Category Archives: family fun

Storyteller

God is the Master Storyteller.

He writes good lines, thinks long-term, and fills up our books with chapters unimaginable to us on the front side of their unfolding.

Don’t believe me? Well, let me tell you a story…

There is a memory I am holding today. It’s a bit shadowy around the edges as I was only 5 or 6 years old, but with clarity I recall the scene; in particular, I remember the person – a boy named “K.” K and I attended the same church with our parents and often found ourselves around a table in a Sunday School classroom.

On this particular Sunday morning, I met K for the first time. He was energetic, happy and full of joy. I sensed that he was somehow different from the rest of us, but no one seemed to mind. I would grow in my understanding of K over the years regarding his uniqueness as well as his challenges. As we grew older, I saw him less, understanding that his life and mine would never walk the same path forward – that our childhood connection would remain solidly fixed in my memories with an occasional present-day rumination about his current whereabouts.

I wonder what ever happened to K?

Well, I know what happened to K.

Fast forward through fifty years of living. Through moves – nine relocations in three states. Through marriages. Through babies. Through graduations. Through college drop offs. Through two extraordinary daughters-in-law. Through grandkids. Through disease. Through the trauma of almost losing a child – a son named Jadon. All the way through to this moment, to today.

This is where I hit the pause button, because it is now when the lines of God’s story get really interesting.

Tonight, my son Jadon will walk to K’s house, sit around his table for an evening, break bread with him and begin a journey as companions – a friendship (once removed) that began 50 years ago with K and I in a Sunday school classroom, dancing around in circles.

Six months ago, Billy and I took Jadon to Wilmore, KY, and dropped him off to begin his seminary training at Asbury. Our hearts remain tender with the separation. Our hearts also overflow with joy knowing that Jadon is where he needs to be to continue his journey in a place that holds everlasting significance for me.

My dad was a professor at Asbury Seminary, beginning in 1970 and continuing for over 40 years. My mother? The registrar at Asbury Seminary. My husband? A graduate of Asbury Seminary. I cut my spiritual teeth running the hallways of that hallowed institution, along with the hallways of the Wilmore United Methodist Church (the church where Jadon is now the youth pastor). What was sown and grown inside of me in that season is a history that continues to write the lines of my present-day story. Deeply so.

Not long ago, a college friend who is closely connected to K’s family reached out to me about Jadon’s possible interest in working with K. Throughout the years, she and I have kept in touch through social media; she closely followed along with Jadon’s miraculous recovery from a 2018 traumatic brain injury. After a few conversations with her, an initial meeting with K and some further training, Jadon begins in his new role this evening.

And I am caught in the moment, in the magic and mystery of God’s story-telling skills.

Fifty years ago, I danced around a Sunday school classroom with K. And God looked on. I wondered if he smiled and thought…

Just wait, Elaine, about fifty years from now. Have I got a story to tell you!

Funny how our lives write the witness of God’s faithfulness … glorious really. How what we cannot see now … imagine now … is but the heavenly word bank from which the Master Storyteller chooses the words to write an eternal, best-seller.

God is faithful. He will not leave our stories unfinished without a witness. He’s watching from a far, maybe even smiling because…

He knows what he is doing. He knows how to weave our past into our future in beautiful measure. Maybe there’s strength in that truth for you tonight. Keep rehearsing your history with God and looking for all the ways that your former steps inform your current ones.

Rest alongside the Storyteller. He who began a very good work in you is faithful to complete it. Trust Him for the finish.

Word has it that endings are his specialty. As always…

Peace for the journey,

the restless ache of night…

“When you come to the door, kiss me on the cheek so that I know I am safe.”

I found the piece of paper inside my red diary. I keep treasured notes from days gone by tucked inside its pages. The diary was a Christmas gift to me in 1974. The note inside? Well, it was gift to me in 2012, written by my ten-year-old daughter who needed to know that she was safely tucked in and remembered by her momma. In writing the note, she put her faith into action, knowing that her slumber would more than likely precede the kiss. But the promise of a kiss, the certainty of a final “tucking in” was just enough to soothe the restless ache of night.

I imagine I did kiss her that night. I don’t remember the occasion leading up to the letter’s writing; but I remember seeing the note gently lying outside her bedroom door and thinking to myself,

“I’m going to need this someday. I’m going to tuck this one away.”

And here I am, eight years later, needing it now. Like my daughter, my heart cries out for safety–a tucking in beneath the covers and the covering of a gentle kiss–something just strong enough and tender enough to soothe the reckless ache of my night.

Perhaps that is what led me to make a spontaneous journey to see my folks today. They reside in a senior living community that could, at any moment, be put under quarantine because of the coronavirus. I’m glad I went. We shared a meal and some conversation, and before I left, I did something I’ve never done before. I took my daddy’s hands in mine, and I clipped his nails. Not because he couldn’t, but because I wanted to … wanted to tenderly touch the hands that first held mine. The hands that cradled me. The hands that raised me. The hands that blessed me. The hands that, time and again, tucked me in as a youth and reminded me that I was safe, that I was under the watchful gaze and the tender care of a daddy who loved me very much.

He still does. And while today’s “tucking in” didn’t include a bedtime ritual, the same sentiment was shared between us. Today, we tucked each other in tightly, reminding one another that we are both safe. That even in the restless ache of this night season, our faith is strong. Today, Daddy and I wrote our own note to our Father, a prayer that harkens back to a little girl’s wish from eight years ago:

When you come to the door tonight, Father, when you tiptoe down the hall and see us in our fitful slumbering, kiss us on the cheek so that we’ll know we are safe. Remember we are here. Remember we are hurting. Remember we sometimes get spooked by the shadows surrounding us. Hem us in tightly, behind and before, and place your blanket of peace over the restless ache of our night.

Maybe tonight you seek the same assurance that my daughter sought so long ago … the same I sought today. Perhaps the restless ache of night has gotten the best of you. You’re hurting; you’re worried; the shadows around and the shadows within are dimming faith’s light. It’s been a long time since you’ve experienced a tender tucking in and a sweet slumber therein. You need to know that you are safe; you need to know that your Daddy is watching over you. You need to know that your Father is within reach.

He is, friend. He’s just down the hall, and he’s on his way to your door right now. He has seen your note, and he has noted your need. The restless ache of your night is no match for the peaceful salve of his touch.

He is here, and you are safe. Rest confidently and faithfully in his arms tonight. As always…

Peace for the journey,

a letter to my grand-girl

Dear Grand-girl (aka ‘Lil Miss Woods),

I’ve been thinking a long time about what kind of gift I could give you on your birthday – that very first day when you emerge from the safety of your darkened cocoon into the explosive light of the world you’ll soon call home. Another pink “welcome to the world” onesie, along with a matching “I’m the Grandma” t-shirt doesn’t quite fit the moment, so I think I’ll take a pass on those at this time. (But at some point, don’t be surprised if I’m decorated from head to toe in granny wear, a trait for which you can thank the Olsen side of your family tree. They love a good party and any occasion that allows them to dress up the moment with lavish expressions of wonderment and love.)

No, at this time in your life you don’t need more things to clutter your thinking. Instead, what you most need is the steady and certain love of a family that will never let you go–long and wide and high and deep stretches from the arms that will cradle your beginning and that will carry you forward for the rest of your life.

You’ve got that in us. We’re a sturdy bunch, a motley crew of misfits at times, but a crew strengthened and ready for your road ahead. Why ready? Well, we’ve spent our entire lives growing up so that we might better help you to do the same. Every single one of us have labored and strived all the days of our lives beneath the light and shadow of the Almighty–the Father who has knit you together in your precious momma’s womb. We’ve lived with God. We’ve walked with God. We’ve worked on our faith, and we know to whom we belong. God’s arms are the ones now cradling you in safety. Soon he’ll delivery you into ours. What mystery! What trust! What grace!

As your grandmother, I won’t always be ringside for some of your milestones. I’ll probably miss a lot of them, and I’m mostly OK with that. Those moments belong to you and your parents. And I know they’ll be great ones because I, too, have sat ringside to every milestone of the four kids God has entrusted me to raise … your dad, Nick, your Uncle Colton, your Uncle Jadon, and your Aunt Amelia. Their baptisms, their birthdays, their ballgames, their recitals, their break ups, their first days of driving, their graduations, their marriages, their tears, their fears. Their successes and their occasional failures. Their questions, their doubts, and their settled conclusions. It’s all been on a learning curve for me as a mom, but it has been and will remain the most exceptional privilege of my fifty-three years on this earth.

Wanna know a little secret about your dad? He made me a mom on April 11, 1989, the day after my 23rd birthday. He arrived two weeks prior to his due-date. I knew nothing about being a parent. Zilch. I had a lot of growing up to do myself, and for the last thirty years, I like to say that your dad and I have been growing up together. As he was learning to walk as a toddler, I was learning the fine art of walking as a mom. I still am.

And now, because of you, your parents will have the delicate and delightful privilege of further personal growth because they’ll grow alongside you. You will teach them their parenting skills. God has hand-picked you … entrusted you … as their training manual, and I am not one bit worried about their qualifications. They are rock stars.

Your dad is strong, thoughtful, courageous, contemplative, passionate, faithful, a gifted communicator, and he is truthful (perhaps one of the qualities I admire most about him). A person of truth is a person unafraid of exposure. It takes a long time to cultivate that kind of integrity (some of us spend our entire lives endeavoring to get there), but your dad seemed to be born with a generous portion of it in his DNA. He can’t help but tell the truth, even when it costs him some of his pride (and he’s got a lot of that too, but you’ll help him with that). He will never leave you. He is devoted to you and to your mom. And because Nick’s not a time waster, I always said that he would marry the first woman he seriously dated because he wasn’t going to prattle away a single moment on a girl he hadn’t already decided was worth the investment. I was right.

To give his heart wholeheartedly to one woman, your mom, is one of the greatest gifts he’s already given you. But even more important than his devotion to your mother, your father is devoted to your Creator, and beneath that light and shadow, he will carefully guard his own deposit of faith entrusted to him at an early age so that, in time, you’ll be collecting a faith your own.

As a mom, I have learned this most important truth, and now as your grandmother, I will endeavor to live it out more fully:

My job, my legacy, is to drop enough breadcrumbs of faith along the trodden path of this life so that all of my children, that you and the other grand-girls and grand-boys who will eventually fill up our family tree, can safely find your way home … back into the hands of the One who authored your life and who promises to perfect it.

And now, a word or two about your mom. I don’t know her nearly as well as I know your dad, but in the short time we’ve done life together, I am solidly convinced about her character and her commitment to raise you up with deep roots. Your mom’s strength is equal to your dad’s. She’s a home-grown, home-town girl whose sense of family anchors deeply within that Appalachian soil where she took her first steps. She’s smart (I mean really smart – she’s a professor with a PhD and everything and can produce an academic paper worthy of publication as easily as she drinks a cup of water). She’s clever, witty and can hold her own when it comes to matching wills with your father. She’s quiet, but when she speaks, we listen in because we know we’re going to get something more, another little piece of the puzzle that tells us who she is. I imagine that in these days of growing up alongside you, your mom will reveal even bigger pieces of her story to us, and I think those revelations will blow our minds. She’ll be the doorkeeper of your home, closely guarding who’s coming in and even more so, your going out. She’s a secret-keeper, and while I’m on the complete opposite end of that spectrum, I think her ability to hold things more closely to her heart (to not vocally share every blessed thought that comes into her mind) will help you to learn how to govern your own thoughts, your words, your actions.

Both of your parents already love you unconditionally. The relationship that you share with them will probably be the most important, framed picture in your home, the best snapshot that captures how Jesus really does love us all … that agape love which puts “best interest over self- interest” (you can read all about that kind of loving in 1 Corinthians 13. Uncle Jadon will be happy to break it down for you. He loves God’s Word, and he’ll love answering all your questions). This kind of love is an important picture to hang in your heart, and it has been through this lens (this love that I have for my four children) that I have finally been able to grasp just an inkling of how much I am loved by God. Best interest over self-interest … the Calvary story. One I will tell you more about in coming days. Consider this letter the prologue. 

So sweet precious grand-girl, you who I have not yet seen with my eyes, you whose name has not yet been revealed to the world, I am at a better place of peace in my life because you are now in it. God has seen you. God knows your name, and very soon we’ll start writing the chapters of your life together. And when you can’t find the words to your story, I’ll help you look for them. When the chapters don’t make sense in isolation, I’ll remind you of the bigger picture … that all good stories have a clear beginning, a mostly muddled middle, and, ultimately, a grand conclusion. When the pen you’re holding in your hand loses its ink, when the well from which you draw the lines of your story seemingly dries up, come over to mine and borrow some. My well runs long and wide and high and deep. I’ll lend you my strength because this fragile world you’re entering into, the one where you will write your legacy, will require it. Don’t let that reality scare you. Instead, let it challenge you, embolden you, because this I promise you …

God has already given you everything you need to make it through this delicate dance called life. He’s given you the promise of his presence, and he’s given you the present of our presence. Presence is the best gift we can give you on the advent of your arrival. You’re one of us now. Your name has been carved into the family tree, smack dab in the middle of our names. Our signatures surround yours. We’ll watch over you, and by God’s grace, we’ll all leave a trail of breadcrumbs so that you might most clearly and most easily find your way home.

And as always, may God forever bestow upon you, over you and beneath you, before and behind you, his peace for the journey. There’s no better place to grow up. 

I love you,
Your granny

a time to keep

Packing while unpacking.

It seems like a contradiction, but it’s really just a delicate consideration about things kept, things discarded, things remembered, and decisions therein. One doesn’t pack up a house … a history … without a little unpacking of the soul alongside.

A time to keep and a time to throw away, as Solomon would say.

Such has been my portion since April 10th, the day I first learned of our impending move to Benson, NC. It almost seems like yesterday when our moving van pulled up to the parsonage in Laurinburg and we began to unpack our lives here.

Six years of living history in this space. Six years of being loved, being sheltered, being known, and being well-cared for. Saint Luke UMC has been a good place to grow and to rest our hearts. Some would call us crazy for leaving this place, this congregation and this community. In fact, on paper, it doesn’t make much sense as far as pastoral moves go.

But every now and again, “what makes sense” gets trumped by something greater, something higher, something more akin to choosing “what’s best for now” over “what’s been best for the past six years.” And that best for us?

Moving closer to home.

“Home?” you might ask.

Yes, home. You see, for me, home is portable.

It’s not a place. It’s a people. It’s not a house. It’s a family.

And my membership in a family began a long time before I married Preacher Billy. Before I was part of the Olsen family, I was part of the Killian family. Before I was a pastor’s wife or Nick, Colton, Jadon, and Amelia’s mom, I was a daughter. I still am. I belong to Chuck and Jane, and they belong to me. We’ve been a family for fifty-three years.

I spent the first twenty-one years of my life living under their roof in Wilmore, KY. Eight years later, I returned home for an additional three years where they continued to parent me as well as their two young grandsons. I moved away from Kentucky a final time in 1998, and four years later in 2002, my folks followed suit, relocating to North Carolina to be closer to their family. Dad left his fruitful career as a professor at Asbury Seminary to pastor two small churches in Mayodan, NC, while mom came along for the ride as his help-mate.

Apparently, “home” was portable for them as well.

Not a place, but a people. Not a house, but a family.

Us. We are that family. We were the reason they uprooted their existence of thirty plus years and said good-bye to their community, their countless friends, and their comfort. If you asked them today, I don’t imagine they’d voice any regrets. Their great sacrifice has been our great gain. The life we’ve shared together because of their being closer to us cannot be calculated in dollars and cents. It can only be measured in the heart, in those deep kinds of ways that shore up a foundation, solidify a history, and fortify a future. My parents brought “home” to us seventeen years ago.

Two months from now, we will have the rich privilege of returning the favor … of bringing “home” to them. For how long, only God knows. But for however long he ordains, we will be able to “do life” more practically with our parents. More time together. More face to face. More memories made because of more access. And that, friends, is what is best for now.

A home delivery to the Killian family from the Olsen family.

Indeed …

A time to keep.

Even so, Lord Jesus, grant us your peace for the journey as we walk these next steps in absolute faith and expectation. Amen.

fly with Christ…

“At least in heaven we’ll be friends again.”

Tears fell from her eyes as she imparted a final hope regarding a relational struggle she’s been dealing with for the past six months. Tears fell from my eyes as well. As a mother, my greatest personal pains have always been attached to the pains of my children’s hearts. Whatever they’re carrying, I tend to carry as well.

It would be easier if I could divorce myself from the struggle, but that’s not the deal. Parenting doesn’t come with pause buttons or expiration dates. Twenty-nine years ago, I didn’t understand the magnitude of what parenting love would encompass, but I did understand at least one thing going in:

I would do everything within my power to keep my children safe.

Safe. Protected. No harm done. Minimal exposure to danger or risk.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that, as it pertains to their safety, my ability to control it was limited.
Fevers. Scraped knees. Upset tummies. Playground taunts. Broken bones. Broken relationships. Outside intrusions of all manners and manipulations. No, I wasn’t going to be able to prevent them all. Multiplied times four and, well let’s just say, my kids’ strife has earned for me my parenting stripes.

Even today, I still want to keep them safe, but after years of not being able to manage it perfectly, I understand something further, something deeper as it pertains to this shaping, parental love:

A mother’s safety can sometimes be restrictive to the neglect of being instructive.

When my well-meaning desire to make their pain go away prohibits their pain from being a way to mature them, then I have limited (and underestimated) the power of the tender moment.

It’s not that I wish pain on them as some warped way of growing them. Never. Oh that our heart-shaping would come to us more through our laughter than through our tears! But I’ve lived long enough, cried hard enough, trod deep enough through my own personal sorrows to believe that they have, in fact, made me wiser and, more importantly, moved me closer to the heart of God.

When I can’t understand the why, I can run to the Who. And it’s there, in that sacred space of aching exploration, where I receive an understanding that cannot be found in a textbook and a rich comfort that cannot be bought from a shelf.

I find Jesus, a Savior who does not retreat from my pain but a Friend who enters into it. Who waits with me. Who stays with me. Who walks with me. Who mentors me.

Jesus comes to my pain, and to the pain of my children, and, if allowed, shapes a kingdom heart—a heart likened unto his own. A heart that lives through the pain so as to rise as a witness because of it.

I don’t know what lies ahead for my daughter as it pertains to her current heart struggle, but I do know that hope lives in her—a hope not anchored in false realities but, rather, a hope tethered to the truth of Jesus Christ. And for that alone (at least this time), I am willing to loosen my grip on the safety net I’ve been holding beneath her so that she might fall into firmer hands…

A God that will not let her go. A Father who will keep her safe and who will grow her into a bastion of strength, grace, and eternal nobility.

No, I cannot keep her safe this time.

Instead, I will allow Him to do so.

So, fly with Christ, sweet one. And, as always,

Peace for the journey,
Mom

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