Peace for the Journey | Elaine Olsen

Summer

January 22, 2010

{for Summer… who made it home to Canaan today}

It occurs to me this evening that earthquakes come in all shapes and sizes. And while the world’s eyes have been focused on Haiti’s earthquake over the past week, my eyes have been fixed on the one occurring beneath the surface of my own little piece of ground… the place I call home… the woman I call friend.

The ground beneath her has been shaking for the past four months, but her faith? Well, not easily shaken. And while leukemia has not been kind to her, her Father’s strength has been exceedingly kind. She has weathered her quake with all the dignity and grace of heaven. Some would say the cancer got the best of her, but I would say differently. Today, cancer had no say in the matter, because today the quake beneath her feet ceased in its shaking as she made her grand entrance to the throne of her Savior’s feet where she will worship him forever.

For those of us left behind, especially for her precious sons and adoring husband, the ground still shakes. The collective grief of our small community is palpable and strong. We’ve made this walk before. I’ve made this walk before—three times in the last two years. Cancer and its havoc is an all too familiar struggling in our neck of the world. For whatever reason, and God only knows (believe me when I tell you that I’ve asked him), our county claims some of the highest cancer statistics for our state. Everyone in our community has been touched by the disease at some point along the way.

Still and yet, familiarity doesn’t make the journey any easier. Each situation exceeds statistical data. Each road of suffering is unique and personally labeled with a name, a family, a life lived, a grief felt. There’s nothing neat and tidy about cancer. Nothing we can quickly and perfectly pack away even as we lower another casket into the ground.

Death and its corresponding mystery shake the earth beneath our feet. It reminds us all (whether we’re willing to own it or not) about the temporal nature of our flesh. About the eternal nature of our spirits. And that kind of reminder, friends, is sometimes a hard reckoning with which to engage. Why? Because of the searing pain that interjects its witness into the mix. Because of the questions that coincide with the grief. Because of the empty chair at the dinner table reserved for the one who has preceded us in death. And when all of that (the reckoning, the pain, the questions, the grief, and the empty chair) collide, the earth beneath our feet moves in witness to the internal wrestling of our souls. I don’t imagine there’s a Richter scale big enough to gauge that kind of rumbling.

As it should be. The burying of a loved one cannot be quantified and measured by human standards, only painfully felt at the deepest, rawest level of the human condition. We’ll try to quantify it; try to put some manageable parameters around it so as to better control the pain. Perhaps, this is needful… a necessary component to the grief process that enables us a measure of comfort during these days of unedited grief. My own heart stands as a witness to that this night.

Writing my heart helps me. Words enable me to put parameters around my feelings. To reign in my thoughts and the emotions which are spinning at full speed. Words, and all the pondering that goes into penning them, help me to re-focus my heart around the one truth that exceeds the pain of the moment. And that truth, friends, doesn’t in any way resemble a grave. That truth is a King and a kingdom and a beautiful, entirely whole, thirty-nine-year-old woman running through heaven’s meadows, partaking in the rightful promise that belongs to her as an heir of the Most High God.

Cancer did not get the final word. God did, and all of hell shuddered at the sound of his voice.

“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”

May the God of all comfort, the God of everlasting peace, the God who collects our tears in a bottle and holds them close to his heart, the God who promises life beyond the casket, the God who numbered our days long before one of them came into being, the God who is well-familiar with all of our griefs and sufferings, the God who conquered death and the grave…

be the God who peels back the layers of heaven tonight to give us a glimpse of forever and to remind us, each one, that this is not our home.

He is.

And he is coming soon.

And his is a kingdom not easily shaken.

I love you “T” family. And I love the woman you so willing and graciously shared with this world. Her witness lives on in you. Winter’s bite will soon be over. Summer is just around the bend.

peace for the journey,

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Breakfast on the Beach with Jesus (part one): doing what we do

January 20, 2010

“Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Tiberias. It happened this way: Simon Peter, Thomas (called Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. ‘I’m going out to fish,’ Simon Peter told them, and they said, ‘We’ll go with you.’ (John 21:1-3).

I’ve been pondering this passage for a long season. It grips me in so many ways from so many different angles. John 21 is chock full of meaty information, rich fodder for pulpits willing to preach it and bookstores willing to stock it. I imagine you have been privy to as much as I have along these lines. Collectively, we’ve probably “heard” it all over the years. Hearing has never been our problem. Our problem is absorption, a problem James clearly identifies as a “looking at our faces in the mirror, then quickly forgetting what we look like” kind of problem (James 1:23-25).

We hear the Word, but do we do the Word? Do we allow it absorption into our hearts so that our nourishment therein exacts a result in the process?

Guilty as charged; thus, my wanting to do the Word better… to live it better. Not for “doing’s” sake, but rather for kingdom’s sake—for moving onward and upward toward holiness and my perfection. Along those lines, I’m going to be fleshing out some thoughtful considerations via my pen. Writing those considerations often solidifies them in my heart. To ponder without putting any action behind that pondering is a waste of time for me, for I am woefully prone to my forgetting. But to frame that pondering with some words… well, chances are I’ll remember it, at least have it at my fingertips for recall down the road.

I keep a file folder on my desk that is filled with previous thoughts I’ve scribbled down on particular Biblical topics—skeletal thoughts that need some corresponding “flesh” at some point down the road. After perusing my folder’s contents yesterday, I came across three stapled sheets worth of thoughts that I had written back in the fall and now duly labeled with a sticky note that simply said “breakfast.”

And so I begin with that one word and what it means within the context of this passage and, correspondingly, what it means within the context of my soul. I do not live in isolation from this story. I wasn’t there as it occurred in living color; neither were you. But we live it today, even as the disciples lived it 2000 years ago. That’s the powerful witness of God’s sustaining Word. It never grows tired or empty or void of purpose. It is an accomplishing, active Word intended for our transformation in 2010.

And so I begin… with breakfast.

With breaking my “fast” from Jesus. Truly, if we only gleaned one “teaching” from John 21, this one is enough to bring hope to a heart that is longing for intimate fellowship with the Divine. John 21 has less to do with the route we take to “get to Jesus” and more to do with the route he takes to “get to us.” No one comes to the Father except through him (John 14:6). We think differently most days… we think it’s all about us and the steps we take to get to Jesus, and, indeed, there is great wealth that comes to us because of our posturing our hearts toward that end. But all of our posturing and managing of our schedules to get to Jesus means very little if he isn’t already there as we arrive. Jesus understands, better than us, our need to break our fast from him. Accordingly and faithfully, he sets a table over some hot coals, preparing for our presence, even though our presence remains off shore and, most days, unaware of our great need for his sustenance.

“It happened this way…” (oh, I can barely get past those four words, for they speak a message all their own—something about the authenticity of God’s Word and his wanting us to know the exact details of how this moment in Scripture actually “went down”)…

Simon and a few others had gathered in their grief, in their moments beyond the witness of the empty grave, yet unable to move forward with much of anything simply because that “much” wasn’t as clearly defined as they needed it to be.

Ever been there? Ever stood on the other side of Christ’s resurrecting truth, yet felt completely overwhelmed by the revelation and your responsibility therein? In our need for quick understanding, we reason that Peter and the others should have known what to do with the resurrecting truth of their Lord… should have immediately taken its witness and began in the unpacking of its merits to those walking around with deficient understanding. But Christ’s work in them—his directional “next” for them—had yet to be clearly defined. Emotional chaos was their compass, and is so often the case when emotions chart our course, we default to doing the one thing we’re most comfortable doing.

For Peter it was fishing; for us, a great many other “doings.” It’s natural, even reasonable for us to land in a place of “comfortable” while sorting out our emotions and our determinations regarding what to do with the weighty revelation of Calvary. Christ understands our chaos, even as he understood the disciples’ chaos so long ago. He stands ringside and watches it unfold, even as he stokes the fires of a breakfast that will yield the answers… the peace… the directional good our hearts are hungering for.

Long before we ever hold those answers as our own, our Savior tenderly cradles them as his own. Thoughtfully, he places them over burning embers, tending to them and cooking them to completion, so that when our feet find their way to the beach, there is food enough to fill the gnawing ache that has consumed us in the night.

As we default to doing what we naturally do in times of confusion, Jesus Christ defaults to doing what he always does, despite our confusion. He prepares a table of rich intimacy for us that will not only feed us, but that will gradually transform us for his high and holy purposes.

God sees us in our “doing” this day, friends. We may not be aware of his watchful glances from the shore, but he finds us, no matter our doings, no matter the chaos going on around us. And for some incredible reason beyond my understanding, he loves me still, despite my lack of awareness regarding the breakfast that he’s cooking on my behalf and the table he’s preparing in anticipation of my arrival to shore.

Christ’s preparations for intimate fellowship and sacred discipleship exceed ours. In fact, his preparations precede ours. We may come to the table thinking that our obedience is what yields the filling of our stomachs; but the truth is, our Savior has been up all night preparing for the feast, waiting for the moment when we will break our fast and dine in his presence.

Today, as we go about “doing what we do” and Christ goes about “doing what he does”, let us be mindful of the sacred intersection between the two. If you haven’t stepped on shore today to break your fast from Jesus, know that his fire burns in eager anticipation for your arrival and with ample food to satisfy your hungering need.

I know. He’s fed me well this morning.

As always…

peace for the journey,

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on "going public" with Jesus…

January 17, 2010

“As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’” (Matthew 3:16-17).

Today we celebrated “the Baptism of the Lord” in our worship service. I didn’t know that this particular event in Jesus’ life received a Sunday all its own, even though I’ve been doing this “liturgical” dance with the Methodists all of my life. Christ’s baptism certainly is worthy of remembrance as are all his moments, but this one in particular marked the beginning of something special.

It marked Christ’s beginning journey to the cross—his public ministry on this earth. What began in the Jordan would climax at Calvary. When John baptized Jesus in keeping with the fulfillment of Scripture, God introduced his Son to the world with a few words of sacred commendation. With his affirming love and with his “well-pleased.” The Holy Spirit lighted upon Jesus in the form of a dove, empowering him to walk the earthly road assigned to him.

Today, my preacher (a.k.a. “my man”) admonished us to “remember our baptism” as well. To acknowledge that moment from our past when we first “went public” with the grace of God. My public moment came as a young adolescent, kneeling at the altar railing of the Wilmore United Methodist Church. Dr. David Seamands spoke the moment over me. I remember my white dress, the one I desperately searched for because it was so very important to me to look pure—to be adorned in white raiment in keeping with the sacred occasion. A few friends joined me at the altar that day. They other details have long since faded from memory, but I do remember thinking that this occasion was something more than in keeping with religious protocol. It was a day that marked the beginning of something bigger in my own journey… a walk to the cross of sorts, where my heart and life identified with the heart and life of Jesus Christ at a deeper level.

Long before I ever felt the “wetness” of Dr. Seamands’ hands upon my head, God’s grace was working on my behalf. There has never been a time in my life when Jesus wasn’t real to me. He’s always been present; always been part of my thoughts. He began the sacred conversation with my soul at the earliest of ages. It continues to this day, and I cannot imagine my life without him.

I suppose there have been seasons when I tried… tried to live free from him. Times when I deliberately chose flesh over faith, but even in those moments of willful rebellion, the conversation continued. Muffled some days because of my freely chosen decisions, but present nonetheless. Jesus Christ has kept me, friends, all the days of my forty-three years. He is the reason I have peace in my heart. He is the reason I gather with the saints on a Sunday morning to reflect and remember, rejoice and relive the single truth that has claimed me and transformed me.

Today I remembered Christ’s baptism. I remembered my own. I dipped my hand into the water and clutched remembrance to my chest. I knelt at the altar again and considered my “long ago and far away.” I considered Christ’s as well, and I was thankful for his “entering into” that Jordan River so that I could, one day, enter into my very own moment of “going public” with God.

Please don’t misunderstand me. Baptism, for me, exceeds religious practice. I understand the huge denominational divide that separates our views along these lines. I simply don’t get hung up on it. God’s grace and his Son’s moment at the Jordan are too big to allow me to linger in my limited understanding therein. Some of you are dearly devoted to Jesus Christ and have never had a moment of “going public” with your heart. No water has sprinkled its wetness upon your head; your body hasn’t been submerged in a baptistery, much less the Jordan River. Let me assure you of this…

You are no less precious in our Father’s eyes. If Christ has entered into your broken and weary estate, if you have received him as your Lord and Savior, then you have “gone public” with your Jesus. You have been baptized with the renewing power of his Holy Spirit. When it comes to the matter of our hearts, we answer only to One. And if your heart belongs to the King, then all of heaven rejoices and bends low to offer their chorused applause. Your wetness on the inside far exceeds any public display of “wet” on the outside.

Does that mean that “baptism” is nothing, that it accomplishes nothing, isn’t important or not an appropriate response to the working of the Holy Spirit within us? Not at all. Baptism is an outward and visible sign of an inward working of grace. It is one of the ways we “go public” with our Jesus and our profession of faith. And I happen to believe that “going public” with Jesus is always in keeping with his plans for the crucified life. A life that identifies, in part, with the Savior who went public with his commitment to the cross so that you and I could better walk our commitment accordingly.

Today I remembered my baptism, I remembered Christ’s as well. Tomorrow I pray to remember the same—to never walk a single day without the grace of Calvary pulsing through my veins. I want my life to be the lavish expression of the life that he lived and breathed and walked and surrendered some 2000 years ago on my behalf. To offer any less to him, is to live less. And the last time I checked, “less” didn’t fit with God’s agenda of more.

It’s been a long time since my “long ago and far away” moment of “going public” with Jesus. There are few remaining persons in my life who actually remember that moment. I don’t imagine they think on it very often. The water that poured down my head has long since dried up, and the godly man who put it there? Well, he walked home to Jesus not long ago. But there is One who thinks on it very often. His memory is clear, and his rejoicing still resounds throughout all of heaven to announce that I am his, that his working grace continues on my behalf, and that the indwelling power of his Holy Spirit has found a good and spacious rest within my soul.

{lisa leonard designs}

I am the living temple of God’s living Spirit. So are you. In wearing him, we wear our “going public” display of his witness for all the world to see.

Wear your baptism this week, friends. Remember it well, and walk it into a world that needs the pulse of Calvary moving through its midst. As always…

peace for the journey,

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PS: Friends, please refrain from allowing our comments to become a heated debate regarding the practice of baptism. This is not my intent with this post, but rather to allow us remembrance and reflection regarding the importance of wearing our “baptism”–whatever that has been for us–as a living witness to the world. Shalom.

"Over-easy, please…"

January 15, 2010

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

“Over-easy, Lord. That is how I’d like my eggs this morning…”

Anybody else?

I’m afraid I’ve little words of importance for you this A.M. except to say that a night’s worth of worry has cost me. Indeed, it didn’t add any hours to my life; instead the worry that kept me awake and that has my stomach in knots this morning has extracted from my life. I can’t have back the previous eight hours. All I can do now is surrender them to a life lived “less” than what my Father had intended.

And then I move on. Move on with a better perspective about the hours that lie in front of me.

God’s burdens, his worries and concerns over his creation?

Easy, light, well within his capacity to deal with them… all of them. So taking his cue, I’m laying them down in his lap, and I’m pressing forward. I give him my “well-done” portion of worry that’s been simmering in the pan overnight in exchange for a plate that’s filled with over-easy. I cannot afford another eight hours like the previous ones. How about you? Could you use some over-easy this morning… this day?

Then join me at the table of grace and give thanks to God for his expertise in the kitchen. I understand that eggs are his specialty.

I love and appreciate you, each one. Your investment in my life makes me want to be a better writer, thinker, friend, pursuer of Peace, and sojourner on the road of grace. May you find them both, Peace and grace as you walk your life these next eight hours. As always…

peace for the journey,

PS: The winner of Shirley’s book (your choice) is #23, Christy Rose! Congrats, Christy. Please send me your snail mail, along with your choice of book. To find out more about Shirley and her books, click here. Shalom.

Mike

January 13, 2010

He’s found his way into my thoughts this morning. I can’t imagine why. I certainly wouldn’t have brought him to my remembrance on my own accord. I had other plans for my devotional time with God, but then I read these words from Sarah Young’s Jesus Lives:

“In the presence of a loving, strong father even the most frightened child eventually calms down. You have a perfectly loving, infinitely strong Father, so bring your fears freely to Him.” (Sarah Young, Jesus Lives, Thomas Nelson-2009, pg.28)

And then there he was. A boy named Mike. A boy from my adolescent years. An “unlovely” boy. Smelly, unkempt, poorly dressed, even more poorly mannered. His impulsive behavior and inappropriate responses to those around him quickly labeled him as the “creature” amongst us. Most of us feared him; not because he was overly mean or vindictive in character, but simply because he was different. Mike didn’t fit the high school “norm.” In that season of my life, it was a stretch for me to think of him fitting into any kind of societal “norm.” Mike was the most abnormal boy I knew. I never really saw him as anything more, and I was content with the labels that we had assigned him.

Until that day. The day he rode the bus home with me.

For whatever reason, the bus schedule had been revised. When Mike got on my bus at the end of the school day, we all assumed he’d made a misstep in his afternoon routine. The driver assured us otherwise. Mike would now be on our route for pick-up and delivery. I don’t remember talking to him that day. Most days I avoided him for fear that any interaction between us might signal to him my desire for something further. I do remember smelling him that day, wishing quietly to myself that he had chosen a seat further back on the bus. After what seemed to be forever, the bus stopped on a dusty road, and Mike made his move to the front door.

He exited, and I watched him as he went. Watched him for a long time as he walked along that one-lane path which would eventually land him home—a small farm house barely fit for human consumption. In that moment, I realized something I hadn’t realized before.

Mike had a home. Had a life apart from all the teasing and trouble that followed him throughout the school day. Had a family who loved him, claimed him, and did their level best to support him despite his struggles at being “normal.” The Mike I witnessed everyday at school was only a scratching at the surface of who he really was. There was so much more to this person that I didn’t understand. So much of a life that existed apart from me… a life I would never know, all because I was too afraid to cross the great divide that existed between my world and his.

I wish I could say that Mike and I became friends. We didn’t. I do remember my being more courteous and kind to Mike after that day. Saying hello; waving good-bye, occasionally including him in casual, bus conversation. Mostly, I kept my distance, but now with a little more love and understanding in my heart for him. More grace and more compassion.

I don’t know what happened to Mike. Maybe some of you who shared those days with me do. I’d love an update. But this one thing I do know.

Mike is everywhere. We don’t have to look very hard to find a person who makes a strange fit with our “norm.” The smelly, unkempt are right beneath our noses, within reach and more than ready for some love from someone who has taken the time to imagine them beyond the labels that consume them. Someone who is willing to cross that great divide and offer them the hand of fellowship and the heart of God.

And while my tangible, physical life never cried out for rescue as Mike’s perhaps did, my inward life cried out in accordance with Mike’s voice. For someone willing to cross that great divide and to offer me the hand and heart of sacred fellowship. And because Someone did, I realize that Mike and I aren’t as different as I once thought we were. All of us, every last one of us, are in need of that kind of rescue, friends. All of us need a safe place to run home to—a family who loves us, claims and supports us, most days in spite of us.

God has given us one another to be that body of grace. We are God’s church. A church not based on denomination and regulation, but rather on the one truth that cuts through all the peripheral rest of it to stand alone as the sole requirement for membership into God’s kingdom.

Faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in who he is and in what he has done through his shed blood on the cross.

Jesus is the common thread that links all hearts to home. Perhaps the reason my heart stirred for Mike nearly three decades ago as I watched him exit his school life to embrace his safe life. It certainly is the reason my heart stirs this morning. For all the Mike’s of this world. For those who’ve yet to realize that there is a safe place to land at the end of the day… at the end of this life. And lest we think we’re so far removed from them, all of us at some point in our journeys were the smelly, unkempt, poorly mannered creatures roaming God’s earth in need of God’s rescue.

How thankful I am for the Savior who found me, who bridged the chasm between my great need and his great grace to say “hello” to me and to invite me into the sacred conversation that continues to this day. It’s been a good morning to ride the bus with Jesus, friends. If you’ve yet to climb aboard, there are plenty of seats awaiting your need. As always…

peace for the journey,

~elaine

PS: I will draw a winner to Shirley’s book with my next post. I haven’t forgotten…