Main Street USA

I saw a man today. Actually, I heard him before I saw him.

That happens when you work on Main Street USA … you hear things. The loud squeal of breaks as a semi stops for the red light. Laughter of the ladies passing by on their way to the dress shop. Not so private phone calls of folks who’ve forgotten there’s only a pane of glass between them and me. An occasional solitary soul conversing loudly with herself. The gregarious shop owner across the street who greets her customers as friends.

Yes, life is noisy on Main Street USA, and for the past nine months, I’ve collected a lot of town secrets. I’m tempted to say I’ve heard it all. At least I thought I had …

Until today. Until he walked by.

He had on a feed sack, cinched at the waist. Long hair tucked haphazardly beneath a toboggan. He carried a megaphone. Greater still, he carried a burden.

“Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.”

He followed it up with scripture and other words, but it was these that stuck with me.

Quietly I collected the tears in my hands while whispering, “Just like the prophets of old … like John at the Jordan.” Instead of thinking him daft, I thought of him with wonder … with wishing that I could be brave, could stop what I was doing and join him on the road of repentance. To come alongside him in his grief. To cry out for a nation that has clearly lost its way. On his return trip down the opposite side of Main Street USA, I snapped a picture and heard him exclaim to the curious,

“I love my country. I care about what’s happening in our country. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.”

And I was broken into pieces for I, too, love my country and deeply feel its fracture tonight.

I don’t know how to fix it; I’m not even certain that I want to take on such burden. But what I do know is that, for a few hours today, my heart was completely willing to trade in my khakis and soft sweater for the scratchiness of sackcloth.

It seems the best course of action for the rancor on Main Street USA this evening.

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.

Surely it won’t be long in coming … the kingdom.

Repentance is our only way forward; it’s the only way home.

May God in his mercy give us enough time to get it right.

An Open Door

2020.

What can be said of it? What should be said of it? Of all it has been and for what remains to be written, words fail to calculate its full measure.

It’s been too much; it’s been not enough.

It’s rattled us … scattered us … marked us … changed us.

Some years are like that – completely exhaustive in their shaping of us.

They leave us undone, counting the days (sometimes the hours), until the months accumulate forward to a grand conclusion. And that’s where we are at…

At a conclusion to a year that won’t finish neatly or with grandeur but, instead, one that will carry over onto a new page with fragments … parts of a sentence … segments of a story … that deserve a better ending than their beginning.

Better endings. That is the essence of my prayers in these final days. For all the failures and colossal, sideways’ screw-ups of 2020, prayer remains my gain.

In great loss and at great cost, where else can we go … should we go … but to God?

I am grateful for this spiritual thread that has remained in me and been strengthened in me by the weathering of 2020.

Talking to God is what I have left.

My prayers seem a paltry offering at times, but an offering nonetheless. God has taken it all – all my thoughts and all my words – broken them, blessed them, blown on them, and multiplied them so that they become sanctified at a higher, holier level. History will write the witness of their fruition. I cannot always see the fruit, but thanks be to God, I can always find the Fruit-Giver therein.

And so it was two nights ago when I awakened from my restless slumber and immediately began my discourse with Him (a habit that’s been forming over these past months). Several weeks ago, I changed up the dialogue; instead of telling God what I want, I have begun asking Him regarding his intentions:

Lord, what do you want? What is your heart’s desire?

His occasional revelations to my spirit have been live-giving.

Two nights ago, I probed a bit further, risked a little more with the asking:

Lord, what do you want? What is your heat’s desire? What do you need to move the needle in this situation?

Immediately a scene propped open before my spiritual eyes.

A deep blue night sky, sparkling with just enough starlight to hint at the spectacular. Christ was there, descending from above, arms outstretched, nail-scarred hands turned outward, robed in white with a golden crown on his head.

And just as potent as the scene before me was Christ’s response to my probing:

An open door, Elaine, that’s what I need to move the needle in this situation. An open door.

An open door; an open heart. In that moment of brief revelation, I pictured a single door, then two, then more opening up all across the fruited plains – making a way for this descending Jesus to enter in. To come inside. To make his presence known and to begin the transformation that would move the needle forward toward a better conclusion … a better ending.

And therein, friends, Christmas arrived in my heart.

I remembered Bethlehem. A night sky with just enough starlight to hint at the spectacular. Christ descending from above to the fruited plains below, robed in flesh, and with a cry that cut through the darkness to announce God’s answer to those who are longing for a better conclusion:

An open door, child. That’s what I need to move the needle in your situation. An open door.

“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3:20)

Oh, that is the grandest conclusion of them all – dinner around the table with Emmanuel – God with us!

Christmas … in 2020.

In loss. In gain. In all that remains.

Between now and then,
between here and there;
From this day moving forward
Until life knows repair.

Prayers for more,
to cover the less;
Prayers for faith,
to believe all is best.

For better conclusions,
for grander ends;
For steps unseen,
for stories to mend.

From fragile to finished,
From weakness to strength;
From waters lain stagnant,
To rivers at length.

To carry us onward,
To move us past now;
To bring us safe harbor,
To tie up the bow.

First steps on a shore,
Of a kingdom unknown;
First steps with the King,
In His land, your new home.

So, all is not lost,
In this year or the next;
There’s more to the story,
Dim the lights, write the text.

The needle’s been moved,
Christ came to earth’s floor;
He knocked, you took notice,
You opened your door.

It’s all that he needed,
He wanted – yearned for;
You and your moments,
With Him evermore.

(f. elaine olsen 12.14.2020 – all rights reserved)

Merry Christmas, friends. May your heart be the open door that brings heaven to earth this Christmas. Christ in us – the hope of glory. Amen.

Peace for the journey,

Carpe Diem (seizing the day with my dad)

Carpe Diem. Seize the Day. It’s one of my daddy’s favorite sayings ever since viewing one of his favorite movies, Dead Poet’s Society. I reminded him of it yesterday in our visit together. I’m not sure if he remembers the movie, but he remembers the shirt. Even more so, he remembers the sentiment; daddy always wants to seize the day even as he struggles to remember what day it actually is.

Dad loved that movie; I think he saw a lot of himself in Robin Williams’s portrayal of John Keating, an unconventional teacher who used poetry to inspire his students to greater heights of expression and creativity.

Like Keating, my daddy is known for his story-telling. “One of the best” they say. Sometimes his stories are hand-made; sometimes, he borrows from others. As a child, I assumed everybody’s dad had that same capacity to spin words into magic. It never occurred to me that his ability was, in fact, a unique gifting from God. Over the years, I’ve come to realize and appreciate that uniqueness about my father, especially now when his words have started to fade.

These days, daddy doesn’t tell me many stories; instead, I’m telling them to him.

“Daddy, remember when …?”

Thankfully, he still does to a degree … remember when. He simply needs a prompt or two or ten therein. Eventually, we get there together, to a memory that brings the old sparkle back to his beautiful blue eyes. And when that happens, the magic returns; for a few minutes, I’m able to set aside my new role as a care-giver in exchange for my old role as simply a child of a story-teller.

Carpe Diem. Seize the day.

Life shifts like seasons.

Winter’s retreat. Spring’s new. Summer’s heat. Fall’s release.

A cycle of transformation. Sometimes swiftly; sometimes more slowly. Almost always, simultaneously.

Moments have the capacity to hold so very much – a full cycle of seasons that grow a heart in all the right ways. And maybe, in the end, that will be the greatest story ever told –

a heart transformed in all the right ways by a full cycle of seasons.

Indeed, very magical.

Carpe Diem. Seize the day.

So…

Thank you, Daddy, for telling me your stories – for capturing shifting seasons with just the right words. For doing so with flare, with imagination, with sparkle, and with understanding. For seizing the day, the moments in so many rich, “Chuck Killian” kinds of ways. You’ve come full cycle, living the words you’ve spoken … a heart transformed in all the right ways.

“One of the best,” they say.

One of the best, I know.

In the end and by God’s grace, I hope to hold one too –

a great story of my own … a heart transformed in all the right ways. 

I can’t think of a better legacy for either one of us to leave.

Let’s keep telling stories; let’s keep seizing our moments. Let’s keep walking home together.

The best is yet to be. 

I love you, 
Lainse

“The Freshman 20” in 2020

The Freshman 20.

Do you remember yours? Those infamous extra pounds that suddenly found their way onto your frame during your freshman year in college?

I remember mine. I haven’t given them much thought in the nearly four decades since initially collecting them, but early morning inclinations have taken me there … back to that place of gathering pounds.

The Freshman 20.

Extra weight. Not anticipated. Not welcomed. Not particularly fetching.

Looking back, I should have seen them coming; after-all, getting heavier begins to feel … well … heavier over time. A quick glance in the mirror or a stepping into my clothes should have been good indicators of my freshman folly. Still and yet, I barely noticed them. They simply slipped in over the course of a year, one late-night, pizza delivery at a time.

Forty years ago, it was easier for me to bounce back from The Freshman 20. These days, not so much.

These days. The accumulated poundage of my freshman year has now been replaced by the accumulated poundage of a weightier year … this year – 2020.

Extra weight. Not anticipated. Not welcomed. Not particularly fetching.

Unlike the folly of my freshman year in college, I am quicker to look into the mirror these days; I’m stepping into my clothes, and I am realizing that the recent, personal baggage I’ve been collecting is a clear indicator of the storm that’s been unleashing its fury upon the earth for these past seven months.

I’m not alone.

We’re all heavier now than we were at the beginning of 2020. Heart, mind, body, soul and spirit. We’ve never been so thickened by a year. As the losses have accumulated on the pages of the calendar, so has our poundage. Day after day; week after week; month after month. The scale ticks higher; the clothes get tighter. The burden grows greater.

With labored steps and labored breaths, we awaken with the dawn without embracing its warmth; we’ve forgotten what it is to move lightly through our days. Instead, our steps are heavy, each one of them reverberating with the witness of a costly season.

I don’t imagine it will soon be over – this year of unwanted accumulation. Something tells me that our scales will get heavier before getting lighter. It seems that some years have to run their course before reversing course … before getting us back to a place of leanness that better enables us to embrace the dawn.

But as we tarry for these leaner years, let us not forsake our mirrors. Let us look outwardly and inwardly at the burden that’s been added to our souls. Sometimes, the extra pounds are the best indicators of what needs trimming. And if that’s the case – if a temporary addition ultimately leads to a healthy and final subtraction – then perhaps all is not loss with The Freshman 20 – this, our 2020.

Perhaps there is gain – an eternal goodness that will outweigh the harshness that we now hold as baggage in these jars of clay.

That is my prayer. That is my hope. That is the warmth of this dawn embracing my soul. May it embrace yours as well. As always…

Peace for the journey,

10

Ten years ago, my prayer was simple. Even typing the word “simple” feels traitorous, as if I’ve already cheated … cheapened the depth of that moment. There was nothing simple about it. The words were simple, but their implications were far more complex. God was going to have to do something miraculous, something that only he could do–

Save my life.

Again.

This time not from sin but, rather, this time from the cancer that was eating away at my flesh.

“God, let me live long enough to get my children grown.”

That was my prayer then. And here I am, living this decade-long miracle that was surely wrought from the very heart and hands of the Life-Giver. Ten years of living beyond a diagnosis that, left untreated, would have hastened my earthly departure.

Dr. Habal’s words echo in my mind today as clearly as they were spoken to me a decade ago–a response to my burning question … the “What now?” … I asked of him just moments after hearing my diagnosis.

“You’ve got young children, Elaine. We need to attack this with everything we have.”

And therein my prayer and my will were solidified–a full frontal assault via my flesh and my faith to get the job done … to get my children grown.

Thanks be to God, we’re mostly there.

When Amelia climbed into her eldest brother’s hand-me-down car (the one that carried him to college) two weeks ago to begin her college career, I stood paralyzed in the drive-way, not out of sorrow for the temporary sadness of seeing her go but, rather because I realized that the simple prayer I had prayed ten years ago had now come to fruition.

My children are grown.

As I turned to go back into the house, I smiled, laughed a little, looked up to heaven and uttered another prayer…

“Maybe just a little more time, God?”

In that moment, I felt his pleasure – some holy laughter between a Father and daughter. He owes me nothing – not a single heavenly favor, not another day, not another ounce of grace, not another prayer answered on my behalf. He never has … owed me anything. But he continues to give to me in inexpressible measure.

Ten years ago, I didn’t fully understand what would be required of me and my God to get to this point of witness today. There have been many personal sacrifices; but what I have had to give up in order to extend my earthly tenure is nothing in comparison to what I’ve been given in return–

A decade’s worth of seeing my children grow up.

What a generous God!

I am humbled by this extension of years. I pray that I have lived them well and have grown my children accordingly. They are my legacy–Nicholas, Colton, Jadon, and Amelia. Their lives will continue to write the witness beyond me.

So, here’s to me; here’s to them; here’s to God; and here’s to the grand and grace-filled miracle of getting kids grown.

We are all SURVIVORS walking the road home together. Let’s keep in step with one another for as long as today is called today. Keep moving forward, family; the best is yet to be. I promise.

Peace for the journey,

PS: If you or someone you know might benefit from the witness of my story, “Beyond the Scars” is available for purchase through Amazon or by contacting me personally for a signed copy. 

error: Content is protected !!