family fun | Elaine Olsen

Guarding the Sacred

October 22, 2008

My son was watching for his morning ride to school. I was waiting for my rest. The latter wouldn’t come until the former had walked its course. It did, and after hugs and kisses good-bye, I made my way to the bedroom and opened up the Word of God.

I didn’t know at the time that his watching and my waiting would eventually weave together as a sacred portrait of truth, but God knew. He began the portrait even before I began my daily reading. But as so often the case with a heart in a hurry for a quick fix of Jesus, the holy breath of a single moment is sometimes missed. Overlooked and pushed aside in favor of a seemingly more divine approach to doing life with Jesus.

I missed it this morning, temporarily. But God knew that I needed it. Thus, he tendered my heart with his Word, and opened up my eyes to receive a gift that might have, otherwise, gone unnoticed. It would punctuate on the other side of my reading from Proverbs 4:23-27.

“Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk far from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you. Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm. Do not swerve to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.” (Proverbs 4:23-27).

Guarding the heart. What does that look like? It looks intense. From the Hebrew transliterated word natsar:

“To guard, watch, watch over, keep; to preserve, to guard from dangers; to be kept close, to be blockaded; watchman.”[i]

Further is carries the heaviness of the Hebrew transliterated word mishmar meaning “a place of confinement, prison, guard, jail, guardpost, watch, observant.”[ii]

Guarding the heart is serious business. Why? Because the heart houses the wellspring of true living.

“Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’” (John 4:13-14).

“On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. …” (John 7:37-39a).

Our hearts are worthy of watchful care. Not only do they rhythm with the pulse of our next breath, but greater still, they rhythm with the pulse of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling. And that combination, friends, is a proverbial dam waiting to burst its wet onto the lives of those who walk within its reach. He is a worthy cause. His holy dwelling—our hearts—are a worthy upkeep.

Keeping purity at a premium requires more than a casual approach to heart tending. Keeping purity means keeping watch. It means a straight walk from today into tomorrow. A fixed gaze on the unseen, yet fully accessible God who seeds our lives with the truth of his identity everyday and in everyway. It means sticking to the beaten path even when the unmarked trails proffer their adventure and intrigue. It means putting one foot in front of the other, even though the dance on the peripheral voices a fanciful escape.

It means not worrying about the scenery on the right and in the left, but only on the scene that landscapes directly in front of us. The long awaited finished line that punctuates with an eternal glory that far outweighs the exploration of temporal paths. Guarding the good and sacred deposit given to each one of us as believers in Jesus Christ comes with a deliberate and focused watch over the heart … over what’s getting in and what’s flowing out.

We do it through spending time on our faces in prayer with that God. We do it by training our minds with the truth of God’s Word. We do it by refusing the world’s dressing and, instead, dressing ourselves in full battle gear that includes: a belt of truth, a breastplate of righteousness, two shoes (not one) of peace’s gospel, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the indwelling and uncompromising Spirit of the living God.

And if you’re a little child, one who houses a wild and tenacious imagination toward all things that go bump in the night or otherwise, you do it by keeping your rifle in hand, pulling up a chair, and fixing your watchful gaze on the world outside.

This is God’s portrait of truth, painted for me without my knowing. Saved for me and for a moment when I was unhurried and unconcerned about a quick fix of Jesus. The holy breath of heaven breathed its witness in my house this morning. He came in his Word and spoke a good teaching. He came through the witness of my son’s imagination and shouted his profound punctuation.

Doing life with Jesus has never tasted any sweeter. I’m guarding it more closely today. Thus I pray,

Thank you, Lord, for the eyes to see the tracing of your hand in my life—through your Word and through the simple posture of a child’s imagination. Never let my spiritual routine become my excuse for not living in the moment. For not pausing to contemplate the extraordinary wrappings of any extraordinary grace that comes in all types of packages, big and small. I thank you for my son’s watchful care of our home. May the watchful care of my heart speak with such similar and fervent intention. Amen.

[i] http://studylight.org/desk/?l=en&query=Proverbs+4%3A23-27&section=0&translation=nsn&oq=&sr=1
[ii] http://studylight.org/desk/?l=en&query=Proverbs+4%3A23-27&section=0&translation=nsn&oq=&sr=1

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

The Rhythm of Eternity

October 18, 2008

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

My college-age son is home for the weekend. He is my delight and joy and the welcome of my heart on every occasion. He is becoming the man I never imagined him to be because as a young mother at twenty-three, I wasn’t prone to my imagination. I was simply prone to survival. Both his and mine.

In many ways, those days seem long ago and packed away as a seasonal remembrance. I don’t recall them often. But every now and then, even though he is well on his path toward manhood, I am reminded about the springtime of his youthful beginnings. I catch a glimpse of a little blonde-headed boy who took to life with a passion for the process. It was a process seeded and watered and grown alongside his younger brother.

They are quite a pair. Best friends. Fierce warriors. Competitive in most things, yet quick to applaud one another’s accolades. I can’t imagine one without the other, but when Nick left home almost two years ago, I had to. Imagine. Them apart. The silence was palpable. The room above my bedroom no longer bore the strain of two sets of feet. The late night conversations between them no longer kept me awake or forced my intrusion in the matter.

And while I welcome the more quiet approach to nighttime routine, I miss their voices. I miss their laughter. I miss knowing that all of my children are safe and sound and tucked in for another night of rest under my roof. We don’t have many of those nights now, but when we do—when Nick comes home to rest in his old and with his familiar—the floors creak their resistance and the late night conversations return.

Last night was one of those nights. Rather than reaching for the broom that stands bedside as my implement for reminding the boys about my need for rest, I reached for the earplugs. And instead of hearing the sounds of my sons’ laughter and conversation, I heard the echoes of something far different. Remote at first. Louder and more persistent as time elapsed.

I heard the beat of my own heart.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Over and over again, until the sound took the stage of my imagination, and I began to ponder the magnitude of what I was hearing. Last night, over the din of an upstairs conversation and through the rhythmic lull of a heart’s beat, I heard the cadence of heaven’s pulse. I heard …

Eternity.

What does eternity sound like? How does it hear? Greater still, how does it breathe?

It sounds precise and continuous. It hears vivid and real. It breathes genuine and on purpose. One beat after another and with the focused intention of keeping me alive and keeping me as useful.

God knew what he was doing when he seeded eternity into the hearts of men and women. No other vessel in the human body could house such significance. No other organ could more appropriately dress the magnitude of such a gift. No other portion of this fleshly frame could support the creative genius of an eternal pulse. None. Why?

Because our hearts are the navigational force behind our steps.

Our feet won’t move forward without the beat of the heart.
Our minds won’t motion their purpose without the beat of the heart.
Our giftings won’t serve the world without the beat of the heart.
Our plans won’t come to fruition without the beat of the heart.
Our love won’t wrap its arms without the beat of the heart.
Our souls won’t find their rest without the beat of the heart.
Our sins won’t find their grace without the beat of the heart.
Our lives won’t live their sacred worth without the beat of the heart.

In every way and in every day, the heart completely and holy matters. The heart is the significant linchpin when it comes to living the gift of a single day. Without its pulse, we are dead. Done. Completely and fully out of options. When the heart stops servicing our frames, the eternal seeding therein moves elsewhere.

Either onto the full and promised perfection of heaven or into the full and promised ruination of hell. That, my friends, is what eternity sounds like. That is how it hears and, greater still, that is how it breathes.

Forever.

Not just today or in the things that we can touch and feel and manage with our minds. But for always and especially in ways that are beyond our understanding and our reasoned grasp. There are untold mysteries encased within the parameters of a heart’s pulse. We cannot fully fathom nor plumb the depths of such treasures.

If we are Christians, then we can begin in our understanding of one of them. His name is Jesus, and he owns the pulse of our hearts. He lives within this sacred vessel and tends to our eternal seed with the loving grace that will carry us home to our forever.

But for those who are not Christians, for those who have yet to begin in their understanding of all things sacred, their eternal seed lies dormant. Tended to by the wisdom and careful watch of an enemy who shrouds the truth of God’s unseen eternal with the lies of a temporal “as good as it gets.” With the voice that breathes the deception of…

An absent everlasting seed.
A day that walks in isolation.
A life not worthy of further examination.

Regardless of the lie, eternity’s seed still exists. No amount of pretending that it doesn’t changes the truth that it does, in fact, exist. Every human being is created with a heart worthy of heaven. In this very moment, it beats with the witness of sacred possibility. For you. For me and for the sake and salvation of a created race who has never taken the time to listen. Can you hear it? Won’t you try?

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
Thump … thump.
Thump.
T h u m p.
T h h h—————————-u———————m——————————–p.

Where will your eternity land?

With holy fear and trembling, I pray that yours will be seeded and watered alongside mine … with Jesus in heaven. Thus I pray,

Thank you for seeding us all with the gift of eternity, Father, even when our soiled hearts refuse the planting. Prod us toward further understanding in the matter, and stir our need in restless confusion until we pause to clarify your truth. Thank you for choosing the likes of my heart as your dwelling. Make me ever mindful of your presence within and ever careful to acknowledge your living witness to others. You are the treasure of my flesh. Thank you for making me yours. Amen.

Have a blessed Sabbath rest, sweet ones. You have been so kind and gracious in your words and prayers for me this week. I love you dearly. Shalom!

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

Raising Faith (part nine): Embracing Your Release

August 17, 2008

It’s been a year now since we moved our son into his second floor dorm room at Campbell University. Even tonight, those memories come to me with clarity as if lived only moments ago.

Everyone told me it would get better—this pain that kicked me in the gut with the force and fury of a winded hurricane. I didn’t believe them then, but time has walked its cadence. And now a year down the road, my wounds of separation have healed, as God has tenderly walked me through this mothering milestone with the prayed for measure of grace that speaks the witness of a Father’s faithfulness.

Tonight we stand at the edge of another letting go. We are preparing to send him back. I won’t be making the trip this time. There is less need now, but there was a deep need back then. Then was painful. Now is joyful. Not because I am glad to see him go, but simply because I am free to let him do so. Free to let him become and to grow into the man who God has called him to be.

Nick and I have done a lot of maturing over the past year. I’ve come to understand that my “release” is necessary if he is to fly. I know it sounds simple. In theory, it is. But doing it—embracing the letting go? Far from simple. For me, it’s been the most complex learning to date. Honestly, I’m glad to be on the other side of this one, but while my heart rests this night in peace for the process, I know that there are those of you who are profoundly feeling the effects of being on “this side” of the letting go.

I’m drawn to you. My tears have wept for you. I cannot keep from being filled to a heart’s brim with a deep measure of understanding love and compassion for the steps that you are making. What can one mother possibly render as useful in this time of painful transition? What could be said that hasn’t already been spoken over your bleeding wounds? Probably very little.

But this I will tell you, for I know it to be true. I’ve lived and breathed its witness in this past year and in the previous nineteen that lie behind.

Our God is faithful and good. We will never rightly “let go” of anyone without his knowing and without his holy nod of approval. What pains us, pains him. Those we hold as dear and precious in our hearts are held as more precious in his. He allowed them our homes and our influence for a season, and now he asks us to release them back into the hands that held them first. To the God who shaped them and formed them and adorned them with the lavish expression of heaven (Psalm 139).

He asks of us a hard thing. But hard is not always bad, and in this case, hard is very good and especially right and our necessary portion if our children are ever to find their firm rooting in Jesus.

I didn’t like it then, but it swallows easier tonight, for I have gained the wisdom of a year long learning. I have hindsight, and before long, you will have it too. It cannot be rushed through, even though your heart cries out for the finished process. It simply must walk. Step by step until you find yourself on the other side of “letting go.”

As a word of witness this night, I want to share with you my penned ache from a year ago. Perhaps it voices the tears of your eyes even now. (an email sent to friends on August 18, 2007…)

There are some things…some places in all of our lives that simply are too tender for words. Moments when we come to the utter edges of ourselves and wonder where we will find the strength for the next moment. Where we are caught in the fragment between breaths and find it difficult to breathe our next.

I had one of those moments today. To date, it is the most difficult pain I have ever known. For those of you who have been through it, you’re nodding your head just now. For those of you who await its arrival in the somewhere not so distant future, you’ll not fully appreciate it until it arrives.

I hugged him tightly, cried my eyes out, and groaned with utterings that words cannot express most of the hour ride home from Campbell University this afternoon. I listened, in turn, as the 16 year old in the back seat uttered his own share of groanings. Bless Billy…all he was allowed to do was to manage the van back to our driveway. And just when I thought I had conquered my angst, I arrived home to find a beautiful bouquet of flowers on the kitchen counter. It arrived somewhere around noon today, while my in-laws were watching the little ones.

Completely of his own accord, my college freshman son (who I’ve often thought not quite ready for the world…for you see he has so much more to learn…so many more ways to mature) did a very “adult” thing. A very lovely and gracious thing. He thought of his mom, and he told her that he loved her…that she was his heart.

All I could do was hug my flowers and have my husband take a picture of me pitifully cradling my gift. A memory for the years to come. To remind me that, perhaps, Nicholas is ready for the world, and that with God’s help, we will both manage the transition with a measure of grace and joy.
Thank you for the times when you’ve prayed for us. I felt every one of those petitions honored today. Tonight I will gaze upon my bouquet as I let their beauty and my tears lull me to sleep to awaken me to another day. A Sabbath day.

A day that will rise on all of us and beckon our participation. I pray that all of us will find rest with our great and awesome God as the dawn announces its arrival.

I love you all. Thank you for loving us.

Peace…sweet peace for the journey and for the next.

Sabbath did come, my friends, and I found my peace in this journey through God’s amazing love and tender care over my soul. It will come for you, too, for Sabbath rest is always our portion when we allow our Father the freedom to walk our hurt and to heal our hearts.

This won’t be my final chorus of surrender as it pertains to my children. It has been the first and because of it, I will have some courage and understanding for the next. Perhaps, you need a little courage and understanding tonight. Your heart and your pain are safe with me. Greater still…

Your heart is perfectly loved and safe with our Father. More than anyone, He understands the painful tug of “letting go.” He walked it with his Son so that we could walk to him with our surrenders and lay them safely in his hands.

May God grant you the grace, wisdom, and beauty of a sacred release tonight. And may He always…always…give you his,

PS: Nick’s just taken off…I am fine. There is, however, another young lady who isn’t faring so well.

Raising Faith (part seven): Embracing Your DNA

August 5, 2008

For Miss Amelia who crashed onto my scene six years ago this day, teaching me of tender and pink and lovely! Together, we are finding our pretty in Jesus Christ. You are my heart, precious daughter. Happy Birthday.

August 5, 2002

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”
(1 John 3:1-2).

Some say I look like her.

(grandma maybelle, elaine)

Some say she looks like me.

(elaine, daughter amelia)

Either way, I don’t mind. I like family imprints and being able to trace genetic resemblances from one generation to the next.

It shouts the message of connection…

of belonging.
of fitting.
of having roots…past, present, and future.

There’s something sacred about family resemblances—a deep, abiding truth that lies within the woven fabric of a shared identity. There are no random or accidental look alikes. My favoring of grandma and my daughter’s favoring of me is by divine design. God had a say in the matter, and I like knowing that the same hands who formed Maybelle are the same hands who fashioned me and my Amelia. Decades and centuries have not blurred his focus. Rather, he has kept the blueprints on file and tweaked them according to his desire.

All of us share some similarities with members of our family tree. If not physically, then perhaps along the lines of personality and preferences. We can’t help but wear some of the influence of our upbringing. For good or for ill, it is the stock trade we’ve been portioned and is worthy of our attention this day.

For all of the ways we clothe our flesh with the family DNA, none is more important than the way that we wear our heritage of faith.

If you were raised in a family void of God and grace, then some of your cloaking may wear lean and empty and seemingly full of pointless. If, however, you were surrounded by the truth of Jesus and his love during your formative years, then your cloaking may wear warmer and richer and full of purpose. Either way, it matters what you wear because our faith is the rooting for the next generation of young minds and hearts.

I don’t want to simply resemble my grandmother in looks. I want to resemble her in the way that she lived her faith.

In the same way, I don’t want my daughter to simply favor me in the mirror. I want her to favor me in her heart. I want her to love Jesus more than she loves her momma or her daddy or her big, beautiful brothers. I want her to wake up each day knowing that her mother’s faith lives on in her. That she can walk and talk and journey through this life with her Creator by her side. That she can be a woman of kingdom influence because her family tree is rooted in the depths of a sacred soil.

It is a soil that began with a long-ago garden’s planting and that will one day end in a soon-to-be garden’s harvest. Jesus, himself, will come to gather his own. We are his own—co-heirs of the promise and children of the Most High God. We are a lavishly loved people because that is the way of a Father’ heart. To love and to shape and to change us into his incredible likeness day by day.

Not because our God needs a following. Not because his ego dictates an audience, but rather, because, our Father longs to give us his forever.

And forever, my friends, includes our full becoming—an “as he is” likeness because the power of Calvary’s bloodline lives and breathes in our spiritual DNA through faith in Jesus Christ. We are the seeded hope of our Father’s sacred intention. He means for us to look like him. To act like him. To love like him, and to grace like him.

We were created in God’s image, intended for his resemblance. No greater words of commendation could ever be spoken over our earthly lives.

To mirror Jesus is to herald the message of connection…

of belonging.
of fitting.
of having roots…past, present, and future.

And if faith is to be raised in this generation, then we must embrace the truth of our spiritual DNA. We must be willing, in turn, to pass it on to the next generation of believers.

Genetic DNA lasts but a lifetime. Spiritual DNA, however, lasts for all eternity. The family tree that we share with Jesus is the one that will trace us to our forever. It is rooted in Love. It will end in Love, and it will continue to bloom because of Love.

Indeed, how great is the love of our Father that we should be called sons and daughters of his! And that is what we are!

And that, my friends, is more than enough for me this day, and so I pray,

Thank you, Father, for calling me yours. For giving me your image and for breathing your Spirit into this feeble flesh. Transform my heart, my soul, my mind, and my will into your likeness. Let my life mirror your reflection in everything that I say and do; let me believe beyond my faith and grow my faith to mirror my belief. Teach me how to teach my children the value of their spiritual heritage. Not just in words, Father, but in living the message of connection that weaves from Thee to me and to my beyond. Above all, thank you for loving me as I am and for growing a family tree that includes a branch named Faith. I am forever humbled by your extravagant grace. Amen.

Pastor Guillermo

July 30, 2008

Until now, regular readers of peace for the journey have known me as Elaine’s husband and her number one fan. Now for the first time I am a guest contributor to her blog, which coincides with another important first in my life—my first mission trip outside the USA.

A team of 16 young adults and chaperones left our church on July 16, 2008, for the South American nation of Bolivia and a new orphanage established by the Methodist Church of Bolivia. The Andes Mountain range is second only to the Himalayas as the highest in the world and is home to the Aymaran Indians, the native people of Bolivia. For ten days we called this harsh, desperately poor but splendid place our home.

Tacachia rests at the end of a forty mile stretch of winding mountain road. My sense of “belonging” in that little village was challenged from the very beginning. As one of Tacachia’s newest residents my name was a problem: “Billy.”

Billy is the name that I have answered to for almost forty-one years of living, but to a rural population that spoke only Spanish and Aymaran, none of them had ever met a “Billy” and had great difficulty pronouncing my name. I had a choice to make: to insist that everyone in my new home struggle with a name that defied their tongues’ best efforts, or I could change my name. The choice was easy. My high school Spanish teacher had us use the Spanish equivalent of our English names in class. Thanks to those lessons from long ago I quickly exchanged “Billy” for “Guillermo,” which is Spanish for “William.”

Instead of loosing any precious sense of my identity, compromising my standards, or watering down the Gospel message, the Lord led me to a deeper understanding of what it means to “deny myself.” When Jesus said to His disciples, in Matthew 16:24 “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me,” Jesus meant that we have to be willing to replace our standards with His standards. As long as we stay close to the place we call home and the local church we call our own, self denial may not seem like a big deal. But what does the Lord require of His people when He leads us among strangers?

I believe that Acts 1:4-8 is concrete proof that Jesus does not use a “sliding scale” in measuring mission work. The idea of local missions, verses overseas missions, and one being better than another is an invention of man and not of God. Wherever you are, if you are a baptized believer in Jesus Christ, you are in the mission field. As missionaries, there is an ever present temptation to value our station in life, our title, our accomplishments, our circumstances, to the point that the world around us feels like they have no hope of relating to us.

To the people of Tacachia, “Pastor Billy” was a name their tongues could not grasp. They could not greet me. They could not introduce me to their neighbors. They could not hope to have any kind of intimate relationship with me, because “Pastor Billy” was the name of a stranger who wanted to remain a stranger. But “Pastor Guillermo” was a welcome guest who wanted to know them and wanted to be known by them.

What about my other names? I am a United Methodist pastor. I am an Elder in the Church. I have an undergraduate degree from Pfeiffer College and a Masters of Divinity from Asbury Theological Seminary. I am proud of all these names—up to the point that these parts of my “identity” might become an obstacle in proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Ten days with Pastor Guillermo taught me that my own selfishness has been the biggest obstacle in keeping me from sharing the love of Jesus.

Ten days with Pastor Guillermo taught me that Christians have to be willing to deny the things we often prize the most, for the sake of the least and the lost.

Ten days with Pastor Guillermo taught me that Christians have to love Jesus more than we love denomination, or education, or anything else that might build a wall between us and those He sends us too.

Ten days with Pastor Guillermo taught me that the most important thing I have to offer the Lord on the mission field is my obedience.

As it was with Pastor Guillermo, so I want it to be with Pastor Billy. I want to love others more than myself and to prize relationships over ego…Christ above self.

The lesson of my mission field has not been an identity crisis, but rather has been the fertile soil to finding my true identity in Christ. Not everyone will need a trip to South America to learn how to part with their selfishness, but as Elaine will attest, I’ve never been very good at doing things the easy way. God used Pastor Guillermo to humble Pastor Billy.

I’m so glad for the occasion to have met him in the little village of Tacachia.

peace for the journey~
Billy

If you want to learn more about the medical mission society that helped us organize our trip to Bolivia, please click on this link to Curamericas. Details about the Kory Wawanaca Children’s Home of Tacachia, Bolivia can be viewed at their website.

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