Category Archives: letting go

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,

follow the lights

The remembrance crept into my mind this afternoon – a memory usually left somewhere in the back, catalogued for an occasional trip down memory lane.

It was hellish ride that night. We huddled tightly together in the backseat of a friend’s truck, following behind an ambulance that carried my injured boy. We could barely see the vehicle’s reflecting lights for the ferocious havoc of Hurricane Florence. The storm was only beginning its assault on our community, and my son was one of its first victims.

“How will I know if he dies on the way to Charlotte? That’s a long trip to not know the condition of my son. How will I know?”

My heart was breaking as I questioned the valiant EMTs who’d made the three-hour journey from Charlotte in hurricane-force winds just to turn around and head back into them with my son as their cargo.

“We’ll meet you in the ER, Mrs. Olsen. He’s in good hands.”

And just like that, they were gone. I couldn’t touch my son, couldn’t hold on to him should he slip away to Jesus during those hours of dark separation. Instead, I could only release him to the night’s drive in hopes of his survival.

With communication cut off, I entered into the deepest, darkest moments I have known on this earth. I had no way of knowing if the son I loved so dearly was with me or if, instead, he was with his Father in heaven. I simply and profoundly had to let go and tarry with the unknown … come what may.

That’s a difficult holding, friends, to be suspended in a place of not-knowing.

Some of us are feeling a similar weightiness right now. We’re trailing behind an ambulance that holds someone … something … we dearly love.

Yes, a different season with different circumstances. Still and yet, a time that feels heavy … like a storm is brewing just off the coast, readying itself for landfall. A night pregnant with the possibility of a Cat-5 hurricane.

Howling winds; falling trees; rising waters; a lack of communication with the ambulance up ahead.

That’s how weighty this day in 2021 feels to me, a bit like that night back in 2018.

Two thousand years ago, another mom stood at a distance from her son’s wounding. She couldn’t hold him in the dark hours of separation, only tarry with her punctured heart:

“When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away. But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.” (Luke 23:48-49)

All those who knew him – standing at a distance.

Let that sink deeply into your thoughts. Picture the scene. Feel that moment of utter separation and desperation.

The pause seems interminable.

As it was for those who were distanced from Christ 2000 years ago, and as it was for me two years ago, so it may be for some of us today.

As questions begin to mount in this space of not-knowing, so can the fear. What cannot be understood in these hours of silence can only be imagined. And those imaginations left unchecked are rarely the underpinning of a solid faith; instead, they are often its undermining.

This is the heart stretch … the reaching part where our faith must exceed our grasp.

We’ll not know the outcome of the ambulance ride until it reaches the ER. And to get there, we must be willing to follow behind its reflection.

Into the winds; around fallen trees; through rising waters; without communication.

Indeed, the heart stretch of faith.

The ambulance is moving, friends. Get in your vehicles. Follow closely the dimming lights in front of you. Follow trustingly. Follow prayerfully. Follow fully – all the way through to the ER.

God is with you on the ride; God is waiting for you as you arrive. A Cat-5 hurricane is no match for the accompanying and powerful presence of our Lord.

You’re in good hands. So am I. I’ll meet you in the ER. Until then…

Peace for the journey,

PS: For those of you new to Jadon’s story, you can click here to see more. 

on finding your place…

I’ve watched her over the past few weeks, preparing herself for a new season. Her golden brilliance was ours but for a few days, or so it seems. Without resistance, she’s released her color to the earth. Valiantly she stands, as she always has, tethered to the soil by her roots and tethered to her purpose by God’s design. Quietly and most sacredly, her posture poses a challenge to my soul …

Find your place in the moment, Elaine.

I spent my morning walk mulling over her prompt in my spirit.

Find your place in the moment.

It’s not always easy. My inclinations often move me elsewhere, sometimes ahead of the moment, sometimes behind. Instead of surrendering to the blowing of the wind, I often fight it, trying desperately to hold on to my color even though the shifting season demands for its release. In doing so, my emotional reserves are spent, leaving little behind to nourish the “dressing down” of winter—the nakedness and barrenness of a season designed to empty so that the re-dress of spring may come without hindrance.

Out with the old. In with the new. And so it goes, or so it should.

I’ve a lot to learn about finding my place in the moment. How about you?

Perhaps this is the message for the season in front of us as we make our way to and through another Christmas. To find our place in the moments that come to us, whether planned or unexpected. Whether welcomed or uninvited. To not rush past them or fall in behind them but, to instead, stand steadily in the middle of them, even if it means surrendering a final leaf or two or ten in order to more fully open up ourselves for the greater work of the season.

Whether naked or fully dressed, the maple tree in my front yard stands ready and available for the seasonal plans of her Creator.

I pray for a similar stance. I pray the same for you.

Find your place in the moment, friends. Linger long enough to hold it and then, in faith, to let it go so that you might embrace the next one. God is with you in all of your moments, and he will give you the grace and grit to find your place therein. I’ll meet you somewhere in the middle. As always…

Peace for the journey,

Betrayal

Betrayal.

It’s a terrible sting, a wounding not easily salved. Betrayal cuts more profoundly than disappointment because betrayal is rooted in motive. Betrayal is planned deception. Betrayal is attached to the heart. Whereas I am often disappointed by someone’s actions towards me, I am grief-stricken when I am betrayed by someone I trusted, someone I thought was my friend.

And so it is. Almost.

Accordingly, this morning (as a result of the better part of a night), I’ve thought a lot about the betrayal Jesus experienced. It’s easy to find in Scripture. At so many levels and at many points along his earthly tenure, Jesus experienced betrayal from those who surrounded him, but none more so than that from his disciple, Judas.

Jesus’ responses to his betrayer are staggering and are a comforting guide for those of us who are struggling to move beyond the pain of deception’s dagger. Ponder with me Christ’s reactions to his betrayer:

Jesus reached for his feet.

“… so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.” (John 13:4-5 NIV)

During that last meal around the table with his closest friends, Jesus did something unexpected. He took off his outer garment, knelt low to the ground, and washed his disciples’ feet. All of them. Surely, his servant-posture brought some level of grief to both Judas and Jesus; the painful exchange grips my heart even now. Jesus touched and tenderly cleansed the feet of the one who would soon betray him – a final gesture of kinship between the betrayer and the Betrayed.

Final gestures of kinship are often present in our personal betrayals. The foot washing—the kneeling and the reaching—is way of extending a loving good-bye in the face of deep disloyalty. It serves a purpose for both parties involved. Never underestimate the worthiness of a gentle foot-washing. Washing and being washed roots deeply into the heart of humanity.

Wash feet. Live on.

Jesus released him to the night.

“As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him. ‘What you are about to do, do quickly,’ Jesus told him …” (John 13:27, NIV).

Jesus could have stopped Judas from running away into the night. Instead, Jesus released him to the night’s reckless wandering. Jesus gave Judas permission to “leave the table.”

Not everyone wants to stay at the table, friends. There are times in our lives when we, too, need to release our betrayers to the night’s reckless abandon. In keeping them at the table, in a place where they have long-planned to leave, we delay the painful outcome. Scratching at an oozing wound simply prolongs the healing.

Let go. Live on.

Jesus received his kiss.

“Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: ‘The one I kiss is the man; arrest him.’ Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, ‘Greetings, Rabbi!’ and kissed him. Jesus replied, ‘Friend, do what you came for.’” (Matthew 26:48-50)

Do what you came for. The Betrayed looked at the betrayer and, once again, gave his consent (perhaps even the push he needed) to seal the deal. No longer would the betrayal be kept secret; instead, a signal was given to all present that, in fact, the trust that had once existed between Jesus and Judas, had been forever broken. The end was near; the cross was close. Soon, within a day’s time, it would “be finished.”

There comes a “finishing time” (praise God!) to all the betrayals we’ll know, a moment when the acceleration of the end is clearly seen and evident to all. In receiving the kiss from our betrayers, we can know that the end of it is near. It’s not that we don’t from time to time, feel the sting of that moment all over again, it simply and profoundly means that we are no longer strangled by it … pinned down and defeated because of it. All betrayals lose their grip on us when the cross is finally high and lifted up for the entire world to see.

The betrayer’s kiss cues the cross’s arrival.

Hang on. Jesus did. And because he did, we can live on.

And now, this…

If today you are in a season of betrayal, if you or someone you love has felt the sting of deception from someone you forever trusted, then I encourage you to lean into your Savior’s story. He has so much to share with you, so many ways he wants to love you through your pain. I can’t help but think that one of the many reasons Jesus was able to reach, release, and receive his betrayal was because he knew that, somewhere down the road, you would need the witness of his story—his strength, his pain, his hope. If that’s you, then by the very good and tender grace of God, know this—

Betrayal is not the end of your story. Jesus is. And He will never, not ever, betray the love that he has for you.

As always, and most tenderly in this season of pain, peace for the journey,

A Mapmaker and a Grace Giver (a tribute to Bill Olsen)

Grace’s words surprised me that night. I wasn’t expecting them. What I was expecting … well, I’m not quite sure. I’d never been down this road before. Just an hour earlier, I was eating orange sherbet while sitting on a couch next to my mother-in-law, Rosalie, when the call came telling us what I was expecting to hear—that my father-in-law, Bill, had stepped peacefully from this side of the eternal veil to the other.

As quickly as we could find our shoes (as well as our pulse), we made the five-minute walk from Rosalie’s new apartment to the nursing facility where Bill had been residing. This living arrangement had been a dream of theirs, selling their home on Tinkerbell Rd. and moving to Carolina Meadows—a retirement community that would afford them a peaceful and pleasant pasture to write their final chapter together.

The dream had a few revisions along the way. Two years earlier, Bill’s cancer (as well as a fractured hip, diminished mobility, and several late-night trips to the emergency room) interrupted their plans. Despite the multiple roadblocks along the way, both Bill and Rosalie eventually arrived at their new address. And while they would no longer share a bathroom or eat sherbet beside one another on those light-green, chenille couches that had cradled their marriage of nearly fifty-three years, they could at least spy each other’s bedroom windows across the verdant lawn that now separated them—a chasm that could not be crossed quickly enough in those late hours on Wednesday, June 14th.

Soberly and tenderly, Rosalie and I entered Bill’s room as well as the sacred moment. I have often said that the ground we stand upon is never more hallowed than in those moments that exist between the now and the next. Just two hours earlier, we’d been sitting in this same room with Bill, singing hymns, praying prayers, and speaking words of release to him while he peacefully slept. That was the now. This moment, well this was the next, and the difference between the two was stunningly apparent to us both.

“He is not here, Rosalie. He’s gone home.”

While Rosalie cradled her grief as well as Bill’s fragile frame, I quietly removed the wedding band from his ring finger and slipped it onto the chain around Rosalie’s neck. I stood in the shadows, watching a bride say good-bye to her husband. I was profoundly moved to a place of deeper understanding, a deeper connection to all things eternal. Indeed, what God hath wrought together, no man had been able to put asunder (Mark 10:9).

And that gift … being witness to such love … would have been enough to salve the grief that began to fill our hearts. But God gave us another gift that night, the gift of Grace—the nurse’s aide assigned to Bill in his final hours and in the many weeks preceding his departure. We met her in the hallway while making our way back to Rosalie’s apartment. She told us a story about a recent encounter she’d had with Bill:

“Mr. Bill was trying to help me find a shortcut through Chapel Hill. He drew me a map.

[*For those of you who knew Bill, this doesn’t come as a surprise as Bill was always drawing maps and knew the Chapel Hill area better than most, as he’d been selling real estate in the surrounding community for more than fifty years.]

He told me that should I ever travel down that particular route and found myself thirsty, that I should stop by Tinkerbell Road … that a glass of water would be waiting for me.”

And these, friends, were the words that surprised me that night, shook me and sweetly startled me at my core. I’m not quite sure the reason behind Grace relaying this particular story about Bill, but as soon as she released it to us for safe-keeping, I knew that no finer epitaph could ever be carved in stone to best memorialize the life and witness of Bill Olsen, Jr.—a man who lived on Tinkerbell Road, always ready with a cup of water for anyone whose thirst led them to his door.

Bill was always looking for the best route in and around his town … in and around this life … while watering his town and this life with a generous cup of goodness. He was a mapmaker and a grace giver.

A mapmaker and a grace giver. God has replayed this message over and over again in my mind these past six days since Bill’s departure. More significantly, God has etched these words onto my heart eternally.

Indeed, Bill is not here with us in body any longer. He has gone home. But God, because of his great mercy and love for all humanity, granted Bill the holy privilege of drawing us a map so that we, too, may find our way home. Additionally, whenever a thirsty soul came knocking, Bill was faithful to fill our cups with a ladle of water from the well of God’s amazing grace, more than enough to fuel us for the journey that lies ahead.

A mapmaker and a grace giver. Bill’s life was a life well-lived. He lived simply and quietly. He loved purely and certainly.

He left a map and he left a ladle.

A mapmaker and a grace giver. The trail has clearly been blazed. The mission has clearly been defined. May we endeavor (with God’s help) to follow the map, to fill the cups of the thirsty, and to live ever so rightly, vigilantly and attentively, all of our remaining days on this earth. Amen. So be it.

Peace for the journey, friends.

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