Category Archives: Jadon’s fight

On Threading a Needle Toward Holiness

Student, Ken Collins and Dad at Baltic Seminary

Holiness.

I’ve been chewing on this one today … gnawing away and swallowing bites of something I don’t fully understand but something, nonetheless, I deeply desire –

to be like Jesus.

Getting there isn’t easy. The way of holiness often includes our weaknesses – the stuff within that needs to be rooted without. Exposure of those weaknesses is sometimes painful but can also be beautiful in ways that we never anticipated on the front side of disclosure.

Let me explain.

I want to thread a needle for you and show you a fascinating, most striking mosaic that is part of my story and that warms my heart deeply today in a space that fully needs the witness of its strength.

Not long ago, Jadon sent me a link to series of Wesleyan Theology lectures given by Dr. Ken Collins at the Baltic Methodist Theological Seminary in Estonia (dated 2019). Dr. Collins is a professor at Asbury Theological Seminary who once shared those hallowed hallways alongside my father-professor, Dr. Chuck Killian – two men linking arms to bear witness to the seminary’s motto “The Whole Bible for the Whole World.”

Ken Collins is now one of Jadon’s professors, along with being his mentor for candidacy in the Global Methodist Church. Ken is a world-renowned scholar in all things Methodism and communicates this passion with clarity and originality. Jadon likes his teaching style and, needing to fill my mind with good, God-thoughts, I decided to listen in.

The connectional thread of Jadon being at Asbury and being mentored by one of my father’s friends from ATS is mosaic enough to make me sit back and admire God’s providence in my family’s lives. But that’s not the thread that had me leaning in for a closer look today. Instead, and more deeply, the realization hit me about the lectern from which Ken taught – a classroom in Estonia in a seminary that my father helped establish.

In August 1994, my daddy taught the very first class at the Baltic Methodist Theological Seminary on the subject of “practical theology” to fifty-four eager students, hungry to fulfill their part in the Great Commission.

From the website:

The facilities in Apteegi Street were extremely cramped. The single classroom was full from the start. Students sat on simple chairs, and took notes with their books on their knees. The dining area did not have sufficient seats, and so for lunch or coffee students were sitting on the stairs and in the window sills. The library was in a broom closet. Open the door and there was the librarian at her desk, with a few books on a shelf. Most of the books were in boxes in the basement. The office for the President, Dean, secretary and all the faculty was a partitioned area approximately 1.5metres (5 feet) wide by 4 meters (12 feet) long.

Students and faculty were literally rubbing shoulders all day, a closeness that created a very warm atmosphere. As well, the excitement generated by the newness of theological study made the Seminary tingle with excitement. Many of the first students were mature Christians and self-taught pastors who had dreamt of freedom during long years of communist occupation and of the chance to study and practice their faith free from oppression and persecution.

The more I listened to Dr. Collins speak about John Wesley and holiness, set against backdrop of the Baltic Methodist Theological Seminary, the more deeply my spirit was enlivened to the Spirit of God. A day that (for me) began in darkness suddenly shifted to a day full of light.

A day full of remembering my legacy. A day full of cultivating hope. A day of forgetting the hard purge of holiness and, instead, a day of relinquishing to its flames. Why?

Because there’s too much on the line by not submitting my life to Christ’s crucible.

What my daddy has left behind and what Ken Collins continues to do through his teaching and with my son is, indeed, a needle worth threading. I cannot fully put my finger on it, but my pulsing heart tells me that I’m on to something.

Daddy has long since left the hallways of Asbury Seminary and the Baltic Seminary. But there’s a piece of him still there in both places. Jadon in the former and Ken Collins in the latter. The echoes from both spaces deafen my ears with a ring of the eternal and paint a mosaic worthy of the throne room of heaven. Heaven, alone, counts the lives transformed by the faithfulness of a few willing servants.

What has happened in the past and what is happening in the present is, indeed, holy. From the inside out and the outside in, God makes himself known to his children. He shows up, sometimes unexpectedly, sometimes on a day when the darkness threatens to snuff out the light, and challenges us to go deeper with him toward a better life of freedom and understanding.

Oh yes, I want to be like Jesus, even when getting there is hard. Today, I think I moved a little closer in that direction. Today I traded in my vain imaginations for better thinking – a mind fixed on Jesus and what he wants me to know rather than on how the world and its people make me feel. 

So, thanks be to God, to my daddy, to Jadon and to Ken Collins. Their work toward holiness has offered me a way forward toward mine.

The Whole Bible for the Whole World. Right here where I am. Right there where you are. May the kindness of God, the truth of his Son Jesus Christ, and the strength of his Holy Spirit rest on us all and pull us closer to his image this day. As always…

Peace for the journey,

Wes and Joy Griffin, along with my parents at 1st Baltic Seminary graduation

 

[accessed 7-05-2024, https://www.emkts.ee/index.php/en/general/history]

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,

an unhindered walk in God’s meadow

Jadon called me yesterday afternoon to share some good news. He’s been gone for two weeks now, off to a summer’s worth of adventure at a family campground serving as the Activities Director. This is new territory for us; Jadon’s never been away from home for very long. And while it’s been an adjustment to my mothering heart, it’s been a necessary one. The boy was ready to step away from the nest; to keep him tethered to my side a moment longer would have been unfair to him and to those waiting for him on the other side. For as much as I’ve needed him under my roof all of these years, the world needs him under theirs for the rest of these years … doing what God has ordained him to do. Being what God has ordained him to be.

A kingdom-bringer.

His journey to get to this moment has been rigorous at times. The accident that nearly cost him his life physically has, instead, become the hinge moment that cost him his life spiritually. Jadon’s all-in with Jesus; he’s a solid, unwavering disciple of Christ who has prepared himself both practically and spiritually for bringing the good news of the Gospel to the pavement of everyday life.

Like yesterday.

With a day off from camp responsibilities, Jadon decided to get a hair-cut. He called around to a few places before landing an appointment at a salon not far from the campground. Inevitably, the scar on his scalp opens up the door for lively discussion. Yesterday was no different. The stylist’s curiosity was ripe soil for the sowing of Jadon’s story. He’s perfected the details and, depending on the situation, is ready to deliver either the short version or the long one. She got the long one.

In return, Jadon received a bit of her story as well. She grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness but left the group several years ago. In hearing Jadon’s testimony, she marveled at his words, even commenting, “No one has ever told me this before.” One question led to another, and a dynamic biblical discussion ensued. The excitement in Jadon’s voice in the re-telling to me was evident.

“Mom, it was like something came over me; there was a power there, and the words kept flowing like I have never known.”

Fast-forward to the closing moments of Jadon’s appointment. Once he had ascertained that the stylist didn’t have a real Bible, he made his way to his car where he keeps an extra one (just in case). He brought it back to her and asked her if her heart was inclined to make a decision for Jesus.

It was. And right there, in that not-so-random-pick of a salon, a stylist met her Savior for the very first time in her life.

From Jadon’s scars to her scars and, then, ultimately, to Jesus’ scars. A full circle kind of moment. The Gospel on the pavement of everyday life.

That’s everything. That’s it … the sum total of what we should be doing. The finest version of what we should be being.

Of all the million little things that happened in the world yesterday, nothing was more significant than the revelation of Jesus Christ to a lost soul in Asheboro, NC. Nothing. No thing. Just a girl coming to the realization that, until this single moment of her thirty-something years on this planet, no one had ever told her the truth. In hearing Jadon’s words, she heard her Father’s invitation to step boldly and confidently onto his solid ground – his Way, his Truth, and his Life – his Son, Jesus Christ.

As Jadon made ready to leave, he pointed to John’s Gospel and told her to start there. And as only God could orchestrate this holy moment, another customer in the shop overheard their entire exchange. She, too, was a believer and invited the stylist to come to church with her.

The Father’s love for the lost is so full, so complete … so generous and so kind.

And you know what gets all over me the most? It’s the thought that yesterday morning, a stylist went to work not knowing who would sit in her chair. She was oblivious to the fact that the soil of her soul was being plowed up to receive the Gospel seed of my son’s witness. That yesterday afternoon around 3:00 PM was the day … the moment of her salvation and that, for the first time in her life, she would take an unhindered walk in God’s meadow of grace, freedom, forgiveness, and truth.

Good news, indeed.

Yes, the world needs Jadon under its roof now. It needs all of us who are willing to surrender our lives accordingly. Our wills, our passions, our pursuits, our understandings, our scars – all given to the One who can make them count for his kingdom eternally.

May the hearing of this story encourage and strengthen you in your faith, and may you, like this new daughter of the King, walk unhindered in God’s meadow of grace today. May you be protected in that place of renewal and rebirth. May the beauty of his blossoms touch your feet and fill your senses with the reality of his unwavering presence alongside you. May you know, to the depths of your being, that the kingdom of God lives inside of you. It’s really that close.

And finally, may this holy ordination from God be your solid ground in the coming days, bringing you the clarity, strength, sweetness, and peace for the journey that lies ahead.

The world is a big place; the kingdom of God even bigger. What a blessing to rest under his roof tonight.

Amen.

gathering information

I watched the faint blip of light hop through the night sky. It was barely noticeable set against the clear, brilliant backdrop of the crisp January evening. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have noticed it during my walk; ordinarily I’m not looking up.

But two nights ago, I did – look up. Some nights require it.

Accordingly, I took to my back-porch stoop and quieted my heart before God.

Look up, child.

After an agonizing couple of days of looking around, I was more than willing to look up.

It was then that I saw it – a dim light passing through the heavenlies. I spoke my heart out loud with a chuckle:

“Probably not a plane; probably just another drone gathering information on me.”

No sooner had the words left my mouth when God let a few of his own words leak into my heart:

“Me too, Elaine. I’m out here gathering information … on you.”

Tears began to flow, and I was deeply comforted by that singular thought.

God is gathering information on me; my God is an evening-gathering God.

I don’t know what it is about the darkening of night that seems to reveal more clearly the whispers of the Father. Perhaps the slowing down of a hard day’s laboring better hosts his inclinations. Our days are mostly cluttered, overstuffed with noise. But when the sun steps off the daily stage, the hours open up a bit more. And in that widening space, our souls begin to breathe … begin to look up and behold the heart of the Father.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus took an afternoon walk with two strangers. As the sun began its descent, the strangers made a simple invitation to Jesus:

“… they urged him strongly, ‘Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.’ So he went in to stay with them.” (Luke 24:29)

And in those evening hours, Jesus did something that Jesus does willingly for all those who urge him to stay – 

He revealed himself to them while breaking bread with them.

He wrapped up their hard day’s laboring with a soul-breathing, life-giving revelation of just how far he was willing to walk on behalf of kingdom expansion.

Jesus was willing to walk to their table. And two nights ago, he was willing to walk to my back-porch stoop and break bread with me as well.

What a moment of tender grace … to look up and then to look in and sense the assurance of my Father. The lights above me were no match for the Light within me. God was there, gathering information on me. Checking on me. Surveying my heart and allowing me to survey his.

It is the same for you.

Jesus sees you; he loves you; he’s with you. Even now, he’s gathering information on you.

Jesus wants to know how you’re doing. He has some tender moments of grace and time reserved just for you. This is your privilege as children of the one true God.

No other god sees you; no other god loves you. No other god is gathering information on you because no other god is real.

Only Jesus. Simply and profoundly, holy Jesus.

So tonight … look up, child.

Give your soul some room to breathe in these coming hours.

For it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.

Let us strongly urge the Christ to linger around our tables for a few moments longer.

Revelations await our hungering souls.

Revelation comes to lead us home.

Peace for the journey,

the face of an angel

photo courtesy of Dawn Parker Photography

“When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the LORD.” (Exodus 34:29)

I want to tell you a story today before time takes it away from me. Only a few have been privy to the details thus far, but you need to know them as well. The moment is now because this is the moment God has ordained for such a telling. It’s a story about the face of an angel.

My angel. His face.

On May 31st, Jadon will graduate from Scotland Christian Academy. Nearly eight months ago, Jadon’s graduation wasn’t even on our radar. His survival was. On September 14, 2018, Jadon suffered a traumatic brain injury when a tree fell on him during Hurricane Florence. His skull was fractured, the crack stretching from the top of one ear, across his head to the top of his other ear. In addition, he had two brain bleeds that, without immediate intervention, would cause him to bleed out within a couple of hours. If you’ve been following along, then you know the rest of the story. Jadon’s survival is nothing short of a miracle. You can read more about it here.

What I’m about to tell you brings additional texture and layers to his miracle. I cannot explain it otherwise except to say that I trust fully in the details, in the way they arrived to my heart, and in the witness of the Holy Spirit to my spirit as they were being spoken to me.

On the night of Jadon’s accident, a group of alumni from Asbury University were meeting at their annual board meeting in Wilmore, KY. I grew up in Wilmore and graduated from Asbury. Both Wilmore and Asbury have a wide stretch across the globe. One of my friends, Sarah, is on the board. On Friday night, she was scrolling through her Facebook feed when she came across my urgent request for prayer. We were on our way to Charlotte through the turbulent storm, and, over the course of that three-hour drive, I would periodically give my readers an update of our progress. I asked them to, “… pray us in to Charlotte.” Sensing the urgency of my request, Sarah asked those gathered at the meeting if they could pray. They did so on a couple of different occasions.

Fast forward to Sunday when I received a Facebook message from a complete stranger, a woman who knew Sarah and who was in attendance at that same alumni meeting. She asked me if I could give her a call at my earliest convenience. At this point, Jadon had made it to Charlotte, made it through surgery, but was currently in a coma. The response we had received from friends, family, and strangers was overwhelming, so much so that I quickly had to install some parameters around my time. Accordingly, I wasn’t able to give everyone access to my heart in the way I would have desired. However, there was something about this particular Facebook message that led me to make that call to a complete stranger on Monday, September 17th.

During our conversation, my new friend comforted me by sharing with me a vision she had during the alumni group’s prayer time on Friday night as Jadon was being transported to Charlotte. She told me that, on occasion, God speaks to her through visions and that he wouldn’t let her rest until she shared this particular one with me. I’m thankful for God’s insistence in the matter. Her witness changed the trajectory of my thinking.

In her vision, she saw Jadon surrounded by a myriad of angels who had completely encircled his body. In particular, one angel stood out; he was cradling Jadon’s head. No one could touch Jadon without going through the angels’ presence. She also could see Billy and me crying over our son. She asked the Lord about the meaning of her vision … about if these angels were coming to take Jadon home to heaven or were they there to escort him to the hospital? After her conversation with me on Monday, she had her answer; she understood the significance of the angel cradling Jadon’s head, and I understood the significance of her sharing her vision with me.

Jadon was being protected and preserved by a heavenly dispatch of angels. My fears were relieved, and I knew that God had his hands all over my son’s body and my son’s future.

One of the most earnest prayers my husband and I prayed over Jadon while he was “asleep” was that God would whisper words of healing comfort to him, that Jadon would know deep in his spirit that he belonged to God and that God was, indeed, his closest and best companion. That in the days to come, Jadon would awaken with a heart bursting forth with a testimony of his Father’s grace and mercy … that the words spoken “in quiet” would become an eventual out loud witness to the world. That, going forward, everyone who spends even a moment with Jadon would see his radiance and know that he has, like Moses, been in the presence of God.

Eight months later, God is answering our prayers. Jadon’s story no longer belongs to just us. It belongs to the world … to you. And while Jadon doesn’t have any memory of those “quiet” days in the hospital, he has been radically changed because of them. His radiance is blinding and his testimony is life-giving to anyone willing to listen.

Jadon has the face of an angel because Jadon has been next to Jesus. Close proximity to the Divine is just that powerful, friends. When we spend time with God, we radiate the witness of his glory. Perhaps this is the closest we’ll come to catching a glimpse of heaven on earth, and who of us couldn’t use a little more of that … a little more of the sacred spilling onto the scenes of our lives?

The face of an angel. Jadon’s. Yours. Mine.

Find the “quiet” this week. Allow God to do what only he can do in that silent space reserved for just you and him. What will emerge is what this world needs.

A radiant people who hold the testimony of a glorious God! Indeed, a little bit of heaven on earth. As always…

Peace for the journey,

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