by Elaine Olsen | Oct 9, 2017 | family fun, friendship, hunger, living God's truth, pilgrimage, sundays
We drove my Grandpa Al home yesterday. Well… sort of. He wasn’t really my grandpa. My Grandpa Al died in 1994 at the age of eighty-three. The man we drove home, Howard, is seventy-four but could have passed as Al’s brother. Short in stature, round in the belly,...
by Elaine Olsen | Feb 2, 2014 | alicia chole, book review, church life, communion, give aways, knowing God, rest, sundays
“Cease from what is necessary. Embrace that which gives life.” This is the golden rule of Sabbath according to Mark Buchanan, author of The Rest of God: Restoring your Soul by Restoring Sabbath. Have you read these words, this extraordinary book that feels less like...
by Elaine Olsen | Jan 5, 2014 | grief, pain, parenting, prayer, suffering, sundays
Paint my boy a Sabbath sunrise, Father – one filled with the color of hope, not the cover of despair. Take the pain that’s been smeared onto his canvas at night and replace it with splashes of your morning grace. What she has taken from him, replace it with what you...
by Elaine Olsen | Oct 20, 2013 | church life, faith, sundays, worship
In this light. In these colors reflected on brick walls. This is where I worshiped this morning. Simply here in a rainbow display of God’s love. It leaped from the walls and into my heart, moving my soul to a posture of faith – a knee-bending,...
by Elaine Olsen | Jun 30, 2013 | church life, knowing God, living God's truth, ministry life, night visits, packing up, pilgrimage, sundays
“Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set.” –Genesis 28:10-11 Certain places. We’ve reached a new one—a God-ordained assignment just an hour south of our last one....
by Elaine Olsen | May 3, 2011 | alicia chole, obedience, sundays
I had a moment this past Sunday. Just a small one, but one big enough to linger throughout the rest of the day. It happened while I was teaching a new song to the kids in my Sunday school class, Victory Chant. Per usual, I had written the words on newsprint and pinned...
