Category Archives: parenting

Christmas Is

She held on tightly, arms wrapped fully around my waist and her head burrowed deeply in my coat.

“Mom, I don’t want you to go.”

Her plea was persuasive but not enough to keep me from loading up the van and making the two hour trek northward to my parents’ home.

“I know, baby, that you don’t want me to go, but it is because of this very reason that I must go. You see, I have the same kind of love in my heart for my mom as you have for me. And this is my way of wrapping my arms around her and letting her know that I, like you, don’t want her to go.”

And with that, my daughter released her grip, signaling her willingness to share me. To allow me to make the journey home so that I might spend a few hours expressing love tangibly. Not so much in words, although words always find their way into such extravagance (case in point – this post). Mostly, it’s just living love by being together.

This is why I make these frequent trips home. This is how I hug my momma’s heart and express to her from the deepest place within me …

“Mom, I don’t want you to go.”

Not that she plans on doing so anytime soon. This isn’t a good-bye post. Mom (and dad) are in good health. This is just one of those pauses in the road, a rest stop of sorts when all I have to give is the gift of a few words added as a postscript to the gift of a few moments spent together.

Isn’t this mostly it … the message of Christmas? A family’s love wrapped up in moments? A child wrapping arms around hearts and expressing that which often seems inexpressible?

Love.

Oh there’s faith and hope and all the many soulful expressions of a life lived with Jesus, but at the end of the day … at the end of our journeys, love wins the day. Love given to us on earth. Love given to us from heaven.

It’s in these pauses—these moments that we take to hug one another—where we’ll find the heartbeat of Christmas. Wherever love lives, God is.

Some 2000 years ago, a Father hugged his Son and sent him on a journey to his mother’s house. She, in turn, hugged the Gift as he arrived. I don’t know about the many conversations that must have transpired between Mary and Jesus during his earthly tenure, but I imagine there was one or two not so unlike the exchange shared between my daughter and me just a few days ago. Perhaps something along the lines of …

“Son, I don’t want you to go.”

“I know, mom, that you don’t want me to go, but it is because of this very reason that I must go. You see, I have the same kind of love in my heart for all of God’s children that you have for me. And this is my way of wrapping my arms around them and letting them know that I, like you, don’t want them to go. Instead, I want them to be with me, in the place where I am going. This is why I must make the journey home to my Father’s house. This is why you must let me go.”

And with that divine declaration, Mary released her grip, signaling her willingness to share her son with the world. Indeed, living love by being together! God with us. Immanuel. God in us. Immanuel. God through us. Immanuel. This is the message of Christmas.

Tend to your loving this week, friends. Keep it in mind, and then take the time to live it with arms and hearts wide open. Wherever love lives, God is. May it be so for each one of us in our pilgrimages to the manger this year. As always …

Peace for the journey,

 

Silent Night

Silent night.

It’s been one of those for me. I tried to fill it with a few phone calls and text messages to friends while waiting in my car for my kids to emerge from their youth group meeting. No one answered. All was silent, and the hush filled my heart until I could no longer suppress my reality. The pain inside of me was going to find its voice, and the silence offered it a stage for release.

Rather than trying to hold the silence at bay, I gave in to it and allowed it to hold me. Cradle me. Collect all the tears that had been welling up within me. In those moments of surrender, the Father allowed me to move out of my silent night so that I might enter into another one—the holy quiet belonging to Bethlehem some 2000 years ago.

Mary’s labored breathing followed by the push and pressure of Emmanuel’s eagerness to make his entrance. Joseph’s soft responses to his beloved. Stabled animals shuffling in the hay. Neighs and brays; snorts and sneezes. Whispers of the wind stirring as symphony. A baby crying. The boisterous interruption of a heavenly choir.

And therein, my momentary pain was overshadowed by lasting remembrance.

Perhaps this is the beauty of a silent night … when sorrow bumps up next to Salvation. When pain nestles closely to Promise. When that which is holding us so tightly releases its grip to the mighty Hold of heaven—tiny fingers wrapped around human hurt, reminding us that all has not been lost in the silent night. Instead, all has been gained there, in that place of sacred collision.

It doesn’t seem reasonable, this holding of peace while simultaneously holding pain. But it feels right. Even in the ache, I’m willing to take hold of it, make sense of it, because the thread that ties me to the eternal is stronger than the frayed threads that tie me to the temporal. I am made for heaven, and a silent night tethers me to home.

Maybe today you’re wrapped up in a heart-hurt. Life has surprised you with pain, an unexpected grief that threatens to steal your peace. You have nowhere to place it, no friend to shoulder the load. The silence is deafening, and your escape uncertain.

Me too. Greater yet, God too! God is with us as we make our pilgrimages to Bethlehem this year, as we wrestle with our pain and strive to make peace out of chaos.

Emmanuel is in the manger. Emmanuel is in our silent nights. Emmanuel … holding our hearts. Healing our hurts. Keeping us safe. Walking us home.

How I love the gift of Jesus; how I need this blessed grace! On this silent night, I bend the knee and bow the heart to honor the King’s advent in my life. ‘Tis a sweet mercy and a blessed trust to have my silence interrupted by the great and glad declarations of heaven. As always …

Peace for the journey,

My Silent Night

Oh holy, quiet Bethlehem;

Tonight I linger here.

Beneath your stars, within your walls,

Your truth resounding clear.

 

The Baby cries his advent;

The momma cries relief.

The daddy cries his tears of joy;

The heavens cry belief.

 

How lovely is this moment;

That lingers then and now.

Both quiet and both willing,

For peace to take a bow.

 

To enter in and change me;

To soften pain with praise.

To dry my tears with silence,

To cause my hope to raise.

 

Oh silent night! Oh holy night!

You’ve never sung so strong.

So clear, so true, so tenderly,

Relieving all that’s wrong.

 

You are where I’ll linger;

You are where I’ll sing.

For unto to me a child is born,

Onto him I’ll cling.

(written by F. Elaine Olsen.12-01-13.allrightsreserved)

 

 

pilgrims on pilgrimage

They threw their lanyards on my desk. Safe-keeping I suppose. Mom tucking away treasures for later retrieval, a time when things will be remembered. Events remembered. This remembrance.

Pilgrims on pilgrimage.

In thinking about this milestone in their journeys of faith, I think on my own. Those seasons of youth retreats, conference gatherings, and mountaintop moments of kingdom clarification. And while my mother didn’t pack away any “lanyards” of remembrance for me in those earlier seasons, my heart still remembers what it was like to be a young pilgrim on pilgrimage.

Now I am an older pilgrim on pilgrimage. The destination has not changed since the days of my youth, but the route to that destination? Well, it’s not what I had imagined all those many years ago when I first put my heart and my hands to the grace plow. There have been a few detours along the way. Still and yet and to this day, God’s road is before me, pebbles of the gospel truth cradling my scarred feet.

Faith walks on despite missed exits and alternate routes. Sometimes faith rides the high winds of glory. Sometimes faith wallows desperately in the shallows. And sometimes … most times, faith simply walks on. Walks forward. Walks through.

Perhaps I’ll pin these words, this truth to their lanyards so that years from now, when they pull them out of their remembrance boxes (and after life has afforded them each a few detours along the path of grace), they’ll better understand what it is to be a pilgrim on pilgrimage. That their mother at forty-seven was still walking on in faith despite missed exits, despite everything that threatened to stymie her pilgrimage home. Perhaps they’ll need to know that then even more than they need to know it now.

Oh the great consistency of faith that grabs hold of a heart and never lets go!

Oh the certain grip of mercy that keeps hearts upright and willing to believe in the destination even though current scenery is blocking the view!

Oh the limitless love of Jesus that never grows weary of the grace-chase and that never runs out for or away from sinners!

This is what has kept me. This is Who has kept me. What more can I do? Who more can I be?

I am a pilgrim on pilgrimage, just like my children. Faith has brought us thus far. Faith will lead us home. Every last one of us. Billy. Elaine. Nick. Colton. Jadon. Amelia.

Yes, I’ll pin this proclamation to their lanyards so that in the future when their children ask them, “What do these words mean?” they’ll be able to tell them the truth about a woman named Faith Elaine who walked on in faith, despite missed exits and alternate routes … all the way through, home to arms of Jesus.

This is good legacy. This is the best I can give. May God keep and preserve this remembrance in their hearts as they make their pilgrimages of faith. Walk on, sweet ones. Walk always with Jesus.

Peace for the journey,

Living Deuteronomy 4:9

My heart and my pen landed on this verse this morning, while scribing the words of Deuteronomy into my Journible:

“Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.” –Deuteronomy 4:9

And I thought about my dad and our time of circled prayer in my garage last Saturday morning which included my mom, my husband, and my two younger children. I am my father’s child and these are his grandchildren; he continues to make faith deposits into all of us.

A word here. A prayer there. A genuine love wrapped up in arms and with enough hearty laughter to crack even the driest of souls wide open to receive God’s showers of grace.

My daddy has not forgotten the things his eyes have seen, nor has he let them slip from his heart. Instead, he remembers the faithfulness of his Father and lives it forward. What he has sown into me, what he has sown into my children, cannot be measured on this side of eternity. His scattering of kingdom seed roots deeply in our hearts – a generational dispensation of faith. Who we are, in part, is directly linked to who he is.

I am grateful for all the ways I see my father’s faith at work in my life and in the lives of my children. I am grateful for all the ways I’ve yet to see my father’s witness walk on eternally. He has been careful and intentional with his legacy of faith. I am challenged to live accordingly … to remember the things my eyes have seen and to not let them slip from my heart as long as I live.

What about you? How goes it with your remembering, your slipping? Your generational dispensation of faith? When was the last time you circled your family members for prayer or spoke bold truth into their hearts?

This is not the time to shrink back in your faith, friends. To assume that no one is listening or no longer needs the witness of your history with Jesus. There’s too much in that place (your history with Jesus) not to speak it forward. What God has done for you—in you and with you—is a mighty work of grace. He means for it to walk on eternally in the hearts, minds, and souls of those who sit beneath your influence.

This is how we get home safely to Jesus—the thread that tethers us back to our beginnings when Father God hovered over the dark and deep and determined that we would be part of the goodness that flows out of him. Adam and Eve, all the way down the family tree until you and me. Generation after generation of obedient and willing saints who chose not to forget the things their eyes saw or let them slip from their hearts for as long as they lived.

That’s a lot of circled prayer time, a lot of faith lived forward. It reaches down through history, through the words of Deuteronomy, in all of God’s Word, and, most importantly, in the words of my daddy whose extraordinary faith has warmed the hearts of all who’ve drawn close to its flame.

What I have seen I will remember. I will not let it slip from my heart for as long as I live. I promise.

I love you, daddy.

Come What May

 

He autographs my copy of his book, along with a postscript – 1 Cor. 1:9.

I visited this biblical address in my morning deliberations with God.

“God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.”

Word by word, I let this one simmer in my soul.

God. Calling me. Into fellowship. With Jesus. My Lord. Is. Faithful.

I notice the bookends – God and faithful. Could it be any other way? Sometimes I think it might be, but my thinking (especially when emotions are involved) doesn’t always accurately portray truth. No, it cannot be any other way. God and faithfulness go hand in hand. There is not one without the other. God cannot be unfaithful, and faithfulness is defined by God. Faithful is who he is; faithful is what he does. Knowing this … believing this, I can live my life confidently, in peace, and with the full assurance that God will see me through to the finish line, come what may.

Why, then, do I sometimes crumble with the come what may?

Come what may. What came into my life last weekend was a phone call, preceded by a car accident involving my eldest son. And while he’s OK and his car is on the road to being repaired, I’ve yet to fully recover. Seeing his Scion crashed into an embankment, along with a “stop sign” buried in the sandy soil beneath the carriage of his car, has left a lasting impression on my mind. Hearing his cries for help on the other end of the phone has left a lasting impression on my soul.

It matters not the come what may, especially ones of the crumbling kind. They leave lasting imprints.

  • Sickness.
  • Death.
  • Divorce.
  • Abuse.
  • Crime.
  • Unemployment.
  • Under-employment.
  • Financial strain.
  • Learning difficulties.
  • Relational woes.
  • Dreams deferred.
  • Dreams forgotten.
  • ______________.

My recent come what may came and went; still and yet, it lingers in me. Tearing up my peace. Messing with the truth. My what ifs have temporarily dislodged the what is. What is?

God is faithful. Regardless of my come what may, God is faithful. I should rest securely in between.

I hate that I forget this, that I often don’t live this. It’s so concrete, so foundational to the faith that I profess to believe. When adversity howls down my pathway, I’m often paralyzed by the blinding darkness that surrounds me. The enemy would have it this way.

Come what mays grow larger in the dark. Come what mays thrive in the shadows. Come what mays come and stay when entertained in the cover of night.

It’s only with the light and witness of God’s presence that I am able to dispel the darkness and make the next step of faith. When I can see truth (even just a little bit), I’m able to move through the reality of my come what may and make progress toward something better. That better?

My Father’s come what may.

His faithfulness. Time and again, God showing up on the scene of my life and making certain that he can be seen. Touched. Tasted. Heard. Felt. I’ve never encountered a come what may that he wasn’t there in the midst of the chaos. My mess is his mess too. And when I embrace his light, when I take hold of the sacred lantern and lift it up against my fledgling faith, my come what may shudders and begins to break apart beneath the weight of holy illumination.

Come what may, God’s faithfulness does not change. It can be ignored, but it cannot be altered. His faithfulness stands, even in the midst of our crumbling messes … especially then.

“God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.”

Let this promise simmer in your souls, friends. Let this truth settle deeply within your spirit.

Come what may, our Father has the final say. He is faithful. He will keep us through the night and, with the morning light, bring word of his unfailing love. This is enough light, the right light to move me forward. I know this is truth.

God help me to live it, even as I boldly proclaim it … come what may.

error: Content is protected !!