grace | Elaine Olsen

Imagine

August 24, 2008

For those of you who need to know that your God sees you this day…

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat.” (Psalm 19:1-6).

Can you even imagine? Better still, do you?

Ever imagine?

Him.

Pitching his tent in the heavens and watching over your every move. Not because he is waiting for you to make a mess out of your life, but simply because he is waiting for you to take notice of his.

His constant presence. His everlasting love. His faithful glances in your direction.

He is there, but most days, our preoccupation with the flesh leaves little room for the imagining of him. Horizontal focus trumps the beauty of vertical visioning because horizontal focus usually voices the loudest. That which cannot be heard is almost always overlooked. Overshadowed and nearly forgotten. Almost.

Not today. Not for me. For today the heavens voiced a melody that trumped any earthly sound. They scripted their chorus in the sky above, and only those with the eyes to look up and the hearts to look deep had the privilege of singing along. God gave me a gift this morning through my imagination. Maybe you, too, will be able to hear the song.

Imagine a beautiful Sunday morning. A day set apart for the worship of the Creator of your heart. Imagine going to church, parking your car and grabbing hold of the hands of two young children. Imagine, then, looking up and seeing the sky painted with the brushstrokes from a Heavenly Father’s morning walk.

Imagine commenting on their beauty to your children and then finding your camera to take a few pictures to benchmark the moment.

Imagine going into the church, finding your pew, only to be distracted by the beauty of a sky’s sacred witness. Imagine retrieving your camera from your purse and perusing your earlier remembrances while the choir sings their anthem.

Imagine, then, being disturbed by a seemingly odd coloring on a few of the pictures.

Imagine, then, zooming the camera’s focus in to take a closer look.

Imagine then, the possibility of what you think you see.

Imagine.

Call me crazy. Call me emotional. Call me way over the top. Call me hysterical for Jesus. That’s OK. I know Who I imagined this morning, and I am perfectly fine with your labels. Better still, I am perfectly fine with believing in the One whose eyes are always on me and who is coming soon to take me home as his bride.

“For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him” (2 Chronicles 16:9).

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.’” (Revelation 21:1-3).

It won’t be long, friends, until we truly see him in all his glory. For now, we can only imagine him, watching over us and waiting for the divine “go” from his Father. In that moment, his voice will split the sky, and he will shatter earth’s darkness with the glorious illumination of our forever. Can you even imagine?

It’s a holy imagining worthy of our thoughts this day—a Sabbath day when our focus should level toward the vertical and our faith should level toward the seen possibility of a wild and sacred imagining. He’s been my portion this day. How I earnestly desire the same for you.

Look up, for your salvation is closer now than it has ever been! (Romans 13:11-12). As always,

~elaine

I came across this song last night for the very first time. You’ve probably heard it before, but would you take the time this day to listen again and to imagine your Father’s watchful and loving gaze over you right now? This song brought me to my tears and to my knees. I pray it will do the same for you.

A Zoo’s Pondering (part four): Made for the New

July 25, 2008

Updated bonus to this post…

When I began blogging several months back, I wanted a header photo that included a dirt road/desert with a “journeying” type of theme. I came across the photo above and knew it was the one! Last night, while perusing photos on istock of Bolivia, guess what picture popped up? Exactly. Apparently this was shot in the Uyuni desert in Bolivia. I didn’t realize it then, but God did. How cool is our Master Weaver?!
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“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:18-21).

God knows how to send a message, even when we least expect it.

I won’t lie to you friends. It has been a long nine days since my husband and son left for Bolivia. There have been moments of self-sacrifice that have seemed too much for me. Moments when I have been tempted to grow some seeds of resentment for being left behind. I knew it would be tough. Not just because of the 24/7 that would be required of me for the family who remained, but also because of the experiences I would never be able to live with my husband and son as they poured out their lives for the cause of Christ.

They were called to the much, while I am struggling to exist within my seemingly little. The ordinary never lives as vivid as the extraordinary, and for a few days now, I’ve been nursing a severe case of the mundane.

Rather than facing another night of kitchen duty, I packed the three “left behinds” into the van and headed to our favorite Mexican restaurant. The name of the local eatery? None other than LaPaz. Mid-way through our salsa and chips and quesadillas, my son’s cell phone rang. On the other end?

His brother calling from LaPaz, Bolivia. We haven’t heard from the team in eight days. They’ve been in the mountains of that country doing missional work at an orphanage. Communication has been non-existent. But now on the tail end of the trip, they are back in the city and were able to call from a pay phone. When the phone finally made its way to my ears, I heard my husband crying. He is eager to come home and to tell me of his journey.

Our conversation was brief, but he relayed a message to me that is worthy of my pen this night. As only God could orchestrate, it fits perfectly with my ponderings from the zoo.

It’s a story that breathes the witness of a butterfly.

Of moving from this…

to this…

Last night, my husband was asked to speak to the orphaned children in a service of closing benediction. He told them about Jesus and the cross and the Father who longs to call them as his own. At the end of his message, he gave an altar call of sorts. This was unfamiliar territory for these children. They were unsure as how to respond. The translator talked them through it, and once they realized what was being offered, several came forward to receive Jesus Christ as their Savior.

Billy told me it was an Acts-Pentecost kind of moment. A people moving from a place of human abandonment to a permanent place of sacred adoption. Kingdom work found its way onto the soil of a Bolivian mountainside this week, and all heaven rejoices over the salvation of many young souls.

As I walked through the zoo with my children, pondering the animals and their confinement, I witnessed the beauty of this one creature who no longer knows the confinement of his metamorphosis. The butterfly flies free. He flies beautiful. He flies changed and unencumbered by the darkness of his becoming. His life will be short, but he will live it in the release and the lovely of God’s grand design for his life.

His old is gone. His new has come, and all because of a Father who understands that a tomb is required for the new to birth.

The story of the butterfly.

It belongs to us, for we are that butterfly, and we have been given the commission to bring God’s lovely to the captives who have yet to fly their sacred release.

They are all around us. We don’t have to travel to the other side of the world to find them. We only have to look to our neighbor. Our co-worker. Our fellow church-goer. Our family. Our friends. Our strangers and our enemies. Christ is making his appeal through us. That is a high and holy calling, no matter our seemingly little or extravagant ordinary. Whether we stay or we go, we live the righteousness of Jesus for all the world to see.

We are the closing benediction of a Calvary grace that painted love’s redeeming work on a Judean hillside not so long ago. This is the power of the Gospel. It transcends time and space to breathe current and real to those with hearts to hear.

And even though Bolivia currently boasts the snow and cold of winter, there are some butterflies who soar this night, begging the budding of Spring. Easter has come to an orphaned people who desperately needed to know that there is a Father who loves them, and for that, my friends…

I will gladly suffer my ordinary. In some small way, perhaps, I have served my portion in God’s agenda for something far greater than my little. And thus I pray,

Forgive me, Father, for thinking that my ordinary was not enough. It was my allotted and necessary portion this week so that your work could be accomplished in extraordinary measure. Thank you that I will one day meet these children. If not here, then there. Before your throne as one people in one voice shouting the blessed benediction of our forever. Holy, holy, holy are you Lord. Worthy of glory and honor and our praise forever. Surround your new butterflies with the tenderest of care, and let your beauty fly unencumbered through them. Amen.

Chasing a Dream

June 24, 2008

She Speaks, 2008

“But Jesus immediately said to them, ‘Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.’ ‘Lord, if it’s you,’ Peter replied, ‘tell me to come to you on the water.’

‘Come,’ he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.”
(Matthew 14:27-29).

I chased a dream this past weekend.

It’s been chasing me for a long season.

Instead of lurking in its shadow any longer, I turned around to embrace its linger. A faith not yet required became my requirement because long-seasoned, God-ordained dreams will only be birthed…

through an obedience that walks hard.
through a trust that roots deep.
through a faith that looks forward.

Dreams birthed in the easy and in the shallow and in the rearview mirror are never really meant to breathe. But dreams birthed in the recesses of a timeless creation are always meant to find their voice. God dreamed them first on our behalf. He planted their seeds within our souls. He tends them with his time. Not ours.

And when his time comes…when the arrival of fruition begins its advance on the horizon…God intends for us to move forward.

Come.

The language of invitation.

Come.

The word of possibility.

Come.

The breath of culmination.

Come.

The one obedience that separates a dream from its realization.

Four months ago, God whispered his words of invitation for me to come…to simply leave the comfort of my current and to embrace the tumultuous of an unchartered sea. With hard steps and loosely rooted trust, I fixed my gaze on the horizon, and I began the pilgrimage toward my dream.

I’m so glad that I did. Now, less than twenty-four hours on the other side of this boat ride, I ponder the mystery of God’s design. I think about all that I would have missed I had forgone my Father’s summons. I would have missed a holy lot. Things like…

Friendships.
Feasting.
Laughter.
True worship.
Moments at the cross.
Communion at the table of grace.
Sacred intimacy.
Tender tears.
Answered prayers.

…and

Dreams renewed, freshly rooted in my now.

Yes, I would have missed a great deal if I had knelt to my natural, and in the natural, this flesh is prone to the safety of a boat rather than the wild of a wave.

The apostle Peter understood the pull between known things and unknown embraces. Like me, he carried a few dreams in his pocket—dreams that exceeded his current and dreams that challenged his faith. If he would have stayed as he was—content on the shores of faithless fishing—he would have missed a holy lot. He would have missed Jesus. He would have missed everything. But Peter knew something that all true dreamers know.

Dreams that sing real are dreams that breathe faith.

The same is true for us. Our dreams may voice different, look different and read different, but every dream worth dreaming is always rooted in Jesus Christ. At the end of the day…at the end of a life, if our dreams aren’t scripted in the annals of heaven and through the pen of our Father, they perish as dust.

But those penned by the Almighty will remain. They will find their voice, and they will sing as eternal. And my friends, I want to sing. I want you to sing alongside. God created us for the song; thus, the chase becomes our requirement. We must press on to take hold of all of that for which our Savior has taken hold of us.

He stands on the horizon of our water’s edge. Some of us are currently sailing the calm. Some of us are living the ravages of a storm’s embrace. No matter. His word of invitation cannot be hushed by the water’s divide.

Come. Simply come.

Dreams are birthed when we step out in faith, and so I pray…

Thank you Father, for your invitation to come and to participate in your plan for my life this past weekend. Thank you for showing me your presence through your servants at every turn. Forgive me for the times when my faith is weak, and my doubt is strong. Keep my eyes fixed on your horizon, and keep my feet planted upon your waters. And when the storms rage hard and the waves beat fierce, remind me of what awaits me on the other side of my obedience. You, God, are my reward, and this heart is ready for the chase. Amen.

My new best friend, Joy, from Canada. Love u sister!

I’ve traveled far and wide in Gatlinburg to find a place to link up tonight! We’re on vacation this week; thus, my communications will be limited. Shalom!

Raising Faith (part six): Embracing Your Reach

June 16, 2008

For Mom & Dad…thank you for raising “Faith Elaine” and for raising the faith of my heart. I love you.

“‘He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, “How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.” So he got up and went to his father.

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.’” (Luke 15:16-20).

The year was 1987. Newly married and full of dreams, my husband and I packed our small U-haul and charted our course for Columbus, Ohio. It was a difficult good-bye. My twenty-one years of living were spent in close proximity to my parents. Wilmore was my home, and Columbus was my next. It was hard to fathom such newness, and my heart swelled with grief at every turn. I didn’t know how to do this thing…this letting go of my current to embrace the unknowns of my future. Still and yet, the excitement of pondered possibilities soothed the ache within.

We spent the first three weeks of our married life living with my parents until it was time for our departure. That hot July morning greeted my emotions with the sweltering truth of the steps that would soon follow. We lingered a little longer that day at the breakfast table. Ate our food a little slower, and talked a little further about nothing really important. And when all of the words that could be spoken found their end, my husband climbed behind the wheel of the moving van, and I took the helm of my Chevy Cavalier.

It was a slow crawl around that familiar block…husband in the lead and me at the processional rear. I took one last look at the neighborhood homes that housed the antics of my youth, and then I took a final glance out the side window to gaze upon the backside of my childhood home. It was then that I witnessed a profound memory that will stay with me for the rest of my days. Even now, twenty-one years later, I recall it with clarity and with tear-filled tenderness.

My father, wet with his own tear-stained grief was running through the backyard, into our neighbor’s yard…hands raised to the heavens and voice shouting his audible words of affirmation…

I love you! I love you! I love you, Elaine!

It was all I could do to keep a forward focus. If my husband hadn’t needed me to follow, I am confident that I would have turned that Chevy around and crawled back home to my familiar. I traveled many miles before regaining my composure. Tears would be my constant for several days to come; it would also be the similar portion of my parents. We were used to doing life together. No one had prepared us for the letting go. And as quickly as Easter Sunday 1966 arrived, suddenly and with little warning, July 1987 appeared, and the apron strings between parent and child were cut with a profundity that rocked our hearts.

I have never forgotten that moment. My father’s running after me stands as a witness…a benchmark of sorts…that speaks the testimony of my entire existence upon this earth. I couldn’t have known at that time what my father’s reaching arms would mean to me in the seasons to come. Eight years down the road, the same arms that let me go would be the same arms that welcomed me home; this time with two little boys needing them every bit as much as I did.

I was my parents’ prodigal. The pods that fed the pigs no longer sufficed my palate. Thank God I came to my senses in the matter.

Divorced a year earlier, I took to my season of wild living with a reckless abandon that nearly cost me my life. It matters not the reason for my divorce. It was a bad decision all around, filled with the selfish and stubborn of two people who decided that life apart would be better than life as one. Problem is…life as one never splits evenly. One plus one equals one in God’s kingdom agenda. When that oneness separates, what remains are two halves in a huge identity crisis.

I fleshed out that crisis by feeding myself with the food of swine. And when famine came along (for famine is always the penchant of a swine’s filling), I began to notice my need. My hunger for home became my resolve as my heart echoed the words of a prodigal…

“… I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.”

Even in my darkness and my distance and my squandering and my sin, my daddy saw me. He loved me still, and when I called to ask if I could home, he simply replied,

“How quickly can you get here?”

1995

The same arms that sent me away were the same arms that greeted me upon my return. The fattened calf knew a quick surrender, and the feasting began in my honor. No swine’s pod for the filling this time. Only God’s grace for the cleansing. It is a feasting that continues to this day. I have my parents to thank because my parents held onto some sacred truths in the middle of my tumultuous. They held onto the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ knows that…

If faith is to be raised in his children, then love’s long reach must be embraced.

Long and wide and high and deep. A stretch that encompassed the East and the West of Calvary’s surrender. A stretch that is timeless and continues to span the spectrum of history. To jump off of the pages of Holy Writ into the hearts of men and women who have noticed their hunger and who have come home for the filling.

Of all the things that we could give our children in their process of “becoming”—in the raising of their faith—perhaps nothing is greater than the truth of Calvary’s stretch. We can…

Embrace our story of faith.
Embrace our voice.
Embrace our silence.
Embrace our imperfections.
Embrace our stones of remembrance.

But if we stop short of embracing our reach, then we have stopped short of sacred parenting. Shaping love never ends with a closed fist. Shaping love begins with extended fingers. Hands that…

Stretch. Strain. Strive and Stay.

Hands that…

Watch. Wait. Weep and Welcome.

Hands that…

Forgive. Forget. Fellowship and Feast.

We were made the stretch, my friends. Every last one of us. We have been commissioned to God’s great calling of raising faith in this generation. It is a calling that I take seriously; not only in the home that houses my children, but also in the community that houses God’s people. We each have a place within that community…a context in which to frame our calling. Yours doesn’t necessarily look like mine, but the truth of our purpose scripts the same.

If faith is to be raised, then faith must be embraced.

Hold tight to this Truth, dear ones, for soon and very soon, our faith will be made as sight, and we will walk hand in hand with the One who stretched his arms on our behalf. Let us celebrate and find our gladness this day, for we, who were once dead in our sin, have been made alive through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

The party has only just begun.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of his abiding and promised Holy Spirit, Amen!

…raising faith in a new generation, Father’s Day 2008!

~elaine

Thank you for joining me on this journey of “Raising Faith.” In a million years, I could have never imagined writing this series as it pertains to parenting and otherwise. But, God imagined it, and I am better for the penning of my heart. May God continue to bless you each one as you raise the faith of others along the way in this journey called “right now.” I stand alongside you in the calling. I welcome your thoughts…your prayer requests…your friendship and your partnership in the spreading of the Gospel that has loved this prodigal home again. May God continue to speak his power and his grace through your reach at every turn. As always, peace for the journey. ~elaine

A Gracious Grace

April 21, 2008

“Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing…”. (Genesis 18:11).

…flawed perspective

…better perspective

I challenged them this morning to examine Abraham and Sarah’s “old.” To think about their current state of being and to pinpoint the ways in which they, too, felt old and advanced in years and past the age of bearing anything new. It was an appropriate question to ask this congregation of 400 plus, for many of them are at retirement age and have been doing this “life thing” for a long season.

Some of them are long past having a dream or a hope for anything new. Most of them are simply living out their days along the sandy shores of South Carolina…in a community called Little River…in a church nestled along highway 17…on the way to a beach named Myrtle.

I don’t know why God allowed me the privilege to serve them this morning with his Word. I believe that it had everything to do with his lavish grace. I feel like the Apostle Paul’s “least of these,” while at the same time knowing that I am well qualified to parcel out the message of God’s abundant grace. It is a message that I have lived and breathed and am now able to articulate with a knowing and thankful passion. His has been a gracious grace. A mysterious and reaching grace that is transforming my flesh into a vessel of his design.

It is difficult for me to frame for you just exactly what this weekend meant to me. My emotions run deep, and I am profoundly moved by my experience. But while it is fresh within my heart, I wanted to tell you about one moment…about one saint of God who gave me a gift this morning.

His name is Calvin, and he has been walking with the Lord for nearly 90 years.

After the first service at 8:30, Calvin was quick to make my acquaintance. He told me that he has been a life-long Methodist, surrounded by a family heritage of Methodist preachers. My heart glowed, for I can boast the same. My husband is a Methodist preacher and was able to make the trip with me this weekend. My father, a Methodist preacher, stood behind his own pulpit this morning, and we were able to share a brief but precious conversation prior to the start of our days. So Calvin and me? We had some common ground and quickly became friends.

When I told Calvin how blessed that I felt to have met him and how I looked forward to sharing heaven with him, he told me that I hadn’t seen the last of him. He would be back for a second go around at the 9:50 service.

He was there to participate in, what I perceived to be, a new experience for him—a contemporary-style type of worship. Not quite sure of the tunes and the clapping and the freedom of worship, Calvin willingly offered his participation. At the close of the service, I once again commented to Calvin about my joy in serving such a saint of God. He quickly told me that the real saint—his bride of sixty-two years—had recently passed away and that I would see him again…at the 11:00 service.

When the time arrived for me to preach the same sermon for a third time, I commented from the pulpit that Calvin was either unsure of this peculiar woman who had taken siege of the pulpit or that God was up to something…an Abraham and Sarah kind of something, and that perhaps, the third time would be the charm. Perhaps this time, something would take hold. I think that it did, for at the close of the service, Calvin made his way up front, bowed his knee at the altar, and raised his hands toward heaven.

With the “amen” spoken, I made my way to the back of the church to greet the members as they left. Calvin soon found me and asked me to step aside. He needed to tell me something. I wasn’t prepared for his words of blessing. He said…

“I’m from the old school…the old tradition. I used to think that the pulpit wasn’t a place for women. I used to think that, Elaine, but I don’t anymore. Yes…I’ll see you again. If not here, then there.”

And with these words, Calvin spoke a benediction to my heart that I will never forget.

He gave me a gift. This saint of God, well advanced in years and thinking that he was past the age of bearing anything new in his life, bowed the knee one more time to his Savior to receive the promise of grace. A “new every morning” kind of grace. A grace that fell as a fresh word upon his aging heart this day. A grace that offered a blessing to me in the process–

the privilege of sacred participation.

What God did for Calvin…what God did for Abraham and Sarah…God has done and is doing for me. For he has planted a seed of promise within my aging flesh for something “new.” God did it this morning through one of his most precious saints. A saint with whom I will share eternity.

I want to spend some time this week exploring the treasure trove of Genesis 18:1-14. Perhaps it has been a while since you have examined its worth. I welcome your participation. Take some time this day to read the scripture. Find yourself somewhere within the story, and then ask yourself the question that I asked of God’s saints at Little River UMC.

Calvin asked himself the question. Calvin answered the question with a bowed knee and a surrendered heart, proving to me that I am never too “old” to receive the promise of God’s “new.” God’s grace has, indeed, been gracious. I will not soon recover from my time in the pulpit. I think that God has planned it accordingly.

And so tonight, as I lay my weary and well-satisfied head on my pillow, I say a prayer of thanks to you…my new friends in Little River. Especially for you, Dan & Cheryl, for you Pastor Randy, and for you Beth for your gracious invitation to sacred participation. You all…every last one of you…have marked me forever with your love and with your benedictions of grace over my life. It has been my privilege to wash your feet this day, and so I pray…

Thank you, Father, for the boldness of Peter. For the eloquence of Paul. For some of the wisdom of Solomon, and for the Spirit of Elijah. You have answered the prayer of my heart, and readily I receive the “new” that you have breathed into my life this day. Bless my new friends at Little River with a fresh explosion of your presence. Blow through that church and bring new life into its pews. Strengthen its people with power of your Spirit. Guide and direct Pastor Randy as he seeks to shepherd your flock. Let this day be the day when the journey of faith begins anew for each person in unexpected measure and with the glorious freedom that comes with Calvary’s grace. You have given me more than I expected, Lord, and to You, alone, I bow in surrender and praise. Amen.

Category Archives: grace