up, frantically searching to see if there will be manna on the ground today.

I wonder if God gets tired of proving Himself to me over things I should never doubt at all. Because I sure get tired of doubting. How many days does the manna have to fall before I trust Him?

By His grace, I have spent the last nineteen days dwelling on His lavish love of me, a love that covers a multitude of sins—including my faltering faith. It is a love that is infinitely patient and altogether incomprehensible because it goes beyond pity to full and complete acceptance. It is not just a love that saves us from death; it is a love that grants us richness of life.

Those words have rattled around in my soul for days and days before they spilled out onto the page, and I am grateful because I am slow to learn, and I easily forget. He did not save me just so I would not die. He saved me that I might live richly.

Why, then, am I willing to settle for the bare minimum when God longs for me to embrace the full inheritance He has laid out for me? Perhaps, like Jewel, I am afraid. Perhaps I feel unworthy. Or perhaps, I have been in the kingdom so long, I have forgotten the details of my rescue and I actually think I can do it on my own.

That is not rich living. That is bare survival.

Do you know, dear friends, how much your prince longs for you to have more than that?

Manna on the ground

As we continue with the story of Jewel and her all-gracious prince, I want you to reflect on just one question: Am I living richly in Christ? Am I embracing the inheritance He has given me?

If you’re like me, the answer probably changes day by day, or even moment by moment. My challenge to you, and to myself, is to ask why. Why am I willing to settle for the minimum when God longs to give me everything? Why do I clench my fists instead of grasping hold of His riches?

Then, in those moments when you or I am about to walk out of His treasury with our hands empty, let’s remember the verse that started it all. “His divine power has granted to us everything we need for life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.”

We do not have to go through life on empty. We do not have to wonder if the manna will fall on the ground today. We are the bride of Christ!

He has withheld nothing from us.

Please continue to follow along with the story, From Enemy to Heir. You will see just how rich He longs for us to be.

{9} The Prince’s Kingdom

From Enemy to Heir: Day 9 of 31 Days

Click on the photo above for Day 1

The prince opened the gates to his kingdom and Obscurity walked in behind him without a moment’s hesitation. All her questions and doubts had been erased by the kind instruction of the prince.

But she was completely unprepared for the scene on the other side of the gates.

From afar, the prince’s kingdom looked pure white. His castle sat up on a hill where it shimmered like a diamond. No matter where you were in the Enchanter’s land, you could see it, if you wanted to.

When she was younger, Obscurity had often gazed upon that castle and thought about how very boring it would be to live in a world where everything was white.

Now that she was there, she could see that the kingdom was not white at all. It was radiant with a myriad of brilliant, pure colors. Some of the hues she had never seen before, but every inch of earth or sky shimmered with them. It was like stepping into a magnificent gem, and Obscurity could not make her eyes wide enough to grasp the wonder. She thought she could look on it forever and never see enough.

It was midday then, and the town was bustling with the affairs of the day. Everywhere, people were hard at work, although it hardly looked like work to Obscurity because every person seemed to be doing the exact thing he or she most enjoyed doing. Here a person painted pictures, there a person swept floors, one taught little children, and another layered mortar between bricks.

But all worked to the best of their ability, so if she had to choose, Obscurity would not have been able to tell whose job was the most important. More intriguing still was the fact that she could sense no struggle between the roles. There was no abuse of power or lazy workmanship, there were no angry threats or insolent remarks.

Instead, the air was filled with a sense of mutual respect and cooperation and a delight in being able to do what one was made to do in the kingdom of the prince they loved.

The prince, who stood beside her, watched it all with a look of pleased satisfaction. Obscurity noticed that he looked more radiant than ever as his people went about the humble duties of their daily lives.

Obscurity, who had never had a skill or talent of any kind, suddenly wished she had something to do that was as good and satisfying as their labor seemed to be to themselves and to each other. When she saw how much it pleased the prince to see his people creating, building, and ruling like princes themselves, she wanted nothing more than to be a part of it.

But she didn’t have much time to think about it because suddenly, someone looked up and noticed the prince had returned. Immediately, he was surrounded, and she with him. They greeted him with kisses. One took his horse and one took his cloak and everyone was asking about the cuts on his face and the mud on his clothes.

That’s when they noticed her.

And everything got quiet.

It was not entirely uncommon for the prince to bring an enemy into the gates. Old people and children followed him wherever he went. Those kinds of enemies had not been taught to hate him, or they were too old to fight, and the Enchanter’s power was lessened on those who believed enough to be hopeful, and on those who had seen enough to be hopeless.

But this was unusual. Very rarely did the prince open the gate for someone in the prime of her life. Very rarely did he rescue someone so obviously entrenched in the Enchanter’s lies.

Entrenched was just the word for Obscurity. She looked like she had come right out of the sewers. Her hair was matted and she reeked of waste and it was apparent from her clothes that she was one of those kinds of women.

Obscurity was now aware of her own wretched state, but the prince’s people were unprepared for the level of depravity they saw in her. It was shocking. She was by far the filthiest person they had ever seen. Whispers skittered around the back row.

Obscurity felt her face flush and her heart fall. She realized these people were not perfect like the prince. When she had first seen them, they seemed so different from her own people that she could not imagine a single flaw in any of them.

Yet, there remained in them some ability to make assumptions and draw conclusions. There remained in them some need of rescuing, and Obscurity wondered if they could see their own muddy feet when they were staring at hers.

One of the men stepped forward from the throng.

“Would you like me to take your prisoner, Sir?” he asked with a gleam in his eye. His job as master of the guard was remarkably dull in the prince’s kingdom, and he looked forward to having at least one of his jail cells full.

“Prisoner?” the prince responded in surprise. “This woman is not a prisoner.”

Waves of whispers washed over the crowd.

“Shall I prepare the…uh…guest room, then?” asked the head butler, who was already wondering how he was going to get the linens clean after that woman left.

“No, she’s not a guest!” the prince said.

The crowd was silent. No one could think of a third option.

“My dear people,” the prince said, extending his hand to draw Obscurity to his side. “This woman is my bride.”