Peace for the Journey | Elaine Olsen

Sought After

February 17, 2009

“You will be a crown of splendor in the LORD’s hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God. No longer will they call you Deserted, or name your land Desolate. But you will be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; for the LORD will take delight in you, and your land will be married. (Isaiah 62:3-4).

High school and I were an awkward fit. In fact, I hated most every minute of the three years that I spent walking its hallways and trying my best to make sense of the nonsense. I wasn’t popular. I wasn’t stunning. I wasn’t a cheerleader. I wasn’t asked out on dates. In fact, to me it seemed as if I wasn’t much of anything, except…

forgotten … deserted.

The friends of my younger days had long since traded me in for a newer model, and my teachers? Well, there were a few who noticed my worth, but a majority of them never even knew my name. Thus, it was no surprise to me that when I graduated a year early, it came and went with little fanfare.

For me, my high school years were a detrimental season of living—shaping years that, unfortunately, left my already fragile self-esteem in further ruin. Accordingly, I couldn’t wait to break free.

Starting college at seventeen was a good decision. I chose to attend a school in my hometown, and from the moment that my feet hit the campus of Asbury College, I knew that my heart had finally found its home.

College was the fertile soil of my becoming—of my beginning to break free from the chains that had followed me down those painful hallways of high school. I fit, and for the first time in my life, I began to see myself as someone more than the scared little girl who had always felt deserted.

I had friends and dates and professors who, not only called me by name, but who also came to expect my leadership in the classroom. After a first semester of academic adjustment, my grades soared toward excellence and landed me with honors by the time graduation rolled around. In addition to my cherished diploma, I had an engagement ring on my finger.

I was on my way to becoming a preacher’s wife and an elementary school teacher in short order. No more painful high school hallways for me. Being deserted was no longer my issue … at least not for a season. But as all issues go, unless dealt with by the illuminating and healing presence of God’s love, they tend to resurface at unsuspecting times.

Mine would reappear on occasion and became more frequent as my marriage began to unravel. After seven years of being a wife and a mother to two young sons, my feelings of worthlessness barked their insistence over my soul, and I found myself, once again, returning to the familiar hallways of my adolescence.

It would take a long season of painful recollection and deliberate intention to free me from my feelings of being forgotten. Thankfully at age forty-two, I’m finally getting close.

(ages 17, 21, 42)

God in his mercy and through his far-reaching love has kept me on the path of recovery and rediscovery. My identity is no longer shaped by the hallways of my youth or by the divorce that forced me to grapple with my worthiness as it pertains to God and his kingdom agenda. Today I walk in the grace that was mandated for me long before my sin required its covering.

Accordingly, I know longer feel deserted; my Father and the cross of his Son made sure of that.

“The LORD has made a proclamation to the ends of the earth; ‘Say to the Daughter of Zion, “See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him.”’ They will be called the Holy People, the Redeemed of the LORD; and you will be called Sought After, the City No Longer Deserted.” (Isaiah 62:11-12).

Today, I walk in the freedom of a new name. Many still know me as elaine. But my Father? Well, he knows me by a few others.

*Sought After.
*City No Longer Deserted.
*Hephzibah meaning “my delight.”
*Beulah meaning “married.”

Not a bad trade for the deserted and desolate of my youth?

I don’t know how this strikes you today. I’m not even quite sure as to the reason for the penning of my words. But I have a thought that, perhaps, there is someone out there who needs the truth of a new name this night. Maybe the hallways of your adolescence … maybe even those of your most recent … are plaguing your thoughts with feelings of being forgotten, unloved and unnecessary. I understand.

I’m not so far along in my faith journey that I don’t occasionally revisit those names. The enemy would like nothing more than to keep us trapped in the lie of such an identification. But the truth is…

Our Jesus didn’t go all the way to hell and back to leave us as we are. Instead, He made the journey in order to bring us home as his bride. We are the sought after delight of our God. Never forgotten. Never deserted. Never unloved and never unnecessary. And that, sweet friends, has always been and will continue to be the most sacred and deliberate intention of our Father’s heart—

to be the Lover of ours.

Won’t you allow him his turn to bathe you in the truth of what you’ve always meant to him? He is so worthy of your pause. Mine, too. Thus I pray…

Show me, Father, your love. Teach me what it means to be your bride … your delight … your sought after and prized possession. My youthful shapings and my adult rebellions have kept me from knowing the full depth of my identity in You. Replace the sting of feeling deserted with the truth of your deliberate pursuit of my heart. Thank you for holding onto my fragile estate all of these years and for continuing to remind me of my sacred worth in You. And when I am tempted to revisit those hallways of my long ago and faraway, turn my thoughts toward my “soon to be” and my “ever so close.” I love you, Father. Thank you for taking me as your bride. Amen.

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The Illusion of a Night’s Slumber … The Truth of a Day’s Awakening

February 14, 2009

“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody’s chains came loose…. The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’” (Acts 16:25-26, 29-30).

I was trapped in the dark of a school hallway. Lights were flickering, people were scurrying, and the trees were bending their surrender to the ferocious mandate of the wind. I could hear the rain pounding its cadence upon the metal roof above me. I could hear the cries of children as they tried to make sense of the surrounding chaos.

Imprisoned by the bedlam and instructed that my remaining as such would be the best option for my personal safety, I decided to wait it out even though a huge part of me cried out for my release to the wild and treacherous of the outdoors.

I didn’t wait long.

Instead, I walked the darkened hallway toward the entrance of the school and turned the final corner on my fear. When I did, my eyes opened, and I was greeted by the brilliant sun beaming its illumination through my bedroom mini-blinds and welcoming me to a new day of living.

Ah … the illusion of a night’s slumber.

What I thought to be real only moments earlier was but a dream working its way out of me in order to teach me a lesson about darkness and light. About perceived captivity and about the choice I have to walk free from its chains into the marvelous light and life that is mine as a child belonging to the Light.

Sometimes my freedom is as simple as a rolling over from my right side to my left. Sometimes, a bit more involved. But all the time, freedom is available. Never am I stuck in my chains. Even when I’m shackled by situations that require my surrender to an iron’s holding, walking in the freedom of God’s light is always my option.

Paul and Silas understood that option. They chose it, and in doing so, a great and mighty midnight happened upon a Roman prison cell. Doors were opened, and chains were loosened. And while some would have justified this mighty act of God as their permission to escape, Paul and Silas chose to remain.

Not because they didn’t long to be free, but rather because they knew that they already were.

Long before an earthquake released them in the physical, Jesus Christ had released them in the spiritual. No amount of dark and dank and torture of a prison cell could keep them from knowing what they already knew to be true in their own hearts—that the cross of Jesus Christ brings freedom to all who choose to shackle their hearts to its pulse.

And while the enemy is ever content and vigilant about stoking the fires of our perceived captivity, God is holy and perfectly content to stir us in another direction.

Not with the illusion of a night’s slumber, but rather with the truth of a day’s awakening.

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1).

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” (2 Corinthians 3:17).

Where the Spirit of the Lord was then … where he continues to be now … is with those who have chosen his Light over darkness. His truth over the illusion of a night’s dreaming.

God is not a figment of our wild imaginings. We don’t wake up in the morning and discover that he’s not real; rather, we wake up to the contrary—to the exponential manifestations of his presence in our day to day. Some have unsuccessfully tried to confine the person of Jesus Christ to the contextual isolation of a historical manuscript. But God’s Word cannot be chained (2 Timothy 2:9). He cannot be managed and manipulated so as to fit into man’s need to have everything make sense.

Rarely does the grace of Jesus Christ ever make sense. Instead, Christ came to shatter our “1+1=2’s” with his “One + our 1 = infinitely more than we can possibly ask for or imagine.” Indeed, this truth runs contrary to common sense, yet it is exactly the one truth that kept Paul and Silas remaining in their prison cell, even though an earthquake had released them from their chains.

They were waiting for the outcome of God’s equation, not theirs, and in the end, his answer came in manifold measure—

The salvation and corresponding freedom of a jailer and his entire household.

That, my friends, is the truth of a day’s awakening—the real and realized embrace of a Son’s illumination in our hearts and through our lives. We hold the freedom to carry that light into the illusion of this world’s nightly slumber. It is our high and holy privilege to do so. Thus, I echo the plea of the Apostle Paul when he wrote to the believers at Ephesus,

“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of the light … for it is the light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said, ‘Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.’” (Ephesians 5:8, 14).

Wake up you weary and well-worn pilgrims. Arise and shine, for your Light is come. Today is the day of salvation. Turn and receive the truth of your glorious awakening!

As always,

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PS: I’ve posted this song before and am doing so again because it so aptly fits the truth of what I’m trying to say. Have a blessed rest this weekend. Be safe. Be God’s. And if you are confused about what that means … to be God’s … please e-mail me, and I will happy to pray things through with you. I love you all! I mean it.

My God is my Oath

February 12, 2009

Update on Beth…

The doctors were able to remove a large portion of the tumor growing on one of Beth’s vertebra. Follow up radiation treatment will begin after she’s had a brief period of recovery. She is in a tremendous amount of pain and had a very restless night of sleep. Thank you, my blogging friends, for being the body of Christ to her and her family in the past 24 hours. They remain in need of our prayerful petitions. Let’s also remember our friend, Joy, as she has received word of her father’s similar diagnosis only yesterday. I know that she would appreciate a note of encouragement. Our God is our Oath. Shalom.

Beth & grandson

This is a day of need.

In my life, in yours, and in the lives of those we love.

We are a needy people, and without the cross of Christ to guide us through our wanton estate, all hope is lost. Period.

I just received one of the most sacred pleas for help I’ve ever read. My friend has emailed me from the confines of her hospital room, and she is afraid. She’s facing an immediate and necessary surgery this afternoon because of a cancerous tumor that has wrapped itself around the top of her spine. She’s been battling cancer for six years now; I’ve not known her beyond her cancer years. She landed in my lap when we landed here as her parsonage family.

The first Sunday we met, she had on her pink, and I remember her telling me to “sit down” on the couch outside the fellowship hall so that she could get to know me better. I immediately resonated with her “take charge, no nonsense” kind of personality. We’re a bit like-minded in that way.

Since that time, Beth has walked with me through ten Bible studies and been my friend despite my many foibles along the way. She is genuine, raw and real, and as authentic as they come. You never have to guess where you stand with Beth, and I like that. She lives out loud, and she lavishly loves the life that she lives.

And friends, she wants some more of this life to live.

Hers has not been an easy road. Some of her journey mirrors mine. Still and yet, her faith continually roots her … returns and restores her to the only God who perfectly loves her. I have quietly watched her walk her cancer. We’ve buried two of our Bible study friends in the five years we’ve been doing life together for similar reasons. It’s not an easy walk and one that I am sure is more difficult for her to step than me.

She lives with her disease. I don’t, at least not physically. But she has graciously given me a window into the life of her suffering, and I consider it a privilege to be a carrier of her pain. Thank God for the embrace of another’s pain. Without it, we become removed … cold and distant and separated from the call of Jesus Christ to be his body to the broken.

Beth is broken today. I bet that there are some of you who feel the same; if not you, then someone you love. Thus, our Father asks of us—those of us who are able bodied and spirit-filled willing—

What will you do with the pain?

I tell you what I did and will continue to do throughout the day and in the weeks to come. I bring it before the throne room of heaven and pray believing that my God is able to supply all of my needs … all of Beth’s needs … according to his riches in glory.

Not his leftovers. Not his cast-offs. Second-rate doesn’t fit with our King. There’s nothing random or haphazard about his approach to our lives. Rather our Father longs for his riches to be our portion. Riches from his storeroom of goodness that are ready and willing to explode upon the scenes of our lives simply because we believe that our God is eager to do so and because we are wise enough to ask.

Why sit on our “hopes” today? Why not speak them to the One who is able to deliver?

This is the day of need. Not tomorrow. Not next week, or even next year. Today is the only day we’ve been given. All other days will take care of themselves accordingly.

And today, my friend needs my prayers. I imagine that she would be blessed to receive a few of yours too. You don’t know her, but I do and that is enough to warrant our pause before the King. I know that your list is already a mile long. But if you wouldn’t mind, could you simply speak her name to Jesus today?

Beth. She whose name means “my God is my oath.” May the faith of her name be the faith of her heart this day. May it be yours also. If our God is anything (and I happen to think that He IS everything), he is the God of promise … of covenant … of oath.

Let’s take him at his Word in this moment.

As always,

Brotherly Love

February 10, 2009

“Therefore I stationed some of the people behind the lowest points of the wall at the exposed places, posting them by families, with their swords, spears and bows. After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, ‘Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.’” (Nehemiah 4:13-14).

Some things are worth fighting for. Some people, all the more. Just ask my son.

While driving the carpool Friday afternoon, I listened to my eight year old explain to his sister and her friend his strategy for playground defense should the need ever arise. It went something like this:

“If they won’t leave you alone on the playground, here’s what you do. First, you could tell the teacher. Or, you could just ignore them. Or, you could walk away. Or, if that doesn’t work…

you could just find me.”

He was very serious, and I was humored. At least in part. My other part was internally screaming my motherly “hoorahs” for a son who loves his sister, so much so, that he is willing to protect her from the wild and wooly of a playground taunt.

I never knew the protection of an older sibling’s love, so when I witness it between my own children, I am drawn to the magic of their deep bonding. And while they occasionally rival their passions and their wills with all the red and fury of Pamplona’s running of the bulls, their love for one another always exceeds their momentary sparring.

As it should be.

Family love roots deep, and if those with whom we share our homes cannot be trusted to love us, and, therefore, protect us whenever the taunts of the playground mock their insistence, we are left to our solitary efforts at defense. And as defense goes, two is always better than one, especially when one of the two is bigger, stronger, and solely motivated by the sacred trust of family bloodlines.

The prophet Nehemiah understood the value of familial love. He exposed its depth by instructing the Israelites to work in families while repairing the walls of their beloved homeland. He understood that corporate focus would yield greater results than individual determination. The taunts of their playground were very real and very likely to make good on their threats. Single determination wouldn’t be enough to build the second half of Jerusalem’s walls. It would take the family—God’s family—working on behalf of one another and on behalf of a cause deemed worthy of the potential peril involved.

That cause?

The kingdom of God.

“‘Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.’”

Not … fight hard because if you don’t you and your family will die.

Not … fight because you have no other options.

But rather, fight because you’ve got a God worth fighting for—a great and awesome God who is worthy of your walls and your best efforts at protection.

When the Israelites forged ahead in their rebuilding with a hammer in one hand and a sword in the other, they did so knowing that they were fighting for something rather than against something. They were fighting for the preservation of God’s kingdom and for their families’ rightful place therein.

When the playground warfare surfaced, there was no telling the teacher, or ignoring the taunts of their enemies. There was no option of simply walking away from the threats. For walls to be built there must be laborers willing to put their hands and their hearts to the task. Thus, the option remaining for their playground defense (according to an eight year old and according to the prophet Nehemiah) was to find a bigger brother … a bigger sister … a bigger family that was completely and holy motivated by the sacred trust of family bloodlines.

By a love that roots for the life-giving truth that there is a great and awesome God worth preserving and that he is the only worthy gain of our hearts in the end.

Walls will come and go, friends. But God? Well, he remains. And if we’re not willing to fight for the truth of who he IS so that our brothers and sisters, our children and our parents, our neighbors and our friends might live and walk in that truth, then we are forsaking the sacred trust of our family bloodlines.

When we are no longer willing to put our lives on the line for the sake of our families’ salvation, then we have limited the grace of the cross which was never ours to limit. We are tied to Immanuel’s veins. They bled long and wide and high and deep so that you and I could find our rightful place in the kingdom that is now, that is to come, and that is solely within our Savior’s right to give.

When the truth of Calvary becomes the welcome taunt of the playground, telling the teacher (thus abdicating the responsibility to someone else), ignoring the threats, or walking away seeds very little toward kingdom gain. But walking the parameters of the playground with familial love as your anchor?

Well, this is when walls find their framing, families find their strength, and the enemy finds its eventual retreat.

Indeed, some things are worth fighting for. Some people too. One God, all the more. And in case you’re still not convinced, just find my son. He’s got a few things to say in the matter and the faith to back it up. Thus I pray…

Keep us to our walk of faith, Father, both at home and on the playground. Let us not fear the taunts of the enemy, but let us stand firm in the truth of your love for us. You are building us into your everlasting kingdom, where the stones of our brothers and sisters come alongside to build a beautiful witness of your promise and grace. Let us not forsake our voices and our hands in the process. Keep us to our mortar and to your sword until the wall is finished and our family … your family … is safe within its shelter. Amen.

PS: Our Spring study on “Esther” launches this evening. I covet your prayers, especially for the eight new additions to our group–that God would grip the soles of their feet and turn them inside out and on fire for the truth of who HE IS! Shalom.

Running our Sacred Intersections

February 7, 2009

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” (Philippians 3:12-24).

A sacred intersection.

There’s been one this week.

Between your brokenness and mine.

And while I didn’t plan on it, I’m not surprised by it. Why? Because brokenness yields brokenness. Whatever we’re speaking about, teaching about, walking and talking about, we do so hoping that someone else will resonate with our words. Otherwise, that’s all they will ever be. Words … void of purpose and with the hopeless float of nothingness. But when our words are spoken from a pure place—a place that harbors and collects the truest truths of our journeys—then they breathe with a clarity that strikes a chord in others who are walking a similar path.

That’s what I was after when I shared with you the prompting that had been swirling around my heart for the past couple of weeks. As I approached my blogging anniversary, I had a thought that, perhaps, God was calling me to share the story of my “letting go” of my childhood home, my prodigal years, and my father’s reaching love therein.

There was very little planning that went into my re-telling of that event. I just grabbed Billy and the flip ultra and told him that we needed to do a little video message. No notes. No polish, just shootin’ from the hip and the heart. It’s the way that I do most things, especially when it comes to my many words.

How could I have known at the time that my words … my prayer … would come back upon me in full measure and in surprising and unexpected ways? I couldn’t have known; thus, I didn’t expect. Yet within a few hours of verbalizing my heart, my “inbox” was flooded, not only with your comments, but with more personal pleas for notice … for prayer.

It matters not the details of those requests nor the places, both far and wide, from which they came. God simply allowed them their landing in my lap, and I am undone with the prospect of what it all means. Let me unpack that a bit.

Pain is a powerful tool for reaching other people. When others know that you’ve walked pain through to the other side of healing, they become more willing to talk about their own journey of sorrow. Pain speaks a language all its own, and when you’ve become proficient with its “speak” because you’ve fully worn the consequences of its truth, you become a conduit for receiving the pain of others.

It’s a gift of sorts. Both to them and to you. When God allows the witness of your brokenness to intersect with the lives of others who are currently trying to fight their way out of the rubble, both parties receive the gift of God’s magnificent grace. You are allowed to use your pain for God’s greater purposes, and, subsequently, they are allowed the vision of a greater purpose for their pain.

I think this is what the Apostle Paul had in mind when he penned the following truth:

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-5).

Thus, a sacred intersection.

Thus, your brokenness and my healing co-mingling on the road of life this week, all the while hearing my Father’s voice ringing in my heart with a question that directly relates back to the prayer that I prayed with you on Tuesday. Hear now a portion of the unscripted request of my heart as recorded on the video…

“Father in heaven I thank you for this glorious day of celebration that brings my life into the lives of your daughters and your sons, Lord. I pray, Father, that the words of my mouth, not only this mouth but the words of my pen would reflect you all the days of my life … that something in my life could be found pleasing to you and that you would run with it God.”

He’s running with it, friends. Apparently, he’s found something pleasing—something purified solely through the atoning work of his cross—and he’s decided to run with it. His question back to me?

“Will you run with it, elaine? I’ve given you this intersection between your brokenness and the brokenness of others. Will you run with it? Will you be the evidence of things unseen? Will you stand as my witness with your words and your prayers and your follow-through while others choose their silence over involvement? Will you contain my witness within the comfortable parameters of the righteous or will you allow me a voice via yours to those who have yet to be clothed with my majesty from on high? Will you run with it, elaine, or will your words float hopeless and void of purpose? This is your sacred intersection, elaine. Will you run with me and see it through?”

How would you answer? What do you do when the brokenness of your past catches up with you in order to be the blessing for someone else’s pain in the present?

I tell you what I am doing and will continue to do. I receive it, all the while believing that our intersection is part of God’s great design for both of our lives. I take its gracious landing onto my lap and hold it with all the care of heaven. I run with it, all the way to my Father’s feet and place it before him as an offering. I intercede for your healing. Your wholeness. Your turning toward home and finding the truth of who you are meant to be in Jesus Christ.

Will you do the same, friends? Run with your Father and see things through to the end? Your brokenness doesn’t necessarily breathe like mine. God has tailor-made an avenue of ministry for you because of it. Thank God for it; don’t minimize its worth in your life. Find your healing through Jesus Christ and then allow him his further hand in the matter. He has taken hold of you for a specific and everlasting purpose—a purpose that directly links you with the lives of others who are walking in similar stride.

We need not fear the exposure of our bad, our shattered and our defiled. God doesn’t condemn us because of our brokenness. God heals us so that we can bring his healing to others through our restoration. There is no shame at the cross of Jesus Christ. There is only freedom in the truth of its witness.

{image removed on 7-18-2017 at 10:58 PM}

A sacred intersection for all mankind. Between God’s brokenness and ours. A powerful pain that continues to reach … to teach … to take hold and to transform all of that which is shattered into a conduit of lasting and final significance.

Run with it, friends. Run with Him … all the way home to receive the prize for which God has called you heavenward in Christ Jesus. Together, we can do this thing. I count it a joy to intersect my life with yours for our Father’s great and mighty purposes.

In the name of the Father who planned us, the Son who saved us, and the Holy Spirit who keeps us as such, Amen.

PS: The winners of Watermark’s “A Grateful People” are: #15 Laura and #79 Beth E.

Thanks to everyone for playing along this week and for your wonderful support of peace for the journey. I look forward to sharing another year’s worth of words with you; perhaps this will be the year in which many of us could gather together and have that cup of coffee, diet coke, or latte. Now that would be something, wouldn’t it?! I’m asking God for this specific happening. Shalom.