living God’s truth | Elaine Olsen

letting go at "44"…

April 12, 2010

“And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.” (1 Thessalonians 2:13)

My boy turned twenty-one this past weekend. I turned forty-four. Together we celebrated our milestones at my parents’ house on Saturday. Mom made sure we each had our own cake (only a mother would do this), and dad made sure we had steak (only a dad would go to some out-of-the-way butcher and pay $85 for the filets we enjoyed).

The food was tasty, and the fellowship was rich. I come from good roots, friends, and I am mindful and grateful for the privilege of what it means to have grown up in a household that promotes generosity and faith, all in the same setting… not just on birthdays but, consistently, on every occasion over the past forty-four years. What a joy it is for me to be surrounded by those who know me the best and love me still—those who birthed me, those whom I’ve birthed, and those who’ve married into the crazy lot of us. It was a good memory and one that has me thinking, yet again, about the one, consistent theme that has followed me all the days of my life.

Letting go.

A hard portion of Christian obedience, yet perhaps, the greatest “tool” our Father uses to shape us more perfectly into his consecrated people. “Letting go” comes in all shapes and sizes. Letting go of…

Children.
Parents.
Friendships.
Careers.
Dreams.
Money.
Time.
Childhood.
Carefully planned agendas.
Distractions.
Addictions.
Selfishness.
Consistency.
Routine.
Ministries.
Concerns.
Expectations.
Regrets.
Anger.
Unforgiveness.
Life.
_______________.

Regardless of the object behind the fierce and determined “holdings” of our hearts, it’s only in the letting go of those objects that we begin to fully participate in the life of faith to which God has called each one of us. By nature, we clothe ourselves with the outward manifestations of an inward pulse. What beats on the interior, wears openly and outloud on our exteriors. And while not all outward attachments are inherently detrimental to our faith’s progression, a tight-fisted grip on them can be. When what we’re holding becomes more important to us than the One we’re holding, then a readjustment of perspective is often needed.

God is faithful to bring that readjustment; we, however, are not always faithful to submit our hearts for his evaluation. Rather than releasing our grip on worldly attachments, we cling tightly to them in hopes of managing and manipulating them for a season longer. Sometimes we are successful in doing so, but rarely does it last and most always is it to our disadvantage. When we refuse relinquishment of our “stuff” (whether people or things), our clutching often becomes the stumbling block that prevents us from moving forward with Jesus and his plan for our futures.

Paul understood this. His heart was primarily tethered to his calling in Jesus Christ, but secondarily to those who stood on the receiving end of God’s truth. The church at Thessalonica represented one such group. His time with them was brief, thus prompting his later concern regarding their “continuing in the faith” and not succumbing to the persecution and false teachings that were circulating in their midst. He felt, perhaps, that they could have benefited from further discipleship under his tutelage. I understand. How many times have I longed for further mentoring from a beloved teacher or have thought that, perhaps, those sitting under my mentoring might benefit from our spending more time together? It’s a valid concern, but even more valid and potent is the truth that came to the Thessalonians while in the presence of Paul.

That truth cannot be contained within dates on a calendar or parametered within the context of a mentoring relationship. God’s truth is timeless and is too big for confinement. Once it is released, it exponentially manifests its worth into the lives of all who come in contact with its witness. His truth is stronger than our concerns regarding its diminishment and tightly anchors itself within the soil of a receiving heart. Paul planted those seeds in Thessalonica; God was faithful to water and to grow them—a truth later verified by Timothy after his visit to the church there:

“But Timothy has just now come to us from you and has brought good news about your faith and love. He has told us that you always have pleasant memories of us and that you long to see us, just as we also long to see you. Therefore, brothers, in all our distress and persecution we were encouraged about you because of your faith. For now we really live, since you are standing firm in the Lord.” (1 Thessalonians 3:6-8).

Paul experienced “real living” because the faith of the Thessalonians was standing firm, was active and breathing and increasing daily despite his absence. Paul worried about his “letting go” on the front end of his ministry. The churches he had planted were his joy and crown, his children and his delight. It was hard to release them to “go it alone” without his watchful guidance and care, but hearing about their growing in the faith buoyed his flesh for the price that would be paid for their knowledge—his personal persecution. For Paul, it was a fair exchange—their faith for his flesh. It was a calling he willingly chose, lovingly fulfilled, and dutifully wrote about so that we could have a better picture of what it means to “let go and let God.”

I don’t know what you need to “let go” of in this season of living. I know that God is calling me to “let go” of a few things I’ve been clinging to—stuff that is keeping me too closely connected to this earth. I know that I cannot walk completely free from my worldly attachments. God has given me many of them for my benefit. But I can walk free from their hold on me, from their being too important to me. None of them (not one person or one thing) is more important to me than the hold that I currently have on the hem of Christ’s garment. When anything or anyone starts to pull me away from those threads, then I pray for a holy readjustment of my heart. Why?

Because those threads are the ones that will pull me home. I’d rather get there with “nothing” then to arrive there with everything only to be turned away from my kingdom inheritance because my earthly vision was short-sighted and temporarily focused. Yes, I turned forty-four this past weekend. My son is twenty-one, and my parents? Well, they are on the backside of the journey home. The passage of time is evident to all of us. We cannot stop the hands on the clock, and while I love every minute of my life with them here, I’m keenly aware that our “here” is just a foretaste of what awaits for us “there.” “There” is where I want my thoughts and heart to anchor because there is where I will spend forever.

Thus, a letting go. Indeed, a hard portion of the Christian obedience, but in the end, the very best obedience any one of us can yield to the process of our completed consecration. May we all take the time this week to examine the holding of our hands and hearts and then, further, to be willing to lay something/someone down in order to take hold of more of the truth that is ours in Jesus Christ.

Hold loosely the things of this earth, friends; hold tightly to things of heaven; stay focused until the end. And as you go and along the way, may Jesus Christ always and forever be your…

Peace for the journey,

PS: Leah @ the Point is hosting her pay-it-forward giveaway. Please take time to visit her and enter your name for an opportunity to win some fabulous prizes!

the ugly, beautiful truth…

April 5, 2010

The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.” (Matthew 27:62-64)

I gave my daughter a gift this Easter. While other kids were unwrapping chocolate bunnies and cramming marshmallow peeps into their mouths, my daughter was chewing on something different. Something that didn’t swallow as easily as chocolate or taste nearly as agreeable. This Easter I gave my daughter a taste of the “ugly, beautiful truth”—as the Pharisees and chief priests would describe it some 2000 years ago in Matthew’s gospel, the “last deception.”

Let me explain.

My laptop computer usually runs throughout the day and on display at the dining room table (alas, my kingdom for an office to call my own!). My blog’s “home page” sometimes serves as the screen saver, displaying the most recent post I’ve written. This past Friday was no exception. Curious child #4 (aka “Miss Amelia”) was interested in the previous writing “the exactly-why-we-need-Easter post”, especially the youtube video that includes scenes from The Passion of the Christ. You know where this is headed, don’t you?

Her curiosity led to a mouse click and then to her partial viewing of some of the graphic depiction of Christ’s crucifixion. Her sobbing and her “Make it stop!” was indication to me (currently in another location in the house) that something was terribly wrong. As I entered the dining room, I understood the reason behind that wrong—

the ugly, beautiful truth that was playing itself out on the fifteen-inch screen in front of her.

I stopped the video, cradled my daughter in my arms, and prayed for the right words to tell her. I suppose some parents would immediately try and soothe the ache by changing the subject, diverting attention elsewhere, or by shoving more promises of peeps and chocolate into the hands of their children so as to bring a measure of peace into the chaos. That’s not the way I roll, friends. Instead of trying to brush the truth under the rug, it’s always been my inclination to deal with the truth, however and whenever it comes. I’ve not always done it picture perfectly, but I’ve never found there to be much profit in pretending that truth doesn’t exist or that truth’s cause is better served by pushing it aside for another day.

Today is always a good day for truth whether it’s ugly or beautiful or a combination of both. Such was the case on this occasion. Thus, we spent some time together exploring my daughter’s questions, her tears, and her pain. Then we talked about Christ’s questions, his tears, and his pain. And when she asked me about the level of physical pain that Jesus felt and how she wished he didn’t have to “do it,” I told her the truth… the ugly, beautiful truth. Something along the lines of…

Yes, baby, they hurt Jesus badly. But more than the blood, more than the whips and the thorns or the crown that tore into his flesh, Jesus’ pain came from the fact that, in those moments, he was completely separated from his Father. And separation from the Father is far worse than any pain we will ever experience in our flesh. You see, Jesus had been with God since, well, forever. Never had they been apart. Even when Jesus came to us as a baby in Bethlehem, even then he had his Father’s eyes and attention. But on that day of the cross, Jesus was all alone, for in his flesh and on his body he carried the fullness of an entire world’s sin… past, present, and future. On that day, his Father looked away; Jesus knew it and that was far worse for him than the pain he was experiencing in his flesh. He did it for all of us, baby. For you and for me, for all of the sinners in this world. If he hadn’t, then we wouldn’t have a way to get home to God.

“I want to get home to God, mommy. I want everyone to get home to God.”

Then you, my daughter, must take your place in the story. Christ’s painful walk to the cross now belongs to you. You’ve been charged with the telling, even as I have been. You can no longer step away from the ugly, beautiful truth of the cross because truth has now been revealed to you, and you will spend the rest of your life working it out, asking some hard questions, and living the story that has now become a part of your reality, your history… past, present, and future.

“Yes, mommy, I think I understand.”

Yes, baby, I think that you do, and mommy will be praying for you as God begins to prepare your heart for the living out of his story.

***

The day after Jesus was crucified and subsequently laid in the tomb, fear was present amongst those who had the most to lose should Christ make good on his word and rise from the grave. While the disciples may have forgotten about Jesus’ promise of a third-day resurrection, the chief priests and the Pharisees had thought of little else since first hearing the proclamation. They were determined to make sure that nothing would further perpetuate the rumor—the lie—that Christ was, indeed, the promised Messiah. What they didn’t count on was the fact that the lie was, indeed, the truth. And truth, no matter how offensive it may seem at the time of its revealing, will not remain buried forever.

Truth tears off the grave clothes, shakes the foundation of the earth, and shatters the darkness with the marvelous light of God’s amazing grace and plan for his creation. Truth speaks louder than the silence that surrounds it, and truth cannot be contained within a tomb. Truth walks free from the tomb… back then, right now.

Perhaps the Pharisees were right when they said, “This last deception will be worse than the first.” Christ’s conquering of the grave has, indeed, escalated the exponential increase of the ugly, beautiful truth of God’s kingdom come. It swells and amplifies and enlarges with every passing encounter between his heart and ours. What began on Judean soil back “there and then” continues through to our “here and now.” To a little patch of eastern, North Carolina soil, where a little seven-year-old girl and an almost forty-four-year-old woman bow to receive some kingdom seed for a future harvest.

The ugly, beautiful truth of Easter.

The final, truth of the kingdom that is stronger now than it has ever been.

My ticket home; yours as well. Thus, I pray…

Reveal your truth, Father, to me, in me, and, subsequently, through me for the remaining days of my earthly pilgrimage. I don’t always understand you, Lord, but I know you and believe you, and therefore, harbor enough faith to carry me home to you. Take the seeds of this past week—the ugly, beautiful truth that has been revealed to me and to my precious daughter—and grow them into a kingdom harvest that exceeds our limited imagination. Strengthen our hearts for the “holding” and our lips for the “telling.” When we are tempted to trade in your truth for the lies of the enemy, secure our foundation with the fortification of the cross and the reality of your resurrection walk 2000 years ago. You’re still walking it, Lord. You walked it this passed week, straight into the dining room of my life, straight through to the heart of my daughter. Keep me faithful to the tending of the seeds that have been planted in all of my children; keep me mindful of what a privilege it is to water those seeds with the ugly, beautiful truth of your kingdom come. Amen.

peace for the journey,

PS: I’m likely to be MIA this week in blog land. Kids are on spring break; there’s a lot of fun to be had that I don’t want to miss. Love you all, and just in case I haven’t told you lately, thank you for spending some of your day with me. You are why I am here at my cyber address. Shalom.

paying it forward…

March 27, 2010

Not long ago, I won a pay-it-forward giveaway from my friend, http://thesecretlifeofanamericanwifeandmom.blogspot.com/ These are the goodies I received in the mail yesterday. I’ve never read Captivating but dearly love the work of John Eldredge, so I’m looking forward to diving into this “read” over spring break. In addition, I have a new travel mug for my morning brew and some Nips (another new for me) that, if I’m not careful, might cause me a trip to the dentist! Thank you, Christy, for your kindness. Your package arrived on a good day when I needed a friendly lift.

Now, as a winner of the giveaway, I’m to pick a few of my favorite things and pay-it-forward to one of you. Here is the book that will be included, Alicia Chole’s Anonymous: Jesus Hidden Years and Yours. You can read about it further by clicking here. Also, I will add in a few extras to sweeten the win.

If you’d like to participate in this contest, here are the pertinent details:

Leave a comment to this post, letting me know you’d like to be included in the contest (I have some readers who might want to comment but don’t want to be included, so please make sure you let me know).
If I draw out your name as the winner, be willing to write your own pay-it-forward post once receiving the package in the mail, posting a link back to peace for the journey.
Create your own pay-it-forward package to bless one of your readers and be willing to mail it in a timely manner.
Enjoy each page of Anonymous.

Make sense? I hope so. I’m not very good at this type of thing but feel so blessed to have won Christy’s giveaway. I’m all about paying-it-forward, friends, because the love of Christ compels me to do so.

Just this morning, I was reading in John 12:1-10 about Jesus’ anointing at Bethany. As a way of preparing my heart for this week-long pilgrimage to the cross, I’m re-reading The Final Week of Jesus by Max Lucado. It includes seven days worth of reading, all recaps of chapters from his book, And the Angels were Silent. Saturday’s readings focus on Simon the Leper’s dinner for Jesus, along with the lavish anointing of Jesus by Mary. Again, I am moved by Jesus’ response to the dinner guests who thought little of her extravagant worship…

“Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me” (John 12:7-8).

Extravagant love loves abundantly. I can’t help but recall a piece of godly wisdom I received from my mother several years ago regarding the wealth and worthiness of our words and actions toward others. It went something like this…

Elaine, we all do a really good job of sending people flowers once their dead. We send them to the funeral home and litter the graveside with blooms of extravagant remembrance. But rare are the people, Elaine, who send people flowers while they are still living. Be one of those people, daughter, send flowers now while you still have the recipients with you.

Mary gave a rich bouquet to Jesus that day. It came in the form of a costly anointing. She gave Christ her lavish worship because she understood, better than most, that his death was imminent. She didn’t concede her grief to an “after the fact” moment. She gave it to him while he was yet living, and it has been remembered to us these last 2000 years. It’s a story that teaches us about giving God our best now while today is yet today–about loving others as we love Christ, for what we’ve done in his name for others, we’ve done as unto him.

This week, I was given a bouquet by my friend, Christy. I’d like to do the same for you. In turn, I imagine that there is someone in your path today who needs the witness and kindness of heaven given to him/her via your heart and hands. Would you be willing to pass on God’s love to one of his created? It doesn’t have to cost you a year’s worth of wages, but it should cost you something… your time, your prayers, your deliberate attention, and yes, perhaps your wallet. We have been richly blessed by God with great abundance, so let’s get to the “flower shop” and start putting together a bouquet that will let your neighbors know that they matter to you and, therefore, matter to the kingdom.

Pay-it-forward, friends, and see if God is not faithful to plant a beautiful garden on your behalf and for his renown! As always…

peace for the journey,

PS: In your comments, please make sure you indicate whether or not you want to be included in the giveaway, which indicates your willingness to pay-it-forward. Winner will be drawn with my next post. Blessed Sabbath rest to you and yours this weekend. Shalom.

Good Gravy and the Beth Moore Closet

March 24, 2010

“Oh good gravy!”

(My newest expression used in times of frustration. Please don’t tell me there’s something wrong with it; I could have said something else, have often said something else, but please don’t take my “good gravy” away from me. Thanks to Jet and Cord, cowboy brothers currently running “The Amazing Race” on CBS, I have a new expression for my moments of frustration. It’s nice watching two brothers being kind to one another on this show, considering that most of the other paired contestants are challenged when it comes to kindness and to finding alternate expressions for the four-letter expletives that flow like water from their mouths. Yes, I love me some clean-shaven, boot-wearin’, nice-talking, momma-lovin’ cowboys.)

Back to my “good gravy.” (Which, by the way, I couldn’t make any to save my life. I’m not a cook. On Monday I ventured into the kitchen to make spaghetti for my family and set the smoke alarms off… I’m not kidding. But I digress, again. I imagine it might happen to me a great deal over the next three months. My brain is being pulled in a thousand different directions. Bear with me, K?)

Anyway, yesterday I made the brave decision to venture into one of our closets in our spare bedroom. Not just any closet; the “Beth Moore” closet. Yes, I admit it… I have one. My husband added shelving to the closet several years ago as my Bible study resources began to multiply. Along the way, Beth’s made shelf-room for some of her other author friends. Over the past six years, I’ve accumulated curriculum kits that include:

Beth’s

Jesus the One and Only
John the Beloved
Believing God
Psalms of Ascent
Esther
Daniel
The Patriarchs
Living Beyond Yourself
A Woman’s Heart, God’s Dwelling Place

Nancy DeMoss’s Seeking Him
Priscilla Shirer’s One in a Million
Jennifer Rothschild’s Fingerprints of God & Me, Myself, and Lies
Alicia Chole’s Anonymous

I’m sure I’m leaving something out… help me Bible study gals! That’s a lot of meals out, friends, approximately $3000 worth of eating out or buying clothes or taking a nice vacation with my family, but I’m not bitter, I’m just sayin’, that’s all. And then there are the file boxes crammed with other teachings, ones I’ve developed and ones that I used prior to our moving here (a spiritual gifts study, advent study, Easter study, etc.). Oh, and the “props” attached to the studies (the golden scepter, the crown, the fountains, the candles, the dozen or so table cloths made to match the colors of the bookcovers, etc).

And lest I leave out the rest of the closet’s contents, how about the 100 or so CD’s that have done little more than collect dust over the past six years, and the craft supplies crammed in the upper corner, along with an endless supply of gift bags and wrapping ribbon, and the spiral notebooks crammed with study notes to which I will never again refer; not because they aren’t worthy, but because there is absolutely no organization to any of it.

And this is just one closet, friends (HELP ME, Cindy!). The more I dug, the more I found. Quickly I was surrounded in a sea of struggle, and with tears running down my face, I simply looked up to God and offered my “Good gravy!”

His response?

“Yes, Elaine, a lot of it.”

And as I looked around me, on the bed and stacked all over the floor, I saw the witness of a good investment, some “good gravy.” I could have invested my money elsewhere. Even more importantly, I could have invested my time in a thousand alternate directions, but as I began to sort and pitch—being careful to hold onto the good and eliminate the non-essentials—my heart was tendered by the reality of what God has done through me over the past six years, most days in spite of me.

Not only has he taught me a great deal about his Word via some awesome Bible study mentors, he’s allowed me the lavish fellowship of friends who have come alongside me to share in the teaching. My Tuesday night gals have made the investment worth it. Collectively, we carry the wealth of the kingdom within us, exponentially increasing its value everywhere we go. We may not be able to recall with specificity all the valuable insights we’ve received via the fourteen-plus studies we’ve done together, but we’ve certainly taken hold of the one thread that’s been woven throughout them all.

Jesus Christ and the life-altering truth of his Word.

That’s why most of the participants kept coming back to study on Tuesday nights. They understood it wasn’t about me, but about God. About learning more, seeking more, growing more, living more. About realizing that the “more” is best lived within the context of community, rather than in isolation. Could we have grown in our spiritual walkabouts with Jesus apart from one another? Certainly. God’s Word tells us that he has given us everything we need in the power and strength of the Holy Spirit to grow in our faith and understanding of his truth (see 1 John 2:24-27). But without one another, we would have grown differently, perhaps at a slower pace and without the benefit of sacred participation—of having our hearts intersect for a season so as to bring about a richer, fuller expression of faith.

My Tuesday gals have been my “charge and keep” for a long season, my very “good gravy” and then some. They will continue on without me, for they have seen the merit of what it all means. I’m not sure if I’ll be facilitating another study come fall in my new home, but one thing is for certain.

I’ll carry my closet with me as I go. And should my new home have ample room for a “Beth Moore” closet, I’ll tenderly unpack each study, give them a place of individual prominence, and be thankful for the “good gravy” that has already come to me because of their presence in my life.

Thank you, Beth, Priscilla, Jennifer, Nancy, and Alicia. Most importantly, thank you Tuesday night gals for making Bible study a priority and Jesus Christ, all the more. He is our anchor, our Teacher, and our very great Reward. Keep to him all the days of your lives and see if he is not faithful to fill your plate with enough “good gravy” to keep you well fed for the pilgrimage home. I love you more than words will allow. As always…

peace for the journey,

PS: For those of you interested in simplifying your life and especially your home, Cindy at “Letters from Midlife” has done umpteen posts along these lines. You can find them HERE. Thanks, Cindy. I imagine that I’ll be revisiting your thoughts/words often in the weeks to come.

walkabout…

March 21, 2010

Loose ends.

We all live with some. I don’t imagine there is a day that goes by when a loose thread or two don’t dangle their insistence before our eyes and within our hearts, thereby challenging us to trust in something bigger, Someone bigger, to weave them into the fabric that we call our lives.

I’ve had a thread or two or five or ten over the past few months. Some of them still dangle before me. Some of them, thankfully, have been picked up by the capable hands of Jesus and have begun to add their color to my canvas. I can’t see the fullness of their beauty, not yet. But as a woman of faith—a woman who is learning the road of the “ancients” of Hebrews 11—I’m believing God for their worthiness. It’s all I can do when I cannot see the road in front of me. I can only see the One who leads me, and that is enough for me, friends, for He is my “next.”

It’s been a little over two weeks since I put the final punctuation on the manuscript I began back in August of last year. The idea had been stirring in me for some time, but after walking through a week-long, intentional time of searching my Father’s heart (thanks, Lisa!), God confronted my heart regarding my faith and the lack of it therein. It was during that time, that the topic of my next written work came into clear focus; I’ve spent the past seven months writing that focus and have now completed my thoughts. The tentative title?

On Walkabout with the King: stepping the path of an ancient faith. (You may remember me talking about it here.)

Fifty thousand words and forty reflections later, I am well-pleased with the resulting conclusion. Not the words necessarily, but the work that has been accomplished because of those words in me and that will continue to work through and out of me in the days to come. We cannot delve into the lives of our spiritual ancestors and remain the same. Not really. Certainly we can give them a casual glance, take note of their faith and their “settled confidence” in God, but if we dig deeper for further clarification regarding their faith and how their faith pertains to ours, then we will be changed. It is God’s promise to us.

“This is what the LORD says: ‘Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’” (Jeremiah 6:16).

I have found some rest for my soul. I’ve stood at the crossroads and asked for the ancient paths. I’ve seen their faith in living color and applied it to my daily walk. Why? Because I desire nothing more than to be a woman of faith… a woman who steps in the paths of her spiritual ancestors. A woman who isn’t just “all talk” and no “walk.” A woman who isn’t afraid to make the same journey that they made. A woman who is willing to pick up her tent, even as Abraham picked up his tent, pack up her family, in order to keep in step with her King’s directives.

Today marks the beginning of that odyssey, friends. Today, my husband and I stood before our congregation to make the announcement that the Bishop of the United Methodist Church has issued the call for us to move this June. It wasn’t an easy announcement. We’ve invested the past six years of our lives into this church and surrounding community. The work of our hands dwarfs in comparison to the investment that we’ve made with our hearts.

We love our people, and we’ve loved them fully.

It’s not always been perfect. Loving in the flesh always leaves the door open for mistakes on both ends. That being said, we’ve always loved willingly, kindly, and with enough open honesty to admit our frailties in the matter. When love loves that way, then love blooms, and today, my arms aren’t big enough to hold the bouquet that I’ve been given. Today, my bouquet overflows with the witness of the colorful blossoms that have been lavished upon me over the past six years. How thankful I am for the garden that God seeded on my behalf long before my moving van ever crossed the Wayne County line six years ago. How thankful I am for the seeds that he’s planting now somewhere else.

I don’t know where that somewhere else will be friends, nary a clue. We won’t know until the end of April. But God knows, and to a lesser degree the Bishop knows, and that is enough for me. Did you hear me? Just in case you missed it…

God’s knowing is enough for me.

Seven months ago, it might not have been enough, but today, his enough proffers as certainty rather than maybe. If I’ve learned one thing from the “ancients” who are listed in the Hebrews’ Hall of Faith, I’ve learned that our God can be trusted with our futures. Why? Because he is our future, he is our “next,” and I intend on keeping one hand on the hem of his garment and one hand around the waist of my family until his hem crosses me over that finish line, and I find a final and perfect rest for my soul.

It’s all I can do—keep holding on and keep believing in the One whose cloudy pillar is on the move. God has asked a great thing of me; it’s not easy to pack up six lives and move them in accordance with God’s directives. But God’s great asking is in keeping with my faith’s cultivation; he’s not asking anything of me that he didn’t ask of his people long ago. And so, like those from my spiritual lineage, I cast my eyes to the horizon this night and remember that I am but a stranger on loan to this alien country. That there is a better country coming, and that this one isn’t it. This one only serves as the bridge between what has been and what will be. And the steps taken in between the two?

The walkabout of faith.

{lisa leonard designs}

I’m on it; so is my family. So are you, and so is our King. He can be trusted with the road ahead, so let us all take hold of his hem and press on, believing that the “what and the where” that is to come is exactly the journey he has intended for us all along.

Sweet trust. Sweet rest. Continuing…

peace for the journey.

~elaine

Category Archives: living God’s truth