Category Archives: a quick word

disclaimers…

“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” (John 14:6)

 

I heard my husband snorting from the living room last evening. Yes, snorting. The kind of “snort, snort” that goes along with laughter. His laughing always draws my attention; I hate to miss out on a good snort. Our hilarity is well-matched. What he finds funny, I do as well. Last night, the source of his laughter was rooted in an advertisement for a new miracle drug, whose front-side claims for success were dampened by the long list of disclaimers that follow on the backside of the commercial.

Disclaimers. Those pesky little addendums attached to products to protect said manufacture from assuming any liability should something go wrong. If you’ve watched any television lately or listened to the radio, I’m sure you could recite many of them from memory.

Do not take this medication if you are pregnant or nursing or if you plan on being pregnant, or if you have four kids and any of them are pregnant, or if you know someone who is pregnant;

Stop taking this medication if you should experience any of the following side effects: dizziness, vomiting, dry mouth, sleeplessness, hallucinations, have thoughts of harming others or letting your kids play in traffic, your big toe turns green, or you find your right eye hanging on by a thread.

Hmm, yes… give me some of that one, please. Is it any wonder that any of us are well after having to navigate the possible, negative side-effects of a drug in order to find some healing? Which leads me to this thought—not an original one but one I’ve thought about from time-to-time in recent days.

Worldly solutions to physical ailments are not enough to fix our problems. They band-aid our aches with temporary solutions, but never will they solve our issues completely. They can treat our symptoms, but even then, our physical, emotional, and most importantly, our spiritual maladies remain. Nothing the doctor can prescribe, the talk shows can purport, the best-selling self-help books can outline, the “gods” can offer (hmm… Buddha comes to mind), will fix the condition of the human heart. They may lengthen our time on earth, but they cannot determine our future beyond the grave.

Only Jesus can.

There aren’t multiple routes to permanent healing—to that place where each of us can finally voice “it is well with my soul.” There is only one way to that kind of peace, and his name is Jesus Christ. He comes with no disclaimers. He doesn’t need to protect himself from liability in case something should go wrong. There aren’t any addendums of “possible, negative side-effects” with the Son of God. His healing isn’t exclusive, nor does it matter if you are…

Pregnant or nursing.
Single or married.
Divorced and divorced again.
An alcoholic.
A criminal.
A person with a past.
An abuser.
The abused.
A prostitute.
Someone suffering from all manner of addictions.
A prodigal child.
A prodigal adult.
A sinner.
A saint.
A porn star, rock star, silver-screen star, sport’s star.
Poor.
Hungry.
Alone.
Desperate.
________________.

Regardless of the current condition of your heart and life, Jesus is the answer. The only possible side-effect of your liberally, ingesting of him is peace—more peace than you had yesterday, more that will come to you as you are faithful to take him down off of the shelf and drink deeply from his healing tonic. Does that mean your issues will evaporate with a dose of Jesus? No. As long as you and I are tethered to the flesh, issues attach themselves to our lives. But a coating of God’s medicine down our throats and into our hearts keeps those issues manageable and more easily tolerated because, as we confront them, we do so with the companioned presence of Jesus Christ. We carry his elixir with us as we go, and anywhere Jesus goes is good ground for a lasting remedy.

How thankful I am for a Savior who comes to me without disclaimers. I can trust in him—his grace and his cross—without worrying and wondering if my trust is well-placed. God does not fail his children. His promises are true. His word is faithful. His heart is pure. His love is genuine. But don’t take my word for it; take his. Pull your Bible down off the shelf, open it up, and drink deeply from the living Word who has a special word for your woundedness today.

Kind of sounds like a commercial, does it not? Oh, friends, if I’m going to boast about anything, let me boast in Jesus and on the side of his kingdom cross. He makes my life worth doing, and I plan on serving as his “PR” gal for the rest of my days. Won’t you join me in spreading the word about the Word?

Love you; mean it; happy, glorious Tuesday to you, my beloved friends! As always…

peace for the journey,

~elaine

footprints…

footprints…

I am reminded of something this morning… something so small that if not carefully looking for that something, it is easily missed. Something so seemingly routine and mundane. Something we usually take for granted.

Footprints.

Ours and others.

Every one of us is leaving an indelible impression upon the ground beneath our feet. Some of those impressions but a whisper—unobtrusive and gentle.


Some a bit louder and more invasive.

Regardless of the size and scope of out imprints, we cannot escape the fact that they are ours to walk… to share, to leave. To say that we’ve been here, that our lives have touched the parcel of ground beneath our feet. Our footprints stand as a witness (both for us and against us) as to how we’ve invested our energies on planet earth.

And while others may not be paying close attention to the paths we are marking, there is One who is well aware of our tracks. He sees them from above. He walks them with us as we go. Whatever the soil beneath our feet, we carry the unshakeable kingdom of God with us. We are the fleshy temple of his eternal pulse.

When we get that, when we begin to see our footprints as something other than ours, then we begin to walk more carefully, more intentionally, more fully aware of just exactly how important our lives are to live each and every day.

Today, my footprints land me in close proximity to my front door. Another snow day has claimed my “to do list”, and I won’t lie to you. I’m not thrilled about it. I need my children to be in school today. But they’re not. They’re here with me and already beginning to wonder if I have plans to walk in their direction at some point. They are the kingdom soil beneath my feet in this moment, and I am praying for the grace and the patience to tread lightly and tenderly to their need so that they can better understand the love and grace of God that has been assigned to them via my flesh. So that they can follow my lead and begin to leave their personal footprints on a world that desperately needs the witness of God’s love and grace via their flesh.

Footprints.

Something to think about.

Where are yours walking? What impression are they leaving?

Currently, my feet are headed to the kitchen to look for batteries. Miss Amelia’s “air hog” is out of juice. Jadon is standing bedside with a newly assorted collection of baseball cards ready for my perusal. I’m not sure how my acquiescing to Amelia’s urgent need for batteries or looking at Jadon’s baseball cards will point them to Jesus, but I’m fairly certain that the way in which I respond to their “immediate” will speak a witness all its own.

How desperate I am for more of Jesus in me in this very moment! Now. He is my immediate need so that I can better respond to theirs.

May God grant us, each one, more of his wisdom, his love, his kindness, and his grace so that we might leave some lasting, kingdom footprints upon the lives of those who sit under our influence in the next twenty-four hours. I’ll see you on the other side of our snow day, friends. As always…

peace for the journey,

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"Over-easy, please…"

"Over-easy, please…"

“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,

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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.

my half-lived day…

We all woke up this morning with a message written across our hearts, either penned by our hand or by God’s.

What was your message? Mine?

Well, I’m gonna live this day better than yesterday, Lord. Through your strength and by your grace, I’m gonna live this one better.

And I have lived it better. God’s presence has been genuine and his hands gentle to me. It’s only 2:30 in the afternoon. I’ve made my bed, done some laundry, wrote 1,400 words in my WIP, ran four miles, and had a bath. Oh, I almost forgot… I’ve also had numerous e-mail chats with my Kentucky friend, Shirley, who is graciously lending her creative eye and photographs to a project I’m working on. Have you ever stopped by to visit her to read her heart and to see our world through her photographic lens? You’re missing something if you haven’t. She’s as home grown and genuine as they come. I’m not sure how our paths first crossed; perhaps, through Exemplify. Regardless of the prompt, I’m glad it arrived. She is a gracious portion of God’s love on this earth. I am the better for having her life intertwined with mine.

I don’t know how the rest of this day is going to play out. My kids arrive home in swift order. There will be homework to manage. A meal to make… well, to imagine (oh Billy, sweet man of mine, what’s on the menu tonight?). Dishes to clean. Baths to administer. Books to read and perhaps a movie to watch with my older boys before their pilgrimages back to college. Yes, I’ve got an “idea” as to how this day is going to end. Getting there from this moment seems a short leap, but when I do… when I close my eyes on this day, if I don’t do a single thing more than what I’ve currently done up to this point, then today has already been a better day than yesterday.

Today, I woke up to a good message. Tomorrow, I pray to wake accordingly.

What was your message this morning? Cut honestly through to the truth of the matter, and wrestle with your answer. Did you wake up to pain? To heartache? To joy? To expectation? To your “here we go again, Lord” or “I can’t possibly face my life right now.” Your answer tells you a great deal about who is holding the pen.

If your morning message wasn’t what you wanted it to be, then re-write it. Yes, re-write it. Right now. If you could do your 6:30 AM wake-up call all over again, how would you want your message to write?

How thankful I am for a God who allows me re-writes, right smack dab in the middle of my day. I don’t have to wait until tomorrow to start again. Neither do you. God is the Author of our blessed “do it better’s” no matter the time of the day we feel his prompt along these lines. The key to doing it better resides with God’s pen, not ours. So do yourself a favor…

Hand him the pen. Allow God his moments with your heart in order to re-write the rest of your day. It matters not if you’re reading this at 10:00 PM or 10:00 AM or any other hour in between. What matters is the moment you call right now and the message you want attached to your right now.

I value your right now. So does our heavenly Father. May his lavish love and continuing presence be your portion as you march your way through the rest of this day, living the message he’s written onto your heart.

Now, let’s see…

I can add “writing a blog post” to a day that continues to live better than yesterday. I’m on a roll. There is more day left to live. I think I’ll get busy living it. As always…

peace for the journey,

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PS: Leave me a comment about the “message” of your heart this day, and you’ll be entered to win one of Shirley’s latest photo/devotional books, Meditations of an Autumn Heart or Simply Light (your pick). You can preview them by clicking on these links. Also, take time to visit Shirley and her work at Sketches of a Common Life. She’s anything but common, friends. Shalom.

returning light…

“You, O LORD, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light.” (Psalm 18:28)

God’s returning light.

It’s returning to me after a long six-week season of diminishing dimness. Not elimination; God’s light always flames within me, but there are times when it decreases in its intensity. Not because of anything he’s done, but rather because life and its many messy circumstances have flickers all their own. A heart has a hard time highlighting them both; thus, when one takes the stage—flames fuller and burns brighter—the other retreats to the wings and waits its turn.

It’s God’s turn in my life, friends, and I feel the intensity of his flame returning in me. It matters not the situations that led to his light’s retreat. It began around Thanksgiving and continued its solid march through the month of December. In many ways, I had to break free from Christmas in order to live my Christmas. I realize that in writing this, some of you will be confused and left to your imaginations as to what I could possibly mean. But I think if you live with that statement for a few minutes, understanding will come.

Christmas wasn’t designed for its cramming into a confined calendar slot. Christmas was meant for a twelve month existence. For me (and this is Elaine talking for herself), I live the witness of Christmas better in the eleven months preceding its planned remembrance. Those months are less messy for me, less crowded, less programmed. And while Christmas isn’t to blame for my season of recent struggle, they happened to share the same month. I imagine there are others who could voice the same.

Through it all, I pressed into my faith because that is what faith does. It presses into known truth—a truth that relies on God’s strength to carry us through to resolution. Faith carries us in times of darkness. Faith anchors us, holds us, reminds us that on the other side of smoldering embers lies the hot breath of a Holy God who bends at the ready to flame them into significance.

My life has hosted many seasons of diminishing flames like this past one. I don’t imagine it will be my last. And while I don’t welcome them, I’m better prepared for them because I’ve lived each one of them successfully through to victory. To feeling the warmth of God’s returning light and to embracing the dawn as dawn was meant to be embraced.

With celebration … anticipation … high and holy expectation for the day that births anew with unlimited opportunities to unpack my God further. That is how I awoke this morning; by his grace, tomorrow will birth the same.

It’s good to be in fellowship with a God who understands the seasons of our lives, who walks them with us despite our willingness to walk them in isolation. Without the embers of his enduring love, our struggling seasons suffer deeper, linger longer, fester wider. There is little hope of emerging victory when we fail to tend to the wick of God’s sacred flame within us.

I’ve tended to that wick, even when my flesh cried out its resistance. I prayed about it, wrote about, spoke to God about it, and read about it in his holy Word. God’s Word is replete with a people who have stood where I have stood. They, too, pressed into their faith in order to move past their flesh.

God’s returning light. It’s found its way to my soul again, and I am eternally grateful for the mustard seed’s worth of faith within me that pushed me through to victory.

I don’t know where you are in your journey with God right now. Perhaps your faith is burning brightly with little wiggle room for doubt. If so, thank God for his continuing illumination. Perhaps your faith flickers with intermittent warmth and sporadic guidance, just enough to quell your worries regarding its diminishment. If so, pray to God for clearer vision and for firmer resolve. Perhaps your faith is down to a few smoldering embers as other “lights” have taken to the stage to voice their opposition. If so, cling to God as if your life depended on it.

Our lives depend on it, friends, on him no matter the season we’re walking. Without his continuing presence in our lives, we have little hope of emerging from the darkness. Thus, keep pressing into our faithful God. Keep running with him; keep walking beside him; keep crawling toward him, all the way through to final victory. I know it’s not an easy journey. In fact, “easy” doesn’t fit with an extraordinary faith. But extraordinary is exactly what we’ve been given. The heart of our Father could give no less. “Less” isn’t in keeping with his character.

I love you, am willing to pray for you, and am writing you my heart this day because it is all that I have to give to you. It seems to me that, perhaps, at least one of you needs the witness of my last six weeks. If so, know this…

God is approaching your soul in this very moment. His light is returning to you, even as the dawn is approaching its birth, and God’s hot and very holy breath would like nothing more than to fan into flame the embers of your struggling faith. May our good Father grant you, precious one, the witness of his presence as you close your eyes to slumber this night. As always…

peace for the journey,

~elaine

PS: I don’t know when I’ll be here again. As the Lord prompts my heart, I will be faithful to add a few words and post them here. I’m giving intentional focus to my latest WIP with a goal of finishing by February’s end. I would appreciate your prayers along those lines. In the meantime, if you have a special prayer request you’d be willing to entrust to me, I’d be most privileged to receive it. You are the reason I keep to my pen. Shalom.

Copyright © January 2010 – Elaine Olsen

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