eternity | Elaine Olsen

Where I Used to Live

January 6, 2009

“The LORD said to Abram, ‘Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.’” (Genesis 12:1).

God’s people are a people of movement. From the very beginning of an Eden’s expulsion, we’ve been spreading our outward influence. One home at time. One town at a time. One state at a time, and for some of us, one country at a time.

My outward has included sixteen homes, eight towns, and five states. I’m confident there will be a few more “outwards”before God calls me home.

Home.

They say you can’t go there … ever really return to the place that you once called home and have it be the same, feel the same, carry the same weight in your heart that it once did.

Yesterday I tried. To return to the place…

where I used to live.

An unplanned doctor’s visit took me there. One hundred and fifty round trip miles out of my routine on a day when I needed the beauty of a routine’s homecoming. A day when kids donned their backpacks for the post-Christmas return to school and when the college eldest packed his car accordingly.

It would have been lovely to retreat. To stay in the warmth and cover of a Monday. But lovely isn’t always our luxury. Routine isn’t always our comfort. Sometimes we forego the usual for the sake of a greater purpose—a purpose that requires our return to the safety and harbor of a “used to” because our “used to” is sometimes best used in our now.

The understanding birthed in our long ago and far away can be the sure and vital anchor that serves us in our now.

For me, my “used to” was a long-standing relationship with a doctor in whom I place my highest confidence. And while I have many other reasons for returning to the community that I called home for four years, my visit yesterday was singular in purpose.

My health.

I can’t think of a better reason to return to my “used to.” Can you?

I’ve been back for funerals; for weddings; for baby showers and for all manner of impromptu gatherings with friends. We loved our lives on the Pamlico River. During our tenure there, we added two children to our family and watched as our older two sons grew from boys into young men. When we moved in 2004, our pockets were filled with enough stones of remembrances to commission a large and lasting memorial.

It would take us a long season to recover from the grief of our “letting go.” But we did, we have, and the place we “used to” call home has been replaced by the community that now houses our hearts.

I am thankful for the outward pulse that exists within me. And while I don’t always readily embrace its rhythm, I value the portrait that it paints. It is a picture that breathes with the truth and understanding of our Father’s intention for our lives.

God means for us to move beyond ourselves. For some of us, it’s a literal move. For others, it’s an inward resolve to become an outward person. Regardless of our physical locations, whether it is one or many throughout our lifetime, God has set his “go” into our spirits. Not because he’s trying to make our lives difficult, but rather because he’s allowing us to make his matter.

His life. His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In us, through us, and beyond us as we walk our obedience and scatter his seed accordingly. We need not fear the corners that lie ahead. Instead, we can turn them with the confidence of all eternity. Why?

Because the understanding birthed in our long ago and far away can be the sure and vital anchor that serves us in our now.

Long ago and far away, God interrupted the place where you used to live with the truth of your forever—the place where you will always live.

At home with him. He is the only place where you can truly return, and have it be the same, feel the same, and carry the same weight in your heart that it always has. You carry that truth with you wherever you go.

Thus, no matter your station in life, no matter the twists and turns of your current “going,” God is your Confidence, and the long-standing relationship birthed with him on this side of eternity secures your heart’s health for the outward obedience required to get you there. To get me there.

To our final destination where feet no longer gather dust and where hearts no longer grieve the pain of our letting go’s. Until then, may the consecrated ache that precedes our arrival be the eternal fuel that keeps us moving, with an eternal “go” in our spirits and with God’s kingdom end in mind. Thus, I pray…

Bring us home, Father, to the place where you have always lived. Forgive me when my temporal dwelling becomes too important—when the aches and pains of my moving beyond myself exceed the portrait of my eternal journey. You have made my faith to be a moving faith…a progressive and outward influence that refuses the stagnancy of an inward focus. Keep me moving, Father. Whether in this current station of life or in another, never let me forget that my steps are forged with the truth and love of an unseen kingdom that is calling me onward and upward to receive my crown and your forever kingdom’s rest. Today, I concede my heart and will for the outward pulse of the journey. Amen.

An Accidental Treasure

January 3, 2009

“For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” (Hebrews 4:12-14).

My heart is filled with many stories tonight…things I want to tell someone. Anyone. You.

That’s the writer in me. Words find me. Fill me to overflow until I can no longer keep them penned up within. Instead, they call for the obedience and the outflow of my pen. Whether you find them worthy or not, well, that’s your call. On this side of a blank page, I cannot imagine their impact. I can only feel their weight. Unloading them becomes my necessary.

Thus, a Friday night tied to requirement. An evening that begins with a last evening—a Thursday night tied to a New Year’s Day.

With the younger kids safely tucked in bed and for want of anything else pressing in on our time, my husband and I left the “youngers” in the care of the “olders” and ventured to Wal-Mart in search of a movie and some snacks. Rather than driving ten miles to our local Blockbuster, we opted for the five dollar bargain bin just a mile down the road. We walked away with two movies, The Manchurian Candidate and a DVD combo that included two of our favorite movies, Glory and The Patriot. Or so we thought.

After donning our pj’s and firing up the candles for S’mores (apparently Wal-Mart also shelves the ingredients for said snacks…), my husband began to unwrap our selected movie for the night.

“This looks interesting, Elaine. What’s “Nightjohn” about?”

Nightjohn? What? Where’s Denzel in all of his Glory?

Apparently, Denzel was still sitting back in the bargain bin at Wal-Mart. My harried perusal of back and forth landed me with a copy of an unidentified movie. Nightjohn. A story set in the deep South about two slaves—a young girl named Sarny and a middle-aged man named John.

Rather than making the trip back to Wal-Mart, we settled on our accidental purchase, and for the better part of two hours, immersed our hearts and emotions into a story that breathed the witness of an eternal truth.

The power of the word.

Nightjohn can read, an offense often punishable by death for a slave. John enters into young Sarny’s world as a recent acquisition of her owner. When he asks her for a plug of tobacco, she insists upon a trade. He insists that he can give her something in return that man can never take away from her.

Words.

Sarny is captured by the promise of such a holding and begins to earnestly acquire her new found wealth. One letter at a time. Collected and treasured and pondered with a depth rarely exhibited in any classroom across America. Her learning is sporadic, a slow prod toward having her letters make sense. Sarny’s frustration for the finished product—for being able to read—culminates with a question to Nightjohn:

“How do you know if you be reading?”

John reassures Sarny that the day is soon to come.

That day comes for Sarny as she accompanies her owner’s family to church one Sunday. The pastor instructs the congregants to sing #152, a melodious rendition of the 23rd Psalm. As they sing, Sarny adds her own voice to the mix. The tears begin to flow as she realizes the profundity of the moment—that she, in fact, “be reading.” Nightjohn watches her awakening from the balcony above with his own mix of tears. An observant pastor also takes notice.

He leaves the pulpit, approaches Sarny, and with tenderness in his voice asks her a life-changing question:

“Child, are you saved?”

Without hesitation, she replies:

“Yes, I am. I am saved.”

And I am undone with the moment. It approached my soul with the magnitude of the kingdom—God’s kingdom. Indeed, Sarny was saved. In more ways than one. The reading of man’s words led Sarney to God’s Word and to her salvation accordingly.

The power of the Word…both in print and in the flesh, came to life and to a living heart who was hungry for the find. And while Sarny’s physical chains still bound her in the flesh, her spiritual chains had been broken, and she took to her baptism with the truth of God’s Word searing within her soul.

Indeed, something that man could never take away from her. Something that can never be taken away from you and from me if we’ve known the power of such a moment. And so I ask you tonight, with a tender urgency in my heart…

Child, are you saved?

Do you remember the day when God’s Word became real to you? When all of his kingdom letters collided with your flesh and you knew, for a fact, that you be reading the Word? Did it make you cry then? Does it still…make you cry? Not because you’re sad, but rather because the magnitude of such truth overwhelms your soul to point of release?

For all of the ways I could turn this, take this and make it into something else, nothing of greater consequence exists. Your salvation is everything. Having God’s word…his Word…collide with your chains is the stuff of everlasting significance. He shatters our shackles and deems us free. He leaves us, not as slaves, but as kings and queens of a royal throne established on our behalf because his Word has the final say in the matter.

I know that most of you reading this have experienced the power of such an awakening. Thank God tonight for your salvation. But there are others—strangers and friends, those you love and those you don’t—who need the magnitude of such a moment. Perhaps, like Nightjohn, God has allowed you a measure of influence in their lives.

Would you, on the front side and at the beginning of a New Year, be willing to bring them the brilliance and illumination of God’s living Word … one letter at a time until their collected abundance yields the eternal wealth of a Psalm 23 kind of moment? So that they, too, can be reading what you’re reading?

It is a worthy story. One of the many that fills my heart tonight. Apparently, the one that God deemed most appropriate for the pen. I’m always amazed at the finished canvas. Not because it exceeds the beauty of another’s words, but simply and profoundly because God has allowed me the privilege of its painting.

One brushstroke at a time. One letter after another, until words fill the page, and I am reminded through my tears of my own soul’s awakening. The moment that rushed upon me with the magnitude and force of God’s kingdom grace and with the brilliant illumination of his lavish and unmerited love. The moment when I knew for a fact, that I be reading the Truth.

May such remembrance find its way into your heart this day until you “know that you know” and until that knowing becomes the deepest and most cherished treasure of your heart.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of his living, eternal witness—the Holy Spirit—I shout my gratitude and sound my salvation. I am saved. I am free. Ain’t nothing that man can do to take that away from me. Amen.

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PS: Heading back to Wal-Mart tomorrow. If I can find another copy, I’ll get one for a give away. Here’s hoping for another accidental treasure. Shalom!

Loving Deposits

December 12, 2008

“Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. … Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 3:18, 4:7-8).

I went to the bank to make a deposit this morning. It is a doing I’ve been doing for a long season.

As a child, I would often accompany my father to the bank and watch him make his deposits. They were occasions filled with greetings and laughter and the simple joys that came with growing up in a small town where everyone knew my daddy’s name and offered me, because I was his daughter, the obligatory nod of approval. I always walked out with a lollipop. Most banks still honor the tradition—a small punctuation of thanks for the exchange of trust between client and banker.

I appreciate my bank even as my father appreciated his. And lest you think it was and is all about the transaction of money, bank visits with my father exceeded the customary function of the visit. Deposits were, indeed, the order of the day. Not solely in terms of cash, but more fully in terms of something far greater.

People.

When daddy went to the bank, he did so knowing that there would be on occasion for him to invest his love into the lives of others. In fact, going anywhere with my father yielded such a platform. He’s a people person with a generous heart to match. Watching him love is one of the noblest classrooms that I have attended as a student of the human race. His hugeness of heart for humanity is where mine began. And while his capacity for loving easily eclipses mine, I caught his spirit early on, and it’s been working out its perfection in me ever since.

Loving pure and loving big. The overriding and constant prayer of my heart.

When I examine the outgrowth of the fruit of the Spirit as scripted in Galatians 5:22-26, love stands at the helm. Without it, every other manifestation of the Spirit’s seeding breathes less. And when I walk in understanding of the magnitude of the Gift I’ve been given, I am humbled by the reality that my love often walks lacking.

The Purpose Driven Life has coined the mantra “It’s not about you,” but the purpose driven Elaine usually banks to the contrary. On my best days, there is still an awful lot of me in the mix. Thus, the constant prayer of my heart for the filling up and the spilling forth of God’s immeasurable love, not mine. Left to myself, my love deposits less—impure and small and of little worth in my Father’s kingdom economy.

My words and my pen may voice big, but at the end of the day, have my actions proved accordingly? I don’t want to simply write love, I want to live love … what my friend, California Kristen, would call “being the evidence.” Am I the living and breathing witness of God’s reach to humanity, or am I simply keeping my investments … my deposits … close to the vest? Are my transactions with others limited to the safe and the perfunctory, or do they extend to the deeper level of a heart to heart exchange?

Good questions to ponder this day. Not for condemnation’s sake but for eternity’s.

What we do with God’s love matters. If loving comes naturally to you, if the outgrowth of your inward pulse speaks love, lives love, and unwraps love in lavish measure, then there is something of our God living in you. You may not fully understand where your propensity for loving comes from, but its anchor holds in heaven, gripped by the hands of the Almighty Father who’s always been in the business of making deposits.

For our gain and for his glory.

God is love. He has gifted us with the capacity for knowing his love and for being his love to others. And while it sometimes might be more convenient and less messy to skip the process, as Christians, love is our requirement. No one gets a pass on this exam. Rather, it will be the measure of heaven’s reward.

“God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s.” (1 John 4:17, The Message).

When love “runs the house,” love rules the heart. And a heart ruled by love is a heart that is welcomed by a world in need of its deposit. Be it…

in the bank.
at the check out line.
in the doctor’s office.
at a school program.
in a courtroom.
in a classroom.
in a restaurant.
in our pews.
around our tables.
at the bedside of loved ones.

Wherever our journey leads, love in action is the one investment that seeds eternally. Thus, a doing I’ve been doing for a long season. A bank “deposit” that not only nourishes the flesh, but also tends to the soul as well.

Perhaps this day, in some small or huge way, there is “bank” awaiting your loving deposit. It probably won’t look like mine; no matter. God’s love breathes in all shapes and sizes and dimensions to fit specific needs. Your requirement is simply to come alongside his heart and to complete the process. To put action behind the thought and to “be the evidence” of your Father’s residency within.

It’s the stuff of small town living with a focus toward big kingdom gain. A day in the life of a believer, where laughter and joy abounds because others recognize our heavenly Father by name and give us the obligatory nod as his children. A sacred punctuation for the exchange of trust between man and his Maker. Between me and my God. Thus, I pray…

Help me to love, Father, even as you love. Fill me to overflow, and keep me making deposits accordingly—into the lives of others for their gain and for your increasing glory. You have entrusted me with the gift of your love. Let my actions and my obedience breathe with the witness of such a lavish endowment. And when I am tempted to love less, to invest safer and to the withdrawal therein, remind me of my family bloodlines that trace back to heaven and that require my privileged participation in the matter. Let your love run my house and rule my heart this day. Amen.

Copyright © December 2008 – Elaine Olsen. All rights reserved.

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To make a “deposit” like I did this morning, please visit Indiana Krisen at “Over the Backyard Fence” for this recipe of pumpkin crisp.Worth the baking, friends. I promise! Shalom.

Come, Tarry, Go

December 1, 2008

“‘If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD’s holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.’ The mouth of the LORD has spoken.” (Isaiah 58:13-14).

I remember the moment … as vividly as it breathed when I was five. I leaned over to my mother and asked her to read me the words that were beyond my articulation—three little words etched at the base of the stained-glass cross which adorned the front of our sanctuary.

“Come. Tarry. Go,” she replied. “It means you come, you stay awhile, and then you leave.”

I feel the warmth of her breath in this moment of recall. Those words and that cross have shadowed my steps ever since. I felt them profoundly today, as I participated in a doing I’ve been doing for my entire life. A doing that has carved me … etched me … filled me with the significance of my sacred worth. A doing that sometimes requires …

faith over feeling.
mind over matter.
willingness over weariness.

Today, my feet pilgrimed to God’s house for a Sabbath observance. Not because I felt like it; my feelings would have left me as I was—in bed and nursing a cough and sore throat that, perhaps, warranted my absence. No, this morning’s arrival at my church had nothing to do with my flesh and everything to do with my feet’s submission to a heart’s obedience.

Today, I walked to Jesus. Intentionally and dressed in my best simply because he is worthy. Any other half-hearted attempt at honoring him would be just that—half-hearted and less than and a whole lot like the world’s painting of a Sunday’s worth. A worth that levels toward self-soothing and doing as one pleases, rather than regarding the better necessary–that which leads a heart to worship.

And therein lies the seeding of my nearly four decades’ worth of faith.

What pleases me is doing what pleases God. And what pleases God is my honoring of him. My recognizing of his relevant and extravagant grace and how far it has traveled on my behalf. To a cross where he willingly came, sacrificially tarried, and resolutely departed once love’s redeeming work had walked its course.

His pause at Calvary means everything to me. The longer I walk with Jesus, the more I understand the depth of his gift. I didn’t understand it at five years old. I’m not sure I fully understand it now, but lingering in the shadow of the cross compels me to make the journey. Not because it needs my reverence, but rather because I need its reminder.

Thus, I come to the cross on Sundays. I tarry beneath its lavish grace that allows me my remembrance and that fuels my going forth in the week that lies ahead.

It’s not overly profound, and to some, it might seem rather perfunctory. Rather routine and packed with obligation, but when I consider what’s been wrought on my behalf, how foolish would I be to act to the contrary? To choose my pleasing over God’s pleasure? To walk as if my honor is worthy of more homage than his?

Doing life with Jesus has always been my privilege. It’s been yours too, but all too often, our gratitude walks in stark contrast to grace’s dispensation. Instead of finding our footing at Christ’s feet, we allow our flesh the wisdom to walk its intelligence. The problem with fleshly “wisdom” is that is will always choose self over the sacred—my pleasing over God’s.

And when a Sabbath day begins to look like every other day, when we refuse to give a moment’s tarry to the One who tarried long and deliberate in our stead, then we have not only forsaken our first love, but we have robbed ourselves of the rightful inheritance that is ours as children of the living God.

Jesus Christ.

He is our lasting and very great reward (Genesis 15:1). Spending time with him in intentional and deliberate worship is never wasted. It’s life-giving and heart-changing and moves our faith into a deeper place of obedience and understanding. Coming to the cross and tarrying with our Father in his truth, enables our go—our moving on and our moving out to spread the witness of his love. Without such pause, our lives breathe void of the power that comes from contemplated remembrance.

Today I remembered. I walked to God’s house, alongside my family, and took time to hear my mother’s words ringing in my ears even as they did in my long ago and far away. They still sing true. They still whisper fresh. They still and will forever be the remembrance of grace that shadows my steps until I reach the throne of heaven and sit at my Father’s feet for always.

Come. Tarry. Go.

A worthy obedience. A worthy Reward. Thus I pray…

Thank you, Father, for a Sabbath’s pause that allows me your gracious remembrance. Forgive me when I deem “my pleasing” as more substantial than yours. Yours fuels my forever with the only truth that seeds everlasting. May my coming and my tarrying always reflect the deep grace that I have known, and may my going always reflect my attending therein. Thank you for the cross, for love’s redeeming work, and for your Son’s obedience to both. And thank you for parents who took me to church, who filled my heart with the witness of your love, and who spoke the truth of a stained glass cross with every stepped submission of their journey. You graced me much when you gave me their arms. Amen.

Copyright © November 2008 – Elaine Olsen. All rights reserved

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The New World

November 25, 2008

“However, as it is written: ‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him’—but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10).

Not long ago, I sat down to watch Elizabeth: The Golden Age. The story is well-known to many but fairly new to me. I’m not a history enthusiast, although I am drawn to its memoirs via the silver screen. There’s something majestic and grand about visiting another era. When crafted well, “period pieces” etch their eccentricity into my soul, leaving me breathless for more.

The intrigues of yesterday’s “long-ago and far-away” are a worthy pause. They reveal truth by framing the past within the present. They trace our ancestral beginnings to our now, weaving a path of incomprehensible moments that lead us to this one moment in time. A day called today, when every yesterday bears the worthy trust of a purpose and a plan.

We couldn’t see it then because we didn’t live it then. Our lives were meant for this generation, but we are the witnesses to what remains—those blossomed remnants from a long-ago seeding that have fed our imaginations and scripted their influence into our current. Whether it be 500 years ago or five days ago, the past hosts the stage for the right now … for the future.

In one particular moving scene from Elizabeth, the Queen is listening to the wild rantings of explorer extraordinaire, Sir Walter Raleigh. He is describing the depth of what it was like for him to discover the new world. The tempestuous seas. The brittle cold. The weary nights and days and days and nights of water upon water with no land in sight. His is a compelling story, crescendoing with every detail until he unveils the moment of his discovery—the virgin vision of land in sight.

It is an edenic moment, one that scripts with the lush and green and wild of a fresh unearthing.

Elizabeth is undone with the telling, imagining the far-away and what it must be like to live within the edges of such adventure. With tears brimming from emotion, she voices the penchant of her heart…

“Do we discover the new world, Mr. Raleigh, or does the new world discover us?”

And with that question, I am undone. It’s a worthy wondering, for before me … before each one of us … is a brave, new and unseen world offering up its invitation to come. To set our sails in a new direction that is fraught with the unknown and the unimaginable.

Who can really plan for a sea’s crossing in advance? Who can measure the depth of the dark and the waves and the ill-effects of climate shift prior to departure? Who can reason the sun’s heat and thirst of a long journey? Who can forecast the wide open skies of a sea’s starry night or the brushstrokes of a horizon’s morning? Who can fathom the ups and the downs and the side to sides of a watery perimeter? Who can fully comprehend the completed journey even before it begins? Who can see the new world prior to leaving the old?

Who indeed?

God can. He did, and he continues to do so. On our behalf and on behalf of those who’ve come before and those who are soon to follow. He sees it all, from beginning to end—the new world. It commenced on the shores of his sacred understanding; it will finish accordingly. But sandwiched in between those eternal bookends?

A sea’s crossing. A journey’s now. From coast to coast, where faith becomes the wind that sails us home into safe harbor.

Do we discover the new world, or does the new world discover us?

Yes and yes.

It’s not that it hasn’t been there all along. Its shores have always sung. Its land has always known the generous breathing of a big and mighty God. Its width and length and heighth and depth have been measured and established by the wisdom of its Creator and sustained accordingly. The inconceivable has been conceived by the only mind capable of holding such vision.

And if we, by the grace of God, have set our sights on Jesus, then with every passing day, in unsuspecting and unimaginable ways, we catch glimpses of the harbor that stands on the horizon. A reachable Eden that scripts with the lush and green and wild of a fresh unearthing.

The new world and us. An unlikely coupling. A joint discovery on both counts. Together, a profound weaving that breathes and brims with unending possibility and with the breathless yearning for more.

More adventure.
More edges.
More moments.
More risks.
More faith.
More discovery.

More nights of stars and days of horizons, piece by piece until we arrive on the shores of the new world, and we trade in our weary remnants for the full dressing of our forever.

Who can fathom the worth of such a journey? I am compelled to try, for long ago and far away, in another era it seems, God’s love called out his invitation for me to come. A “period piece” from my history that etched its eccentricity into my soul. I’ve been sailing its waters ever since. It’s been a worthy row, friends, and one that is drawing me ever closer to my discovery of the new world. I bet you could voice the same. May God keep us, everyone, to the journey until we land in the seen reality of our unseen and wild imaginings. It won’t be long, thus I pray…

Bring us home, Father God, into safe harbor with you. Keep our eyes fixed on the horizon instead of the sea that seeks to drown our faith in the process. Thank you for the process of discovery and for the vision that you’ve seeded in our hearts for the inconceivable realities that you conceived on our behalf long ago. Your grace is the unimaginable gift that allows us participation in the new world. It leaves me breathless and with a heart of thanksgiving for the life I’ve been allowed. Keep me grateful. Keep me mindful. Keep me moving forward, straight into your arms. Amen.

Copyright © November 2008 – Elaine Olsen. All rights reserved

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours! I will be traveling this week and plan on stepping away from the computer for a few days. Enjoy some turkey and some fellowship with family and friends. I am thankful for you, my blogging companions, who have spent the better part of 9 months on the journey with me. What a joy to share this road with pilgrims like you! I mean that. Shalom.

Category Archives: eternity