Category Archives: parenting

On Graduation…

I’ve heard it said before that “this life is but a dress rehearsal for the next.” If that’s true (and I happen to think there to be some merit in this understanding), then we are best served by paying closer attention to the scene changes in our lives … to the crescendoing moments that warrant an audience’s notice and applause therein.

When the shifting of a season takes center stage, God offers our hearts an invitation for reflection. We can either refuse its pause, or we can bow our souls to the moment to consider its worth as it pertains to the grander epic being played out in creation. If our “now” resembles in part our “next,” then there is value in the momentary pauses that fill our lives. Through them we hear the eternal whispers and glimpse the grander glories that await us on the other side of a long and, sometimes, fragmented obedience.

Center stage moments are God’s gift to us. I’ve authored a few of my own in the course of my forty-three years on this earth. More than these, I’ve sat ringside to the moments of those whom I love the most. This weekend holds one of those pauses for me. My son will graduate from high school.

I’ve walked this road before, thus granting me the benefit of hindsight. This one doesn’t sting as profoundly as the first one did. Not because this one is less important, less special, or any less embraced, but rather because familiarity removes some of the mystery of it all. I can better enjoy this milestone because the pain behind the first one wounded me deep enough to teach me … to shape and to modify my heart’s approach to the process.

There is worth in this moment. There was worth back then. But back then, I couldn’t see it. All I could do was muster enough strength to get through it. This weekend, I will have the privilege of soaking things in rather than soaking up my tears. Thus, I choose the pondering of a high school graduation and its merit as it pertains to the bigger picture. What is it about “turning the tassel” that speaks of a heavenly tomorrow?

Here’s what I think…

Graduations are launch pads. Behind them? Lots of time logged into the classroom of programmed learning. Ahead them? Lots of time logged into the classroom of experiential learning. One is the necessary predecessor of the other if the “other” is to walk easier—more truthful and more peaceful. Without the benefit of a preceding knowledge, our launching resembles a premature push from the nest that often ends with an unnecessary wounding. Sometimes the wounding is fatal, but more often than not, it leaves us with a limp that slows the process of our becoming.

There is a time to every season in our lives. This is my son’s graduating season. He stands on the launch pad of an incredible “next.” He’s ready to fly, and I’m ready to push, knowing that his wings have been fortified with eighteen years worth of feeding that have prepared him for the highs and the lows of the winds that are certain to follow.

He harbors just enough courage to take this step; I harbor just enough grace to let him do so. And between the two of us and our “just enough’s”, God is faithful to come alongside and offer his portion of “more than enough” to see us through this moment and to move us further into the promises of a better tomorrow.

There is coming a moment for each one of us … a graduation of sorts … that will launch us from the safety of our nests into the mystery of winged flight. The time we’ve logged into our earthly classrooms, coupled with the learning therein, will be the lynchpin to secure our safe passage. Some will launch prematurely, unable and ill-prepared to face the frontier of God’s forever. Some will launch at just the right time, with just enough courage and more than enough grace to land them safely into the arms of a waiting Father.

Either way, all will be required to make that step; thus, what you’re doing right now holds value for what you’ll be doing in God’s next. You may not think that this day’s unfolding matters for much of anything. You may think it matters little. But I think it all matters to God. Every scene of our lives—every mile we walk, every test we take, every prerequisite laid out for us in the curriculum of a heart’s shaping—is significant and necessary as it pertains to the turning of a final tassel when we stand before our Creator.

In that moment, God won’t be looking at the long list of credits that we drag behind us. Degrees and promotions and the applause of man aren’t enough to launch us toward eternal flight. No, what our God will be looking at is the heart that supersedes our fleshly gains. Did it beat for him? Did it walk for him? Did it love for him? Did it die for him? Does it, in any way, look like him?

That is the criteria for our graduation, friends. If we pass that test, then the tassel will turn, the diploma will be given, and the sacred commendation of our Savior will speak a final blessing of truth over our life’s journey…

“Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness.” (Matthew 25:21).

If “this life is but a dress rehearsal for our next,” then there is much to be learned via a high school graduation. I will be paying attention to the details this weekend. God is ever speaking. How I pray for a heart to be ever learning. Thus, I pray…

Keep me as a student in your classroom, Father, all the days of my life. Keep my heart in a posture that is willing to receive your instructions as vital and necessary for the road ahead. Forgive me for thinking that I “know it all”; forgive when I make excuses for “knowing too little.” Teach me just exactly what I need to know, and then fully grant me the courage and grace to walk in that knowing until I get home to you and receive my final graduation. Amen.

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a mother’s grip … a Father’s shadow

a mother’s grip … a Father’s shadow

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’” (Psalm 91:1-2).

I noticed it today while perusing my family Easter photos.

My grip on my son’s arm. Fingers that were content to grab rather than to gently frame. It is a telling photo, friends. One that speaks a witness as to the current condition of my heart. Mine is a heart gripped by the fragments of a broken trust. A heart that is afraid to believe that all is, indeed, well with my soul and that all will continue to live well in the days to come.

God is my shelter, my rest, my refuge and my fortress. In Him, alone, I need to put my trust. I don’t always do it, but I need to; thus, I will speak it, even if I don’t always fully feel it. Why?

Because it is the truth. God’s truth. And His truth is based on fact, not on emotions. If emotions were the rule of the day—the foundation behind our reasoning—our building of anything is as naught and crumbles to a quick death and dust accordingly. That is why truth exists apart from feeling. Feelings often come as a rich flavoring to truth but cannot be relied upon to paint a whole and accurate picture.

I know. I spent most of my forty-three years painting an inadequate faith. Over the past few weeks I’ve been faithful to add a few more brushstrokes to the mediocrity. It doesn’t paint extraordinary, friends. Instead, it paints usual, average, customary and just plain ordinary. Perhaps even less.

There are reasons behind my less. There always are. We don’t live less faith because we suddenly decide that “less” is a better swallow than “more”; there is always a driving force behind our less, and for me, that force has been rooted in a deliberate and difficult inward pause to examine the passage of time.

How quickly it comes; how easily it goes, and how fleeting is its remembrance once it has passed.

I notice it more profoundly these days. Age does that. Having a son turn twenty does that. Having a second child graduate from high school does that. Having conversations with aging parents does that. Having a daughter who has finally become too heavy to carry does that. Having a reflection that wrinkles and a frame that wearies does that. On and on I could chronicle the ways in which I’ve noticed the uncompromising and severity of a clock’s ticking.

And while I’ve long wished for the passage of time in younger seasons, this is the season when keeping it contained seems more urgent, more pressing and increasingly, more necessary. This is the time when the hugs squeeze tighter, the grip holds firmer, and when the words “I love you” speak clearer. Forty-three years of passing the time have given me a gift of sorts.

The gift of understanding … of realizing just how profound each moment should live. Consequently, when it’s not living … when moments collect and accumulate and are lived like moments to burn … well, I struggle. It seems they should, each one, live better—breathe with meaning and walk on purpose.

Good in theory; more difficult in the carry through. Why?

Because we somehow have fooled ourselves into thinking that time is ours to control. That another day is ours to live. That what was left undone in our today can be taken care of in our tomorrow. That moments can be replicated, redone and replenished because forty-three years have afforded us the witness of their abundance. That tomorrow … that next week and next year … well, there will be more.

That’s the difficult tug of my heart, friends. The struggle of my trust in this season of living. I want more moments that matter. I want to be a conscientious time-spender. I want to capture time, not squander it. I want to profoundly seed my light and influence into the lives of those around me, and then I want to watch them grow and multiply and burgeon beyond my initial investment.

What I want is time. What I’ve been given?

This moment in time. Right now. My isolated heart beat. My breath that goes in and out of me like a vapor. That’s it.

There are likely to be a few more beyond this one, but who am I to say? Who are you to make me that promise? God holds our bookends, friends. Our beginnings and our ends. In between, we are given but a few moments of influence on this earthen sod. They are passing in swift order and will soon be the history of another generation to remember.

And while it shouldn’t make me sad, while God doesn’t intend for me to stay mired in my emotions regarding time, He’s allowed me a moment in this season of living to pause before its authority over my life and over the lives of those I hold dearest.

It is a worthy pause, and as I continue to mine its worth, I do so seeing another picture emerge from an Easter family photograph. Zooming out from my initial grip on my son’s arm, I see something else. I see a shadow. A father’s arm … a husband’s arm that frames both my son and me into the bigger picture. It is a telling photo that speaks a witness as to the current and always condition of my Father’s heart.

A sheltering love; a shadowing rest. A refuge and a fortress Who holds time as a friend, and Who holds me within its grip for good reason and for extraordinary purpose. This is a picture I can trust. This is a faith I can believe. This is the sheltering that I need, thus I pray…

Keep me there, Father, nestled within your shadow and content to abide close near your heart. Frame my life within the timing of your will. You’ve given me my beginning; continue to shelter me as I journey toward my end. You are that end, God. May the moments that I walk forward from this one be filled with the shadowing truth that all moments walked with you, walk living and on purpose. Thank you for a Love that will not let me go. Amen.

Copyright © April 2009 – Elaine Olsen

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Ruby Tuesdays: A Mighty Woman (part three)

Please join us over at Refreshmoments to read more Ruby Tuesdays’ posts. To read part one and two of my series, click here.

“She senses that her gain is good; Her lamp does not go out at night.” (Proverbs 31:18, NAS).
My lamp wants to.

Go out tonight.

But my heart refuses its dimming. Not because I don’t need it to; I need some rest. But rather because I have a stirring that forces my thoughts. A penned up feeling that has surfaced today; the first of its kind, at least as it pertains to this child. My second child. A boy who’s grown up too quickly and who, in two months time, will throw his cap into the air and declare his finish to his childhood.

I’ve been waiting for this feeling to surface all year, but for whatever reason, it waited until today to erupt. I was unprepared for its arrival and yet completely willing to entreat its sway over my mind and my emotion.

Butterflies.

Flutters of worry. Flutters of anxiety. Flutters of anticipation. Flutters of exultation. Flutters of “what’s next” and flutters about “how I’m going to walk this one through.” Flutters of all manner of feelings, rolled up into a few moments of pause.

It brought me to my knees and my tears accordingly. To my prayers and my hopes for how this thing … this future that remains to be seen … is going to shift my season, yet again. Two years ago, I walked this road with my first son. It was different then. Harder in many ways. Time has developed my trust for the process, especially because that time has been seasoned with good decisions and good provision that have grown us all in very good measure.

My gain has been very good. All those years of seeding the soil of my eldest son’s maturation have blossomed into a budding harvest of manhood. I imagine the same for my second son. I hope for it; I pray for it; I long for it to walk in similar and smooth transition.

It seems that it will, at least for today. Today, despite my flutters, the future seems to be narrowing—to be falling into sharper focus as to where my son will further his growing over the next four years. Four of the five colleges to which he’s applied have laid some ample offers at his feet. Good offers. Financial packages that we couldn’t have imagined for him on the front side of this process.

On the front side, we couldn’t see a way. With an older brother already in college and with us living within the budget of our single-family income, we couldn’t imagine how we would be able to afford him the education at the school of his choice. So I didn’t.

Imagine.

On the front side.

Instead, I simply left it in God’s hands.

Good hands. Hands that are completely capable and willing to hold the trust and faith of our hearts.

And now, on the backside of a strenuous and lengthy stretch, it seems that we will be able to afford them all. And the mighty woman in me, a woman longing to be found worthy of a ruby’s bestowing, is sensing a very good gain through the hands of a very good Father who understands the needs of his children and of his provision therein.

God has moved on behalf of our household, friends. And when I discerned it today, when I began to see the prayers of my long and deliberate trust beginning to unfold in our favor, all I could do was fall prey to my fluttering. From one emotion to the next until I found my knees and my subsequent thanks.

God gave me more than an answer today. He gave me the gift of faith … of seeing how my believing Him on the “front side” of an unknown can be walked in peace and assurance until the answer arrives.

Rarely have I done that. Rarely have I fully trusted Him with my prayers. Rarely have I believed that He was truly and faithfully going to work it all out. But this time—this season of trusting God with my son’s college outcome—was my rare exception. This time, I chose expectation over doubt. Faith over fear. Peace over panic. And tonight, from the backside, it seems to me to be a very good way to walk a journey.

In full assurance of a good gain because a good God stands at the helm.

Long ago and many seasons before this one, God lit his lamp within my heart. I’ve spent the better part of forty years tending to that wick. Some years have walked brightly. Some dim. Some pure. Some tainted. But all have walked with the possibility of a brilliantly lit faith. Today, my faith burned with a radiance that surpassed them all.

Today, faith grew, and tonight, God’s wick within me is flaming with a peace that has rarely been my portion. God has stoked my heart with a night’s burning that will remain, despite this body’s need for rest.

I can take that rest because my Father is faithful to tend to my all in my stead, on the front side of tomorrow … on the backside of today. My times are in his hands. So are yours. And that, my friends, is a good gain all the way around. As always,

~elaine

A Sabbath Pause, Some Parenting Thoughts, and a Giveaway

A Sabbath Pause, Some Parenting Thoughts, and a Giveaway

It’s been a good Sabbath rest for me and my family. The highlight?

Watching my almost twenty-year-old son as he stood in our church fellowship hall, serving up drinks over the noon-time meal. Why?

Because I was reminded, once again, about the fine young man that he’s becoming and that his growing up Godly has been no accidental pursuit. It’s been a hard-fought deliberation—a combination of parental intention, his cooperation, and a whole lot of grace served downward from on high.

I blinked and nearly two decades of my life have traveled the miles and through the years and enveloped my best efforts at parenting within the flesh and frame of a boy whom I call Nick. And while I cannot predict (or would even want to) how the next twenty are going to breathe, today I bask in the truth that growing Godly kids is not only possible, but it is probable when done so through the trust and faith in a God who’s brought into the process … a lot.

Nick, along with a dozen other members of our church, will return to Bolivia this summer for more mission work at the Kory Wawanca Children’s Home in the mountainous region of Tacachia. Remember his post from last summer? My husband will not be making the trip this time, and so there’s a bit of a sting in this mother’s heart for the release of my son to his journey–a journey without any parental involvement to go alongside … at least not in the physical.

Still and yet, my worries about the potential risks involved wouldn’t keep him from it. Life is filled with risk … with unknowns … with walks along the street where the corners up ahead provide all manner of intrigue and possibility. And while, as a mother, I would sometimes like to be the one to absorb those corners on behalf of my children, I am fairly confident that it would stunt their growth. Mine too.

Parenting involves a great deal of trust for the process of an eighteen year seeding and beyond. At some point, our influence—our shaping and our guidance—needs some room to breathe apart from us. Rarely is it an easy approach to these moments, but it is a necessary one. It is a good walk and a good trust and good growing for all parties involved.

Thus, Bolivia and Nick without any parents this time, yet fully and completely with the God who held him first and who loves him best. It’s time to turn that corner, friends, and I am ready for some new growth as a mom.

Perhaps, some of you are in your own season of “letting go” and learning to trust the process of your parenting. Perhaps many of you are still in the midst of the training years. Perhaps, there are a few of you who are profoundly longing for your turn at this parenting thing. Regardless of your station in the journey—whether in the prelude, in the middle, or in the aftermath—parenting is a sacred trust and should not be entered into lightly.

It is a profundity that exceeds expectation. A complexity that forces the issue of our maturity. In the end, I am confident that God will use my parenting as a tool toward my perfection. Kids do that … perfect us in a way that would otherwise be missed should we decide to go it alone. Nick has offered me ample opportunities for growth along the way. There are three others who follow him and who will, undoubtedly, continue to proffer me many occasions for growth—mine and theirs. They still walk under my umbrella of influence; they still eat and sleep at the hands of my provision.

And until they walk in independence from my 24/7 constant vigilance, I have a few moments of profound persuasion left within my control. Thus, I will spend them on behalf of kingdom shaping and kingdom purposes so that when the time comes for my children’s autonomous launch from the nest, I can let them go knowing that they go with the truth of Jesus. What they choose to do with that truth is their choice to make, but they will make an informed decision because their parents were willing to sow some seed toward that end while they were yet young.

It is all that I can do. It is the best that I can give. It is the daily choice that I will continue to make for as long as God allows me the journey … corners and all. May I always have the good sense to walk them with the good grace of heaven as my guide. As always,

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As promised, friends, I’ve compiled a short list of some resources that might be helpful to you in your daily life of “doing” family. It is by no means exhaustive, but rather is a jumping off point for you to seek some further guidance in many of the areas that I addressed in my recent posts about purity. Take time to review some of these resources by clicking on the highlighted words, which will link you to the corresponding website.

Leave a comment to today’s post, and I will draw a name to receive a copy of one of the books or CD resources listed. The winner will be announced on Tuesday. You do not need to be a parent to win a prize. All are eligible! Peace to you and yours as you walk this week beneath the light and comfort of Almighty God.

  • The Focus on the Family website is always a good place to begin with all things parenting and family related.
  • One of our favorite family resources from Focus on the Family has been the “Adventures in Odyssey” listening series. Our children have grown up with Mr. Whitaker and Whit’s End and all things Odyssey. Great for road trips and for listening to after bedtime tucks and prayers. I promise! I’ve been addicted for years.

  • Plugged in online: movie reviews/ music reviews/ television reviews. This has been an invaluable resource to us as a family as we make the weekly Blockbuster run for movies!

  • BSafe Online: filter for home computers…very restrictive, but can be tweaked according to parental preferences.

Focus on the Family Radio Interviews (CD’s):

Book resources:

Vicky Courtney Resources:

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