by Elaine Olsen | Sep 27, 2011 | cancer, cancer volume 4, friendship, grace, pain
She called me to tell me that her cancer had returned. Truthfully, neither one of us thought it had gone anywhere, but we didn’t mention it. Instead, we just held the moment together. Paused long enough to breathe in and out a time or two and then continued in our...
by Elaine Olsen | Sep 7, 2011 | grace, graduation, living God's truth
“Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. ‘Follow me,’ Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.” (Mark 2:13-14)...
by Elaine Olsen | Apr 22, 2011 | Easter, grace, knowing God, living God's truth, pilgrimage
Nighttime desperations… Inclinations of the mind, heart, and soul that bend in the opposite direction of God’s peace as darkness begins its descent upon a day’s worth of doing. Hidden agendas that bury beneath the brilliancy of the sun’s witness but that overtly and...
by Elaine Olsen | Aug 3, 2010 | faith, grace, living God's truth, writing
Fantastic life stories. Do you have one? I don’t… at least not when measured by the world’s standards. Let me explain. By fantastic, I don’t necessarily mean grand, glorious, excellent, superb or a dozen or so other synonyms meaning the same. What I mean is more along...
by Elaine Olsen | Jul 26, 2010 | friendship, grace, living God's truth, the least of these, words
I asked him to repeat his name to me, not because I didn’t hear him but, rather, because I didn’t think I heard him correctly. Doris. Or Dorrace. That’s what he said. I “googled” it upon returning home; apparently Doris was a popular name for boys in the...
by Elaine Olsen | Jun 1, 2010 | family fun, grace, living God's truth, out of the mouths of babes, parenting
I have a story I want to tell you; not because there’s anything particularly spiritual about it all, at least not at this point. Perhaps before it’s over there might be a small nugget’s worth of something to cradle as your own, but for now, this story belongs to my...
