friendship | Elaine Olsen

Peace arrives in a tiny package…

November 7, 2008

It arrived on Wednesday. A good day for unwrapping the much needed necessary of my weary heart. A little,

peace …

for the journey.

Not long ago, I ran across an artist’s work that immediately captured my attention and my appreciation. Her name is Lisa Leonard, and like all true artists, she sees the world through a unique set of lenses.

As image bearers to the Master Artist, we share his capacity for creativity. Our Father fashioned our flesh with a bent toward creative expression. All of us…every last one of us…are artists. We paint stories with…

Our words. Our writings. Our music. Our cooking. Our acting. Our dance. Our paintings. Our teaching. Our leadership. Our singing. Our speaking. Our conversations. Our silence.

No one escapes the need for expression, for within each one of us is the impulse of our creative God. He placed our lives upon this earth to put voice to a story … his story. And somewhere within the telling, he hopes that others will be compelled to add their own lines to the script.

Lisa, at least in part, expresses her voice through her jewelry. Those of you who know me, know that I am not a fancy girl in search of a lot of “bling” to add to my bland. Lisa’s work exceeds bling. It breathes with a simple beauty that invites quiet contemplation rather than loud demonstration.

For a few months now, I’ve admired her work from the sidelines, and when my ladies at Bible study gifted me with a recent “thank you,” my thoughts warmed with the possibility of purchasing one of Lisa’s designs. The girls instructed me that the money was not to be used on my children or for bills, but rather to be used on something I wouldn’t normally buy for myself.

No further persuasion was needed. I ordered my necklace, and I couldn’t be more pleased with the results.

As a way of honoring Lisa’s creative expression, I want to gift one of you readers with a $20 gift certificate toward the purchase of your own, hand-crafted design. In addition, Lisa is offering a 20% discount to anyone who places an order for a design.

When ordering, simply type in the code “peace20” to receive your 20% discount. As for the $20 gift certificate, please leave a comment, and I will draw a winner on Monday. If you want to comment, but know that you won’t be able to use the gift, please indicate accordingly so that someone else has the opportunity to win. (*note: I will have a code available for you when you are ready to place your order that will deduct the $20 from total purchase.).

Thank you so much, Lisa, for your beautiful heart and life that shines through with each of your hand-crafted creations. Thank you, readers, for allowing me to introduce her to you. I won’t often do this on the blog, but I do believe in celebrating the many talents that God has scripted into each one of us.

Lisa Leonard certainly fits the bill. So do you. So get busy in tending to your creative side and allowing God to use it for his many kingdom purposes. Tell us about it in the comment section.

I love your hearts. I love that you consider me your friend, even though many of us have never met face to face. I love that you love Jesus, and most importantly, I love that we will one day share heaven together with Him. Until we get there, and while we walk here, may his constant presence be your portion, may his favor and blessing be your shadow, and may you always know his loving and abiding …

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Please take time to visit Lisa at her website and peruse some more of her handmade jewelry: http://lisaleonardonline.com/

A Final Look at Anonymous

October 29, 2008

“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:23-25).

Four and a half years worth of Bible study makes for some memories. Memories that include a whole lot of…

Homework.
Tuesday nights.
Fellowship.
Food.
Prayer.
Discussion.
Commitment.

Most importantly, memories that seed with a whole lot a Jesus. He, alone, is the one reason that keeps most of us coming back for more, study after study, year after year.

We’ve completed eleven different studies since my family’s arrival here almost five years ago. I knew before I arrived that God had clearly called me to facilitate the process. A couple of years prior, I had a head on collision with the power and transforming work of God’s Word. He profoundly interrupted my life with the truth of Scripture, and my hunger was palpable.

When I learned that we would be making another pastoral move, my heart welled with anticipation for the possibility of bringing God’s truth to others in a more tangible way. My zeal was well matched by a group of women who were hungry for the same. Together, we have laughed and cried and prayed our way through some difficult seasons. We’ve come to know and love Beth Moore, Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Jennifer Rothschild, and most recently, our precious Alicia Britt Chole.

I introduced Alicia to our group several weeks ago via her book Anonymous: Jesus’ Hidden Years and Yours. To say this study has been transformational in our lives, both corporately and individually, is to say too little, yet somehow tonight I struggle to find the right words. Alicia has given us the permission to celebrate our hidden years … to respect them, to embrace them, and to understand their sacred worth as it pertains to our intimacy with Jesus Christ.

I am forever marked by the truth of her study and by the time that I spent walking it with over fifty women. Jesus has been the overriding focus of our hearts these past seven weeks, and I finish this time with a rich fullness and deep thankfulness for all of my God-ordained seasons. Whether in the bloom of Spring, the heat of Summer, the stripping of Fall, or the barren of Winter, all seasons with the Father are served as the main course and are to be partaken of accordingly.

We have partaken, and our season of study has come to a close. Tuesday nights are free and clear for the fellowship hall of Pine Forest UMC … at least for a couple of months. We’ll be back. Friends and Jesus have a way of creating a hunger for more of the same. I, for one, can’t wait to reconvene with my sisters in January.

I love these women. As a pastor’s wife, it can sometimes be difficult to find your “home” in a place you never even imagined your feet would pause. These women have made it their mission to invite me into theirs. They are home for me, and even though we’ve closed shop temporarily, when January rolls around and the scent of Tuesday nights once again fills the air, I’ll be ready to break some holy bread around the table with my family. I won’t worry about them being available. They will be.

For they have learned, even as I have learned, that God is simply and profoundly…

too good to be neglected. He is worth our time and our best efforts at attending to the process of our sacred becoming.

So Tuesday night gals, I want you to know that I love you and that I would have missed a great deal had the Bishop not decided to send Preacher Billy and his family to you! You have shown me a side of heaven that is rarely glimpsed on this side of eternity. I carry you all in my heart, even as I know that you hold me close in yours. Doing life with Jesus alongside the likes of you has been one of the richest blessings my life has known.

Let us keep on doing it, and all the more, for as long as we pilgrim this road together. Until we meet again, whether here or there…

~elaine

Now, bloggie friends, I want to share a pitifully captured video from a portion of our final study with you. This visual is not great (we are still living in the age of a non-digital camcorder…my wish lish for Christmas has just increased) but I wanted you to at least hear my voice–no mocking of the southern accent please. Not because I have anything overly profound to say, but simply because it gives you a more complete picture of the writer of this blog. Please disregard my husband’s attempts at “fading” in and out, and pay close attention to my friend, Michelle, who is a professional interpreter for the deaf. At the end of her song, it fades, but then returns for a brief final look of my incredible Tuesday night gals. We made the tape for Alicia and is much better quality when viewing it as a DVD. Anyway, enough apologies. Enjoy the song.

The Beauty of a Backward Glance

September 3, 2008

For Dewey and your precious family. My heart is with you today as I remember and reflect…

“Be still, and know that I am God;…” (Psalm 46:10a).

We’ve all had them.

Shaping seasons. Times in our lives chronicled by life-changing situations that force the issue of faith. Perhaps you’re living in one today. If so, you walk it without the benefit of hindsight. You walk it forward, hoping for an eventual backward glance, but today’s focus is paramount. Tomorrow’s look back will have to wait. I know. I’ve walked this road before. Dozens of times.

But today, I have the privilege of a backward glance to one of those seasoned times that occurred nine years ago. It’s not been one I relish most days, for that season was hard fought. Hard lived and barely endured. I don’t imagine I will ever again walk the vast spectrum of emotions that I felt during that time. My heart might not survive the process. Just this morning, as I perused the vast storehouse of my written thoughts during 1999, tears welled and the sting of a thorn’s reminder pricked around and within my soul.

Even still, there is worth in the remembering. There is eternal value wrought forth through the suffering. Sacred shaping from a sacred Father who intended its sacred merit long before my life would walk its sacred shores. A sacred season named Hurricane Floyd.

Unless you’ve personally walked through the valley of a hurricane’s devastation, you cannot fully appreciate the depth of its embrace. You can witness it via the television screen or in still photographs via the internet or newspaper, but unless you’re living it in real color, your knowledge is skewed.

Not that I would wish your literal participation. Some storms are better viewed from a distance. Some lessons are better learned second hand. But there are some storms allowed their fury within our lives because storms, perhaps more than any other mode of divine forging, hold the immediate and forceful capacity…

to shake our complacency.
to shatter our comfort.
to shift our concerns.
to shape our character.

Storms are a slap in the face. A wake up call to take notice and to get busy. This would be my portion in 1999, and years down the road, the recall of those moments is vivid and poignant and worthy of some words this day.

There are so many things I could tell you. Things like…

*A boat’s rescue from our front lawn.

*Living with friends and their generator for several days.
*Boating through the streets of our little town.

*Watching the waters creep their way into homes and churches and graveyards and groceries.

*Setting up a makeshift relief center in the stripped down fellowship hall of our church.

*Hundreds of volunteers who flooded through our doors to help with the rebuilding efforts.

*The command post and clipboards that delegated the responsibility for those rebuilding efforts.

*The endless hours of phone calls and emails and meetings that exacted a timely toll early on.
*The pressure of not enough time and not enough emotional energy to meet the needs of so many.
*The pressure of keeping a congregation happy who didn’t always share our vision for outreach.
*The pressure of keeping a family focus and a marriage focus, a miserable failing on both counts.
*The desire for closure, but seeing no end in sight.

So many things I could recall. So many lessons learned because of this storm called Floyd. But for all the stresses and strains and fears and failings that undoubtedly forged a teaching within my soul, there is one lesson…one thread of purpose that weaves lasting and true within.

People.

Victims and volunteers alike. During that time, I partook of the purest portion of human expression. Love was our measure. Love poured forth and poured into the hearts of individuals who needed its embrace more than food or clothing or a home to call their own. Love walked as it was meant to breathe. Love that lasts, even nine years down the road.

We moved from that town a year later. I won’t lie. It was a welcome relief and the necessary move in order to save a marriage and a ministry. But we didn’t leave without some love in our hearts. And it is that sacred thread of love that goes with my husband this day as he travels back to the place of our storm’s fury to bury one of God’s saints.

A precious woman who gave us her love when others wouldn’t. A woman who saw past the color of our skin and into the pulse of our hearts. A woman who laughed and lived, despite the carnage going on around her. A woman who kept the fires of her hearth burning, even when the wet desired to extinguish its flames. A woman who taught me the sacred value of a storm. Not so much through her words, but through her actions that spoke a teaching far greater than man’s chronicling of the event.

She gave me her friendship, and in doing so, allowed me some sacred purpose in a season that rarely made sense. She, and others like her, painted the beauty in my backward glance. And while I don’t frequent Floyd’s memories in my mind very often, when I do, I do so with some joy and some thankfulness. Not for the menacing devastation of flood waters, but for the relationships that were birthed through their cleansing.

Maybe Gustav has been your portion this week. Maybe the remnants of Katrina are still fresh in your hearts and minds. Maybe an unnamed storm lurks in and around your present this day. Like me, it has slapped you in the face with a wake up call that forces your notice and asks you to get busy. Just exactly how that “busy” will breathe, I’m not sure. But of this I am sure.

When storms slap, storms require. When storms subside, memories remain. And therein lies the connection. What “remains” threads back to what is “required.” Memories can paint lovely if the steps taken to paint them walk confidently and with the trust that God is after a masterpiece in the end. Otherwise, they simply paint bitter.

I couldn’t see God’s masterpiece in September 1999. But today, in September 2008, my remnants vision, for the most part, as a lovely good. Especially the memory of a woman who walked that season better than me and who lived her life, better than most.

She is the beauty of my backward glance this day. Her friendship to me and my family weaves a portion of purpose into that very difficult season of sacred requirement. I pray that you, too, have the benefit of a beautiful look back on your difficult. It not now, then soon. Shaping and beauty walk their own time-table, and when visioned through the lenses of a Father’s best intentions, they walk thankful for the privilege of participation.

Even in a hurricane. And so I pray,

Father, paint our lives with purpose this day. May the beauty of heaven’s purpose be allowed our vision, if only for a moment. Where we lack strength, Father, bolster our hearts and our frames for the walk. Where we lack wisdom, give us insight into the depths of your understanding. Where we lack patience, give us feet for the long haul. And where we lack love, pour the truth of Calvary’s love into us through the power of your Spirit, so that we may portion it accordingly. I thank you for the hurricane that rudely and appropriately interrupted my life and forced me to my knees. Weave its beauty into my masterpiece for always. Amen.
Copyright © August 2008 – Elaine Olsen. All rights reserved.

PS: This post has been exhausting, but when I recover and return, I plan on beginning a mini-study based on Luke 24:13-35, “Setting the Table for Communion.” I hope you’ll come along for the journey. In the meantime, God’s peace and blessing be with you, especially those of you who are feeling the wrath and rage of a storm’s fury even now. Shalom.

Love’s Full Bloom

August 26, 2008

“And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13).

That which is the greatest remains my difficult hard.

Love, and the giving and receiving therein.

It should come easily. It should be the overflow of my heart because my heart has known so much of it. But it doesn’t. Not always. I’m working on it, and the more I see it displayed in my own life, the closer I walk toward its embrace. I witnessed it again today, and I couldn’t help but be swept away by the invitation to come and to celebrate the occasion that brought love’s bloom to my dear friend’s heart.

We met again, as we are prone to doing on Tuesdays. Me and my ancients. Today we traded in our usual fare of pizza for chicken salad and fresh fruit. It’s not easy for us to trade in our usual. We love routine, but today we made the sacrifice. Why?

Because one of the ancients is getting married. Yes, that’s what I wrote. An ancient. Getting married. To a manly ancient. In just a few short weeks. Wedding, reception, honeymoon…the full spectrum of wedding bliss. Both of them have their stories—their pasts which they bring with them to the altar. Both have walked the course of some seventy years of living without one another, but by God’s grace will be allowed to walk their next years alongside one another, holding hands and cherishing the gift of love’s full bloom.

It’s a privilege to share in their joy. To be part of this grand reminder that love is a sacred gift. It arrives for each one of us in all sorts of packages, on every kind of occasion, and in all manner of shapes and sizes, preferences and ages. When love comes, the unwrapping and receiving of its package mirrors the hope of heaven, for God has always intended for love to be our portion. His love pours over us through the hearts of many—friends, family, the body of Christ, and sometimes even through the heart of a stranger.

Love came as a baby in a manger some 2000 years ago. Love grew as a carpenter’s son in the hidden hills of Nazareth. Love walked the road to Calvary where Love’s heart bled in surrender for ours. Love poured out its full portion of forgiveness so that many will soon know the joy of Love’s full bloom—a wedding day fast approaching, when the Groom will come to gather his bride for all eternity.

Love is the sacred intention of a Father’s plan and a Savior’s cross. And that, my friends is always worthy of some celebration. Whether loves comes in the form of marriage, friendship, family kinship, or any other kind of relationship, Love is the seeding of God’s creation. And Love will be the anchor who brings us all to our full and sacred bloom.

Yes, some Tuesdays cry out for more than pizza. Some Tuesdays cry out for a party and for some cake and for the laughter that is a sure reminder of what awaits us all at the banqueting table of our Groom.

And I’m pretty sure that Miss Christine’s Swiss Mocha Cake will make the eternal cut. At least that’s what I asked of the Lord this day as I devoured one bite after another, after another, until its sweet came to full bloom in my stomach.

Isn’t God good?! Yes, he is…just in case you’ve forgotten.

No matter your current–whether in crisis, in chaos, or in contentment–our Father is good, and his portion for each one of us is an extravagant Love that boasts the reach of heaven. High and wide and long and deep. That’s how far our God will travel to bring you home as his radiant and spotless bride.

It is his joy to do so, and it is my joy to say “yes.” I hope your voice finds a similar echo today, and thus, I pray…

Thank you, Father, for occasions that remind me of your gracious love over me. You’ve walked the road from heaven to earth in order to claim me as your own so that I can walk its return path with you as my Groom. You are the Love of my life, the pulse that quickens my steps, and the anticipation that stirs my heart in expectation for the wedding day soon to come. Prepare me as your bride, dressed in your robes of righteousness and washed clean in your blood from Calvary’s full surrender. And God, bless the ancients, especially the two that will soon walk the aisle to receive your extravagant love through the gift of marriage. May theirs be a love that reflects the gracious grace of heaven. Amen.

A Gracious Plenty

August 14, 2008

“Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality, as it is written: ‘He who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little.’” (2 Corinthians 8:13-15).

I saw it this morning. Right in the place where I’ve been seeing it all summer long. A bag filled with a garden’s growing. A gracious plenty offered to me and my family by a retired couple who understand God’s principle of surplus as outlined in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.

I don’t know this couple well. They have only recently moved here, but in the time since their arrival, we’ve managed a few chats amidst my morning runs and have discovered a mutual love for God and for garden produce. They’ve instructed me that the hanging bags on the mailbox are meant for my retrieval. Gladly I receive, and today was no different.

It got me to thinking. To pondering about a heart that gives from the overflow of a garden. A luscious plenty that’s been soiled and seeded, tilled and tended to with a harvest in mind. Rather than hoard and shelve their produce, my new friends have decided to share the wealth of their garden’s growing.

I like that. I like the surprise of seeing my bag hanging on their mailbox and of knowing that I’ve been thought about with the picking.

It’s the way of an abundant heart. Of growing a surplus and then out of that overflow, sharing the extra with others in need. And while there are other, perhaps more pressing needs in my own life, I am tendered and touched by the hearts of people who understand that giving always yields a return. If not immediate, then somewhere down the road.

As I examine my own life, I look for the plenty. For the extra measure of a garden’s growth that could be shared with others. What about you? Where does your plenty lie this day?

Look at your hands, your heart, your giftings, and your wallet. Examine them under the light of Calvary’s grace and with the measure of God’s goodness and tell me, where is your plenty?

Plenty. Perisseuma in the Greek meaning “to abound; surplus; abundance in which one delights; that which fills the heart; that which is leftover; remains; residue.”[i]

We all have an existing plenty. Regardless of our outpouring—whether financially, physically, spiritually, emotionally—there exists a surplus somewhere within. A plenty that is meant to be shared for the benefit and for the building up of the body. We don’t often feel this to be the case, for we are a busy and tired people with an output level that leaves us saddled with our weary.

So often, we crawl to our beds and pray for the strength to walk another day, giving little attention to any needs other than the ones that frame our flesh. Left unattended and unnoticed, our needs become our blinding, and our plenty is shelved and buried beneath the weight of an inward focus.

It’s the way of selfish heart—a perfected “taking” that harbors the lie that we have nothing left in our reserves to offer. No surplus or residue thereof for the sharing. No bags to hang on the mailbox. No garden’s growth and thus, no produce to feed my neighbors.

It’s been the way of my heart lately, and it’s not healthy. And while God allows me my tired and weary with a depth of understanding and healing that only he can offer, he expects me to keep an outward focus…even during my times of refueling.

My resources may be limited on all fronts, but there is still some surplus in reserves. His name is Jesus, and he is my overflow. The residue of his abiding presence can be seen, felt, and tasted through this heart of mine. My plenty may shape different than yours, but its seeding comes through the same grace. The Someone we each hold far outweighs the temporal offering of our hands.

We can give our neighbors Jesus, even when we feel that we’ve little to offer. We do so through our words, our simple acts of kindness, our attitudes, our compassion, our prayers, and through our hanging out of all manner of a sacred garden’s produce that is meant for the taking and for the closer examination of a God’s eternal plenty.

You, my friends, are so faithful to hang out that bag for me everyday. You may feel that your garden harvests lean and sparse, but as I travel through this journey in cyberspace, I’ve come to count on finding your “bags” of blessing hanging out on your mailbox throughout the week. Indeed, our blogs all package differently, but this is the beauty of God’s garden. He seeds our soil with uniqueness, yet with a fullness that weaves a sacred and perfected masterpiece.

Your plenty often fills my need with the overflow of a Father’s love. I am eternally grateful for our yoking alongside one another. You’ve fed me with the bread of heaven, and I feel so privileged to share this road with you. All this to say…

Keep to it. Keep tending to your garden and keep packaging up God’s blessings to pass on to those who are dropping by for a taste. I know it’s not always easy. Even today, I painfully struggle to write a complete thought. But God’s love compels me to do so, for perhaps somewhere in the doing, my meager surplus might be enough to equal your hungering need. Like my neighbors, I hang Jesus out for the entire world to see. And He, my friends, is the gracious plenty who is more than enough to garden a world’s hunger with the finest bread of heaven.

Let it be so for each one of us today. May the eternal seeding of the Eternal One harvest rich and plentiful in and through your heart this very night. From this mailbox to yours, I’m so glad that you took the time to stop by for a visit. You have been purposefully thought about with this “picking.”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the abiding and breathing Holy Spirit, Amen.

So, how is your garden growing? What’s hanging on your mailbox today? I’d love to come by for a taste. Shalom.

Category Archives: friendship