Category Archives: book release

“Beyond Cancer’s Scars: Laying Claim to a Stronger Spirit” . . . Book Release

And so it arrives . . . this moment I’ve been anticipating for over a year now. The day when I can release to you to the words God gave to me over the course of forty days last summer. It’s my cancer story, wrapped up in words and memories that express both joy and sorrow, hope deferred and hope realized. Funny thing . . . I still feel these words. They’re still fresh, still speaking strength to my soul. I pray they’ll speak strength to your soul as well.

It seems fitting that Beyond Cancer’s Scars: Laying Claim to a Stronger Spirit releases this week. Today, August 23rd, marks the two year anniversary of my cancer diagnosis. Two years ago, I couldn’t see today—a future moment when the suffering I was about to absorb would bloom as a witness to the sustaining strength and faithfulness of God. Two years ago, all I could do was feel the pain, suffer the losses, and hold tightly to the faith that had so beautifully followed me all the days of my life.

That faith and God’s grace have carried me forward to this moment—a day when he turns the tables on my previous suffering by using it for his kingdom purposes. This is my prayer . . . that my story might serve as a soothing balm to your suffering season. That you would feel less alone in your struggle and that you, like me, would allow God to use your pain to shape the souls of the generation that sits beneath your influence.

Your story in God’s hands advances his kingdom. Write it, speak it, feel it, and, most importantly, live your story forward. The best is yet to be! With Jesus, the best is always yet to be.

Would you please help me spread the word about my book? Here are some ways you can help:

  • Share this post and the book trailer with your friends via e-mail, facebook, twitter, blog, and other social media pages.
  • Purchase a copy of the book for your pastor to serve as a resource for those in his/her congregation who are dealing with cancer.
  • Purchase a copy of the book for a family member, co-worker, neighbor, or friend who is struggling with cancer or another soul-eating “something”.
  • Consider starting a support group for cancer patients/family members/others who are suffering (a free, downloadable facilitator’s guide is available by clicking on the following link: Download Facilitator’s Guide for Beyond Cancer’s Scars).
  • Ask your local bookstores to carry my book.
  • Share my speaking information page with your church staff and others who are looking for a special event speaker.
  • Write a review of Beyond Cancer’s Scars for online retailers (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.)

To listen to a radio interview about the book, click here.

 

Ordering information:

 

This first version of Beyond Cancer’s Scars is no longer available for purchase online. The updated version, Beyond the Scars, can be found by following this link.

on holding the suitcase…

on holding the suitcase…

“You hold the flowers, Elaine, I’ll handle the suitcase.”

This is what God wants me to know this day, nearly a year after he impressed it into my soul. It was the statement that led to this…


Most everything about the front cover of my book was intentionally planned.

The ripe wheat.
The evening sky.
The path with a bend in the road.
Trees in the distance, framing the scene.
Enough blue heaven to hold the title.
The kids… my kids.
The similar nature of their clothing.
The shadows they cast.
The holding of hands.
The look between them.
The beat-up suitcase.
My son carrying that suitcase.
The Gerber daisies.
My daughter carrying those daisies.

What I didn’t plan on back then was the outcome… the completed look… the finished product… the culminating portrait that paints a message all its own. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this cover releases the witness of at least a million or so; not because I had anything to do with it, but rather because God did. Long before the fifty-two reflections made their way into the interior, God had been working on the exterior. Only God can paint the eternal witness of a single moment. From his vantage point, he sees the bigger picture—the end result—and without hesitation, he picks up the paintbrush and works his truth into the mix.

I have no idea what God intends to do with this cover or with the written contents that reside within. I only know that the impression he put into my soul a year ago, is one that remains this day. It will remain for my children and their children, on down the line for generations to come. A worthy word for them and for all of us who are treading this earthly sod with a healthy respect for the temporal nature of the soil beneath our feet and for the season that lies ahead… the one just beyond the bend in our “down the road.”

“You hold the flowers, child, I’ll handle the suitcase.”

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light (Matt. 11:28-20).

I’ll handle the suitcase; you take charge of the flowers.

It’s all that God has assigned to us this day… the picking and the holding of his generous grace.

He can handle the wholly… holy… rest of it.


You’ve got a bigger picture, friends, and our Father can be trusted with the paintbrush. Believe him for it today, and thanks, Sheri, for the prompt. I needed it. As always…

peace for the journey,

post signature

the riches of knowing God…

the riches of knowing God…

{I love my kids… front yard PR!}

“What are you going to do with all your riches, Elaine, now that you’re famous?”

This was the question that assaulted me this morning when I walked through the doors of the church. It was said in jest with good intention, still and yet, it stuck with me.

All my riches.

How do I begin to measure the bounty that I have known at the hand of God, not just over the past couple of weeks, but the entirety of the past forty-four years? It’s an impossible endeavor to be sure, but one I’m trying to work my way through in this season of my life. We should all take time to pause in order to consistently contemplate our riches. It is the “way” of a grateful heart. And so today I’ve taken that occasion… spent some time reflecting and remembering the riches of God.

How well I remember a December day four years ago when my writing dreams were shattered by a publishing company that had held onto my first manuscript for nearly eight months. It was my first attempt at writing a book, a Bible study on the book of Nehemiah. I was certain it would “hit the mark” with publishers and, for a season, all seemed to be clicking along.

Until that day.

I received a courteous but succinct “pass” on my work, and I was crushed. I still remember my young son standing on the other side of a closed bedroom door, listening to my guttural weeping. Before long, I saw his tiny fingers reaching through the crack at the bottom, clutching in his hand two quarters. After opening the door to his generosity, I asked him regarding those two quarters. His reply?

“I’ll buy your book, mommy. Even if no one else wants to read it, I’ll buy it, and when I’m old enough to read, I’ll read it.”

That day was a turning point for me. My son’s two quarters sealed something in my heart… something I’d known for a long season, yet something I hadn’t allowed myself to believe.

My giftedness with the pen is fueled and maintained by my Father’s heart and kindness toward me. His willingness to use my feeble flesh for his kingdom purposes is far beyond my understanding and doesn’t compute with human reasoning. Still and yet, he allows me a measure of influence along these lines and, therefore, I must write for him alone. His approval is the only one that matters to me. Man’s opinion will come and go, mostly based on the bottom dollar and with a “what’s in it for me” attitude, but God’s opinion isn’t fleeting. It doesn’t come with an expiration date. My words leave a lasting impression upon his heart and in his world, and when those words write otherwise—when I am tempted to offer up a “flavoring” in keeping with trends and statistics and with “what’s selling”—then I forfeit a piece of my soul. The world becomes too important to me, and I lose focus of the truly satisfying and singularly focused passion of my heart…

Knowing God.

As a people in search of a meaningful identity, we spend a great deal of time exploring our “passions,” do we not? We invest our energies into discovering God’s calling upon our lives, God’s will for lives, wearing ourselves out with comparing our lives to that of “so and so” and wondering why his or her fruit is harvesting at a seemingly more rapid rate than ours. Why that person seems to be getting all the breaks while we languish in our desire to do something, be something, live something more than what we’re currently living. We make God’s “calling” regarding our lives a difficult embrace (something our market has hit upon as evidenced by the number of books, seminars, Bible studies written on the topic) when all the while, he keeps it pretty simple.

“Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3).

Knowing God. It’s what I’m about. He’s my passion. He’s my calling. He’s my meaningful identity, and for the time that remains for me on this earth, my pen will write accordingly… about my knowing God and then from that knowing, leading others to know the same. Therefore, I no longer feel the need to chase after the approval of man. It’s nice when it arrives to validate my heart-felt rendering, like when…

My mother takes my book to Curves (her workout establishment) and witnesses other patrons reading the desk copy she’s left there for promotional purposes. When one of those patrons voices her approval by saying, “This is really good; how can I get a copy?”

Or when…

A friend I’ve never met face-to-face from the opposite side of the country sends me an e-mail to let me know she’s spent some time in the “desert” section of the book and that the reflection entitled “a turn toward the better” was just what she needed to hear… “These are words of life, dear heart. They are something one can weep over because of shared pain: different in specific, similar in cost. But more importantly these are fighting words for me. The journey ahead is unclear, but walk it I will. Not at all in the spirit of my own might but in the spirit of the blood of the resurrection bloom. These are words, unusual words, that excite to love and good works.”

Or when…

Another e-mail arrives from a former college friend telling me that a copy of my book (one that her dad insisted on her purchasing last week) arrived on her doorstep just twenty-four hours before he passed from his earthly pain into final heavenly glory and that her heart’s been stuck on pages 84-86, from the “peace in the suffering” section.

Or when…

A church friend makes her way to my side this morning to tell me that, while she knows she’s supposed to be taking her time to absorb each reflection, she couldn’t help but “read on” because, for her, it was like I was talking to her… like we were having a conversation over coffee.

Moments like that; validation that doesn’t necessarily come with the ratings of a New York Times’ best-seller, but validations that matter for all eternity. It stuns me and buoys me along in the journey of grace and for the continuing cultivation of the driving desire and goal of my heart…

Knowing God.

And so, this night I answer the question that assaulted my sensibilities this morning. What am I going to do with all my riches now that I’m famous?

Make God famous and continue to invest his riches into my heart and life so that my pen might flow freely for his good purposes and for his kingdom gain. All other endeavors of my well-intentioned plans fall prey to this one. Therefore, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart leave a lasting impression upon his heart and within the hearts of his people. To this end, I pray. I pray the same for you. As always…

Peace for the journey,

PS: Thank you, everyone, for your support over the last couple of weeks in regards to the promotion of my book. This week, I’ll be giving away another copy or two of my book to those of you who are willing to support me a bit further by contacting at least five people in your life who’ve yet to hear about “peace for the journey.” Perhaps someone in your e-mail address book, someone in your church, someone in your family, someone in your neighborhood. If you’d be willing to let at least five new people know about my book (and we’re operating on the honor system here), please let me know in the comment section. Please share the video link with your contacts, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdJDjiHzCQI or a link to this post announcing the book, https://www.peaceforthejourney.com/2010/05/peace-for-journey-in-pleasure-of-his.html. I’d be so very grateful for your kindness toward me and toward God’s kingdom agenda for my life. Shalom.

{to order, click Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Winepress}

 

basement dreaming…

*Note: Just in case you’re the one reader of this blog who hasn’t heard, my book “peace for the journey: in the pleasure of his company” has released. Just in case you missed the book trailer, here it is again (truthfully, I need to keep this out in front for readers, but haven’t a clue as to how I might incorporate it into my header, etc. Help Tekeme friends!).

And just in case you’ve hopped over here to find out the first three winners of an autographed copy of my book… here they are, as drawn by my three kids that are currently home (please e-mail me your snail mail, and I’ll get these to you this week): Amelia drew Danielle @ Sojourner, Jadon drew Cindy @ Letters from Mid-life, and Nick drew Laura @ the Wellspring. Some of you have asked regarding getting an autographed copy from me. I’m willing to send you one, but I cannot offer you free shipping like some of these other venues. The cost of ordering from me is $15 per book and $5 shipping for up to 3 books. Please e-mail me your interest.

With my next post, I hope to address some of the questions/thoughts/kindnesses you’ve had for me over the past week. Truly, you are more than I deserve, and I am grateful for every grace you’ve extended in my direction. There will also be another occasion to win a copy of the book, but for now, I simply wanted to write my “heart” with this post and to “speak in the daylight” what God has “whispered to me in the dark.” Shalom.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“‘What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs.'” {Matthew 10:27}

“Mommy, I don’t mind playing by myself in the basement anymore.”

“Why daughter, what led you to change your mind?”

“Because I’ve discovered that the basement is big enough to hold my dreams.”

***

This was the conversation I had with my daughter in the early morning hours, not on the stage of real life but on the stage of my subconscious—a place where dreams have a habit of displaying their truth in a way that sometimes seems so real, I have a hard time separating reality from fantasy. This time, however, there was no mistaking the dream for reality. Why?

For starters, when I awoke I noticed the above conversation scrawled out on the pad of paper that sits on the nightstand by my bed—a good indication that something took place in the night that I wanted to recall with clarity in the day. I’ve learned to keep the pen at the ready, even in sleep. Secondly, we don’t have a basement. Lastly, even if we did have a basement, I’m fairly certain that, at seven years old, my daughter wouldn’t be ready to make such a bold proclamation regarding her fear of the dark and of being alone. I certainly wasn’t ready at her age to tackle the haunt of the basement that accompanied most of my childhood dwellings. I’m not certain I’m ready to tackle it now, but at forty-four I’m walking ever closer to being able to say with all the confidence of a dream walker…

I don’t mind playing in the basement anymore, because I’ve discovered that the basement is big enough to hold my dreams.

The basement. When I was a child it represented a few different things for me:

  • Isolation.
  • Darkness.
  • Mystery.
  • Quietness.
  • Hiddenness.
  • Confinement.

While growing up, the basement really wasn’t the place where my family lived corporately. We did our living upstairs. We ate upstairs, slept upstairs, and talked upstairs, all the while relegating the basement as a place of individual exploration and retreat. As a child, descending the stairs into the basement seemed like more of a punishment to me rather than a place of escape. To their credit, my parents went to great lengths to make our “underneath” a pleasant getaway for my sister and me. We had a playroom filled with toys and an open invitation to come and to live out our imaginations within its borders. I was more inclined to RSVP my acceptance if my friends or sister would choose to join in the fun, but to go it alone? To freely choose my isolation over the corporate adventure that was taking place in the upper chambers of our home?

Not likely.

I was too scared. Too frightened of what I could not clearly see. Too unsure of what might happen while on individual safari in the basement. Too afraid that I might miss out on the excitement of upstairs living. Too uncertain of the silence that surrounded me. Too confident that the silence would soon be replaced with sounds I couldn’t handle… with suspicions I couldn’t manage.

No, back then basement living wasn’t for me. My fear kept me from it, and if I’m not careful in this season of living, my fear might keep me postured accordingly… confined within the safety of the upstairs without ever venturing downward to discover the foundational beauty that resides beneath a well-structured home. A well-fortified heart.

Basements aren’t all bad. As I think about them tonight, some forty years beyond my initial understanding regarding their worthiness, the basement represents a few old things for me with a new twist:

  • Isolation, moments away from the world in order to be alone with God.
  • Darkness, not to hide me but to grow me.
  • Mystery, the secrets of an unseen God that cultivate my trust and replace my fears with faith.
  • Quietness, permission enough to settle down and settle in on what God has to say.
  • Hiddenness, permission enough to move away from life’s stage in order to allow God a moment beneath the lights.
  • Confinement, closing off the world’s crowding so that my heart and thoughts and dreams have room enough to breathe… to formulate and to incubate in a safe place with a good God.

I’ve been to the basement in recent days, friends. Long before “peace for the journey” ever made its entrance onto the stage of Amazon or Barnes & Noble or Winepress, it made its entrance into my dreams. It was a seed that germinated in the “basement” with God—a season in my life when I faced my fears and risked the isolation, darkness, mystery, quietness, hiddenness, and confinement of the downstairs in order to hear the heart of God regarding my dreams… my pen.

What birthed there, births now in living color for you to witness. Nothing about the journey in between those two births has been routine or predictable. This has been the most unpredictable road of faith I’ve walked in forty-four years. I hope to flesh that out a bit more for you in days to come because I think, perhaps, we’re tempted to assume that basement dreaming and the faith building therein always have to work themselves out in predictable measure. That somehow, my journey with my dreams has to resemble yours and vice-versa.

Basement dreaming with God is never without individual color and imagination. In the midst of your isolation and quietness with God, a foundation of faith is built that will best be able to hold and to fortify the dreams of your heart. What is erected there between the two of you will serve as your solid footing for the season to come. Don’t let anyone tell you that your house has to be built according to a structured set of blueprints… that dreaming only comes in one shade of color. Dreams come in kingdom shades of color, and the last time I checked, our Father’s palette was limitless.

You will get there, friends. Perhaps a trip to the basement might be in accordance with your next step of faith. Don’t fear the descent; instead, embrace it knowing that with each step into the darkness, God’s light shines brighter. I don’t imagine it will be long before your time in the basement will take on new meaning for you even as it has for me. Life in the upper chambers will concede some of its worthiness to the lower level, understanding that without the basement’s underpinning, the floors up above could easily disassemble into piles of rubble.

The basement is big enough to hold all of our dreams… is safe enough to grow them… is isolated enough, dark enough, mysterious enough, quiet enough, hidden enough, and confined enough to allow us open access to our Father’s heart. His heart is where our dreaming meets with the reality of his goodness and where our fear is replaced by a simple faith—a settled confidence in the One who authors all faith journeys and who promises to perfect them along the way and as we go.

God is where I want to live. He is where I want to dream. Accordingly, I don’t much mind playing in the basement anymore. It’s a good place to breathe with God, to grow an imagination, and to exist within the sacred possibilities of what he’s imagined on my behalf long before I made my entrance into this world. This week, I invite you to join me in the downward descent to God’s playroom so that his up and coming plans for your life might have a moment or two beneath the spotlight. It’s going to be good, because HE IS GOOD. As always…

peace for the journey,

~elaine

Copyright © May 2010 – Elaine Olsen

"peace for the journey: in the pleasure of his company"

Every now and again, a day lives beyond predictable expectation. Routine is replaced with something different, and ordinary succumbs to the shadows of something extra. Today is one of those days for me. I’ve spent the last five years contemplating its arrival, imagining how it might “live” for me… to finally arrive at this point in my writing journey where my thoughts are gathered together between a front cover and a back one to serve as a collective offering of my heart to Jesus and his world.

Today, my imagination is put to rest, at least temporarily. Today, I experience the fruition of a dream that was embedded into my spirit long before I ever held a pen in my hand. It was a dream given to me at the earliest of ages by my father whose imagination coupled with his love for telling the “story” worked their magic into the fabric of my fragile understanding about how life should live—

With details.
With expression.
With questions.
With emotions.
With the expectation for a good ending.

My daddy never failed to bring about that good ending. In doing so, in giving a good finish to the sometimes wild and fantastic bedtime tales that he created in his mind, he painted for me a rich metaphor about how the “story” will end for me, for all of us who’ve come to know and to love and to trust the Storyteller. God’s finish doesn’t live without punctuation, friends. The blessed “amen” will come for each one of us, and we will be at final rest with our souls.

But until we arrive there, there is a journey to be walked… a story to be lived via our flesh. Along the way and as we go, I don’t imagine much of it will live as we anticipated on the front end of our book’s unfolding. The chapters in our lives have a way of keeping us on the edge of our seats in anticipation of the next page, the next plot twist, the next narrow escape, the next victory—all of which are certain to be part of this odyssey we call the Christian life.

Today’s book release is my next page—not the only page in my journey, just one of them. A day of something “extra.” A day of living a little bit beyond the “routine and normal” that usually fills a twenty-four hour period in my life. I don’t take it for granted; it is a gift of gracious grace offered to me by the Storyteller who has seen fit to allow a small portion of kingdom influence to flow through my pen. What God chooses to do with that portion and where he chooses to take it belongs to him and him alone. I’ve long since given up on trying to manipulate and manage his “story.” It’s simply and profoundly too big for my menial attempts at human administration. Still and yet, God affords me a moment or two of personal witness—of interjecting my “two cents” worth of sacred understanding into the mix—knowing that even the smallest offering of my heart will add to the beauty of a final masterpiece that will one day adorn the throne room of heaven.

And so, without any further words of coaxing regarding that offering, I give to God and to you this book—a little bit of “peace for the journey.” In doing so, I pray and humbly petition the Father that, through this offering of my heart, you will more fully know the Storyteller and what it means to rest “in the pleasure of his company.” He’s been my pleasure for forty-four years. He is my pleasure today. He’ll be my pleasure for all eternity.

To order your copy of “peace for the journey: in the pleasure of his company” visit any of the following websites (please note… some of these venues offer FREE SHIPPING when ordering multiple copies):

 

If you live in my area and want a signed copy of the book, please check with me later in the week as I am expecting a shipment of books. Also, I am giving away three copies of my book to readers who leave a comment on this blog post (you do not have to have a blog to leave a comment; simply sign-in as an “anonymous” commenter, leaving me an e-mail address so that I can notify you if you win). In addition, you can increase your odds of winning a copy by promoting the book in the following ways:

1. Announce the book on your facebook status–either linking back to this post or linking the video trailer to your status: video trailer

2. Announce the book by writing your own blog post, linking back to this particular post, adding the video trailer to your post by using the embed code found with the youtube link: (if you don’t know how to do this and want to include it, e-mail me, and I’ll walk you through it… very simple).

If you choose to do either or both of these, make sure that you leave a separate comment on this post informing me of each, thus increasing your odds for a win!

Thanks for helping me out, friends. Truly, you are more than I deserve, and I am grateful for your participation in my life. You make me want to be a better writer, thinker, seeker, and sojourner on the road toward peace—Jesus Christ. As always…

peace for the journey,

PS: A final word of thanks to Shirley and Susan (a.k.a. “runner mom”) for adding their artistic expression to the photographs found in the book trailer and for Susan’s photography found in the book. Your generous hearts have given me “peace” in this journey of publication and have added to the overall beauty of the book. I love you both!

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