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Category Archives: parenting
Raising Faith (part six): Embracing Your Reach
For Mom & Dad…thank you for raising “Faith Elaine” and for raising the faith of my heart. I love you.
“‘He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, “How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.” So he got up and went to his father.
But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.’” (Luke 15:16-20).
The year was 1987. Newly married and full of dreams, my husband and I packed our small U-haul and charted our course for Columbus, Ohio. It was a difficult good-bye. My twenty-one years of living were spent in close proximity to my parents. Wilmore was my home, and Columbus was my next. It was hard to fathom such newness, and my heart swelled with grief at every turn. I didn’t know how to do this thing…this letting go of my current to embrace the unknowns of my future. Still and yet, the excitement of pondered possibilities soothed the ache within.
We spent the first three weeks of our married life living with my parents until it was time for our departure. That hot July morning greeted my emotions with the sweltering truth of the steps that would soon follow. We lingered a little longer that day at the breakfast table. Ate our food a little slower, and talked a little further about nothing really important. And when all of the words that could be spoken found their end, my husband climbed behind the wheel of the moving van, and I took the helm of my Chevy Cavalier.
It was a slow crawl around that familiar block…husband in the lead and me at the processional rear. I took one last look at the neighborhood homes that housed the antics of my youth, and then I took a final glance out the side window to gaze upon the backside of my childhood home. It was then that I witnessed a profound memory that will stay with me for the rest of my days. Even now, twenty-one years later, I recall it with clarity and with tear-filled tenderness.
My father, wet with his own tear-stained grief was running through the backyard, into our neighbor’s yard…hands raised to the heavens and voice shouting his audible words of affirmation…
I love you! I love you! I love you, Elaine!
It was all I could do to keep a forward focus. If my husband hadn’t needed me to follow, I am confident that I would have turned that Chevy around and crawled back home to my familiar. I traveled many miles before regaining my composure. Tears would be my constant for several days to come; it would also be the similar portion of my parents. We were used to doing life together. No one had prepared us for the letting go. And as quickly as Easter Sunday 1966 arrived, suddenly and with little warning, July 1987 appeared, and the apron strings between parent and child were cut with a profundity that rocked our hearts.
I have never forgotten that moment. My father’s running after me stands as a witness…a benchmark of sorts…that speaks the testimony of my entire existence upon this earth. I couldn’t have known at that time what my father’s reaching arms would mean to me in the seasons to come. Eight years down the road, the same arms that let me go would be the same arms that welcomed me home; this time with two little boys needing them every bit as much as I did.
I was my parents’ prodigal. The pods that fed the pigs no longer sufficed my palate. Thank God I came to my senses in the matter.
Divorced a year earlier, I took to my season of wild living with a reckless abandon that nearly cost me my life. It matters not the reason for my divorce. It was a bad decision all around, filled with the selfish and stubborn of two people who decided that life apart would be better than life as one. Problem is…life as one never splits evenly. One plus one equals one in God’s kingdom agenda. When that oneness separates, what remains are two halves in a huge identity crisis.
I fleshed out that crisis by feeding myself with the food of swine. And when famine came along (for famine is always the penchant of a swine’s filling), I began to notice my need. My hunger for home became my resolve as my heart echoed the words of a prodigal…
“… I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.”
Even in my darkness and my distance and my squandering and my sin, my daddy saw me. He loved me still, and when I called to ask if I could home, he simply replied,
“How quickly can you get here?”
1995
The same arms that sent me away were the same arms that greeted me upon my return. The fattened calf knew a quick surrender, and the feasting began in my honor. No swine’s pod for the filling this time. Only God’s grace for the cleansing. It is a feasting that continues to this day. I have my parents to thank because my parents held onto some sacred truths in the middle of my tumultuous. They held onto the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ knows that…
If faith is to be raised in his children, then love’s long reach must be embraced.
Long and wide and high and deep. A stretch that encompassed the East and the West of Calvary’s surrender. A stretch that is timeless and continues to span the spectrum of history. To jump off of the pages of Holy Writ into the hearts of men and women who have noticed their hunger and who have come home for the filling.
Of all the things that we could give our children in their process of “becoming”—in the raising of their faith—perhaps nothing is greater than the truth of Calvary’s stretch. We can…
Embrace our story of faith.
Embrace our voice.
Embrace our silence.
Embrace our imperfections.
Embrace our stones of remembrance.
But if we stop short of embracing our reach, then we have stopped short of sacred parenting. Shaping love never ends with a closed fist. Shaping love begins with extended fingers. Hands that…
Stretch. Strain. Strive and Stay.
Hands that…
Watch. Wait. Weep and Welcome.
Hands that…
Forgive. Forget. Fellowship and Feast.
We were made the stretch, my friends. Every last one of us. We have been commissioned to God’s great calling of raising faith in this generation. It is a calling that I take seriously; not only in the home that houses my children, but also in the community that houses God’s people. We each have a place within that community…a context in which to frame our calling. Yours doesn’t necessarily look like mine, but the truth of our purpose scripts the same.
If faith is to be raised, then faith must be embraced.
Hold tight to this Truth, dear ones, for soon and very soon, our faith will be made as sight, and we will walk hand in hand with the One who stretched his arms on our behalf. Let us celebrate and find our gladness this day, for we, who were once dead in our sin, have been made alive through Jesus Christ, our Lord!
The party has only just begun.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of his abiding and promised Holy Spirit, Amen!
…raising faith in a new generation, Father’s Day 2008!
Copyright © June 2008 – Elaine Olsen. All rights reserved.
~elaine
Thank you for joining me on this journey of “Raising Faith.” In a million years, I could have never imagined writing this series as it pertains to parenting and otherwise. But, God imagined it, and I am better for the penning of my heart. May God continue to bless you each one as you raise the faith of others along the way in this journey called “right now.” I stand alongside you in the calling. I welcome your thoughts…your prayer requests…your friendship and your partnership in the spreading of the Gospel that has loved this prodigal home again. May God continue to speak his power and his grace through your reach at every turn. As always, peace for the journey. ~elaine
A Father’s Day Blessing Named Colton
We pause today for Father’s Day. I had some perfect thoughts for the occasion…part six of our series “Raising Faith.” It can wait until tomorrow, for seventeen years ago today, I had the privilege of bringing my second son into the world. He was born on Father’s Day weekend and has been the delight and apple of his father’s eye ever since.
You may recall that I referenced him a few days ago. Colton came into a world filled with chaos and noise. He was my quiet child. Was, that is. Somewhere around age ten, he found his voice, and for the past seven years he has filled my life with much laughter, warmth, and weary! I’ve not parented him perfectly. In many ways, the life that we share together as mother and son might just well be my perfection in the end.
I love Colton. His energy is boundless, and his love for life, for people, for God, and for conversation mirrors his mother’s reflection. His tenderness of heart and his passion for just about everything are worthy of my tribute. Therefore, I want to share with you something I wrote about him ten years ago…almost to the very day.
We were preparing to leave my childhood home in Kentucky to make our way to North Carolina where my husband would assume the role of his first pastorate. It was a hard transition, and our feelings surfaced raw and unsuspecting at every turn. This was one of those occasions. As I chronicled back then, Colton had much to teach us during that season of change. He still does. May God bless this particular “stone of remembrance” as only he can.
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June 1998– “A Peaceful Letting Go”
It was one of those defining moments. You know the kind. It came suddenly…unexpectedly…yet perfectly timed.
Colton, my soon-to-be seven year old, was greatly anticipating his upcoming birthday. Upon a routine trip to Sears, he spied some shiny new bikes and decided that one of these treasures was his heart’s desire for his special day. I spent a few minutes explaining to Colton that, indeed, a bike would make a nice gift. However, knowing Colton, I told him that he would first have to learn to ride his brother’s bike before we would purchase him a new one. I thought that this discussion would be the end of it, for my son is extremely frightened about trying new things–especially launching out on a new set of wheels.
After returning home that evening, I noticed that Colton was squirming around in the garage, trying to access his brother’s bike. He announced to me that he wanted to practice. D-day was five days away, and he was going to learn. With skepticism, I strapped on his loosely fitting bike helmet and sent him out to the street with his abundantly patient step-dad. I would watch from the porch.
After thirty minutes of 90 degree heat and running up and down the road with wobbly bike in tow, my husband handed the responsibility of teaching over to me. Colton was making progress, yet remained terrified of the letting go. In my no nonsense kind of way, I instructed Colton to look ahead, move the pedals, and focus on the task at hand. I assured him of my grip, and off we went. After two or three trips down the road, my weariness was apparent.
You need to know that I was tired. I had just come down from a very emotional two weeks without husband, without parents, working full time, finishing the school year, selling a home, preparing for a move, wanting to keep peace, looking for peace…longing for peace. So in all of this upheaval, there I was…
Running…sweating…instructing…frustrated…exhausted.
It was at that moment, when it happened. Christ came down and jogged alongside us and spent a few moments creating a most profound realization within my spirit. In those brief moments of suspended time, the Lord revealed to me that it was not my son’s lack of coordination, nor his inability to focus that remained his barrier for taking off. It was my grip–the tightly locked fingers on the back of his seat–that was keeping him from success. I was certain that he was going to crash. He was going to hurt himself, and in that hurting, he would become discouraged and never want to try again. In that moment, the pain and discouragement of all my past “letting go’s” came back, and I knew what I must do.
Immediately, my grip released, and I watched Colton take his first attempts at riding alone. He left me behind and soon realized my absence. He had done it–wobbly for sure–lacking in finesse–but complete in the process. My moments of being a proud momma were coupled with the reality of the brief jog with my Savior.
Peace came in waves, and I collapsed in the comfort of its cleansing power. As usual, the tears welled, and I wondered if anyone around me was witness to this milestone—this moment of pure and real transformation. It far exceeded the accomplishment of bike riding and extended to the deeper level of spiritual warmth and understanding.
I was learning about letting go. About my dependence on the human grip. About the loosening of my grip and learning to ride. Wobbly at times. Frustration to the point of tears some days. Falling quite frequently, yet riding nonetheless.
I privately guarded my thoughts in that moment, and now, just a few weeks before another letting go, I sit to write and reflect. My father has often said that life is about the “letting go.” Trust comes with the process, and I feel confident that as long as my trust is correctly placed, the peace will continue to come in waves.
Leaving my childhood home for a second time will be tough. This time, there are two little boys who share the grief of the good-byes. We will all “let go” in just a few days, and a new adventure will begin. Will we wobble? I’m sure. Will we hurt? Most definitely. Will we glory in the accomplishment of the riding? Well…you could ask my Colton. You see, his little taste of success…his baby steps of trusting…led him to continue in the pursuit, and five days later, that blue shiny bike greeted him as he embarked upon another year of life!
He is a good one to teach me a lesson. I will watch him and take strength from him in the days that lie ahead. Together, all of us will face our fears, our hurts, our joys, and remember the “bike rides” in seasons past that have encouraged us to launch out in faith. In it all, we will look around at our surroundings and see the Master Teacher jogging alongside, authoring the defining moments and cheering boldly for each step of our progress. Thank God for his grip that remains sure even in the letting go.
May God be with you in your moments of “letting go,” and may you sense his deep peace that comes with the trusting!
Happy Birthday, Colton. You have been worth every moment we have jogged together.
I love you!
Raising Faith (part five): Embracing Your Stones
“So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, ‘Go over before the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before they ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.’” (Joshua 4:4-8).
I gathered a stone tonight. The dry river bed that once boasted the flood waters of another season’s living hosted my night’s walk. I will carry this stone of remembrance with me for the rest of my days as a memorial to a year well spent within the classroom walls of school named Trenton, within a grade named third, within the lives of twenty-one pupils named mine.
As I sat in the bleachers and watched seven of those original twenty-one walk across that stage to receive their high school diplomas, my heart was tender with their memories. They entered my world during a season that I chronicle as the most difficult one I have ever walked—the Trenton years. Our pastorate was not a kind one. It nearly destroyed us as a family and left us with bleeding wounds that know some scarring. Now, a decade later, we look back and remember the good, and these children represent some of the very best of that good.
It wasn’t hard to love them, but it was hard to teach them, for I wearied long and tired on their behalf. Nighttimes were rarely my time because nighttimes were spent in preparation for the daytime to follow. My constant? Early to rise…late to bed with little rest in between. I breathed my job, and as quickly as the calendared thirty-six weeks arrived, they departed, but not without leaving an indelible impression upon my heart. When those buses drove off the lot on that last day of school, many teachers sighed their relief. I wept my sadness. No, it wasn’t hard to love the twenty-one, but it sure was hard to leave them.
My weary doing had marked me forever. We laid some stones that year. Made some memories and climbed some hurdles. These kids didn’t grow up like I did. They lived and breathed an existence that ended at the county line. Their world was small, and the bigness of mine entreated the dreams of their tomorrows. We crammed a lot of living into the nine months that we shared. And when, in the future, they wander back to remember their twelve years of classroom learning, I would be lying if I didn’t hope that my name would come up from time to time.
The gathering and the building of stones. That is what tonight was about…for them and for me. Some memories are worth our monuments, and these young adult men and women will always stand as one of mine.
Raising faith includes the building of such memorials. Taking the time to carve and to collect occasions as sacred, is a holy habit that God instilled within his children from the very beginning. He knew that they…that we…are prone to our forgetting. We pilgrim through life, sometimes with little awareness of God, until we reach a river’s edge that requires his participation. Steps forged in plenty and in peace rarely take the time to reflect on seasons past when God’s faithfulness superseded our doubt—when God stacked the flood ravaged waters so that we could pass through on dry ground.
We forget to remember. And when a crossing of the Jordan becomes our required portion, if the stones of our past remain ungathered—unmarked and uncherished—then faith has little anchor for the waters ahead. Thus, God commissions us to gather a few stones along the way.
To carry them within our hearts and to document them with our hands. To write them with our words and to capture them with our cameras. To shower them with our gifts and to wrap them with our hugs. To engage them with our time and to honor them with our commitment. To consecrate them with our laughter and to baptize them with our tears. To hold them with our tender and to remember them with our pause. To pick them up when the picking is good and to place them in our pockets as stones of remembrance for a season yet to come.
Life is hard, and rivers run swift. Rarely is a river’s bank the place of our constant abiding. Sooner or later, a walk through the water’s pulsing is required. It is in those times of testing when our gathered stones mean the most. When we can reach deep within our pockets to touch the past faithfulness of our God and to remember that a stone’s gathering awaits us on the other side of our obedience.
God never leads us through the Jordan without providing a few stones worthy of our collecting. Ten years ago, God allowed some raging waters to roll through our lives in Trenton—some literal waters named Hurricane Floyd and some darker, spiritual waters named trying and testing. It was a hard embrace and harder still, was the obedience to sow some sacred seed within its consuming rage. But just this night, I was given the privilege of tasting the fruit of some of those seeds. Seven of them to be exact.
And as soon as the tassels were turned, I made my way onto the riverbed that usually hosts football to gather a few more stones for the road ahead. Stones named Taimak, Lashonda, Allison, Amanda, Morris, Damien, and Argustus. These precious graduates are the rocks in my pocket this evening. I touch them with my hands, and through my tears, I build them as a monument of remembrance—of realizing that all was not lost in that season of hard. That the tears sown in my difficult have reaped a moment that softens its scars.
(Mother Willis, Taimak and Me-1998, Taimak and Me-2008)
(Damien, Amanda, Morris, and Allison – 2008)
All of us, every last one of us, will come to Jordan’s edge in our journeys. God will ask us to move out in obedience. Sometimes in the wet. Sometimes in the dry. But all times, with the promise that beneath our feet’s submission are some stones worthy of our gathering. The gift to each one of us in those moments is remembering to pause for their collection.
If faith is to be raised, then stones must be gathered. We will never leave a river’s walk without a trophy or two to carry home.
Home to our now. Home to our forever, when at last we lay our trophies at his feet…a monument for all eternity to the One who is faithful. To the One who is worthy. To the One whose stone is worthy of my pocket for always. And so I pray…
Make me a stone gatherer, Lord. Never let my hard obedience and your faithfulness to me in that hard, go unnoticed. Instead, pause my heart to sow some seed and to build some monuments that breathe the witness of your presence within the process. I thank you for my Trenton years, for they have given me some precious stones of remembrance for the journey ahead. With each touch and with every glance of their beauty, I will recall your faithfulness to me in that season and will finally make peace with my past. You are faithful, Lord. Yesterday. Today. Always. You are my remembered Peace. Humbly and with a grateful heart, I find my rest within the shadow of your Monument this night. Amen.
Copyright © May 2008 – Elaine Olsen. All rights reserved.
I’m so glad that you continue to take this walk with me through the Raising of my faith and the raising of faith of those under my influence. Today’s focus was embracing the stones of remembrance that come to us in our walk of faith. What are some of the stones that God has given you along the way? As always, I welcome your thoughts and prayers. I hope to post a last a final word on Raising Faith sometime this weekend. May God bless the reading of these words as only he can. Thank you for your faithful participation. Shalom!
Raising Faith (part four): Embracing Your Imperfections
“Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age, and he made a richly ornamented robe for him. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.” (Genesis 37:3-4).
I am bothered by Jacob’s love for his sons. His parceling of love and partiality toward Joseph doesn’t befit his patriarchal identity. This father of twelve should have loved better. More perfect…more even. But he didn’t. Some would argue God’s will in the matter. I would argue man’s will postured toward personal preference. Either way it feels wrong, and it tears at the core of every human heart who has known the second penchant of a parent’s affection.
I am bothered by Jacob’s love for his sons. His parceling of love and partiality toward Joseph doesn’t befit his patriarchal identity. This father of twelve should have loved better. More perfect…more even. But he didn’t. Some would argue God’s will in the matter. I would argue man’s will postured toward personal preference. Either way it feels wrong, and it tears at the core of every human heart who has known the second penchant of a parent’s affection.
Joseph’s brothers knew the positioning of a second love. And as so often the case when love is labeled, bitterness seeds a root, and anger grows a tree. It was a seeding that would cost Joseph his freedom, his brothers a deep sin, and his father a profound grief. If only Jacob had known what his preferred loving—his imperfections in parenting would cost him…would cost others…then, maybe, he would have chosen a better path.
Maybe I would.
Imperfect parenting. Guilty as charged.
That was the label I wore recently, as I lashed out at my sixteen-year-old son over a situation that required my intervention. It wasn’t pretty. In fact, it was out of control. Emotion won out over reason, and within the course of a moment, I had stripped my son of his ornamental robe and reduced him to a weeping that would later bring me my own tears of sorrowed repentance.
I screwed up. And while my involvement in the situation was necessary, it could have been handled differently. This is a familiar chorus that I have echoed over the past nineteen years. To chronicle my failings as a parent would take too long, require too much ink, and undoubtedly, would have most of you wondering why I am bothering to pass along any parenting thoughts at all.
I wonder that myself. In fact, if I am not careful in this moment, I could easily allow myself a quick dive into one of my frequently visited pits—worthlessness. But God reminds me that he is after something in this moment. God is after truth—a little salt and light and seasoning for the road ahead. He reminds me that there is no profit in pretend. No merit in the masking. No sacred in the secrets.
He simply asks me to live my life out loud and as real. And real, for me, has sometimes meant a hurtful wrong for my children. What I choose to do with that “real” harbors the seed for their tomorrow. Self-preservation always seeds temporary, but humbled confession always seeds eternal. And I want my children to grow eternally through me (mistakes and all), rather than simply in spite of me.
Thus, when humbled and needed confession becomes my necessary, the I’m sorry’s and will you forgive me’s find their voice. Never once have my children denied me their forgiveness. Never once has my Savior denied me his.
Instead of my imperfection becoming fertile soil for a bitter root, my Father tills it as a demonstration of his unimaginable grace. In laymen’s terms…God can take my screws ups and use them for his kingdom purposes.
Does that merit the sin? Not at all.
But God’s grace is a transforming work. The reality of our sin—the memories of all our regrets and wishes for a “do over”—well, it isn’t the final word in the matter. Jesus Christ is the final Word. And sometimes, our biggest imperfections become the eternal embrace of our Father who offers his perfected punctuation in the end.
“But Joseph said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.’” (Genesis 50:19-20).
The saving of many lives. Who could have known what Jacob’s imperfect parenting would harvest? God knew, and he knows the same where we are concerned.
I don’t know how this strikes you in the midst of your parenting today…in the daily grind of raising faith in the lives of your children and grandchildren and of those who live under your influence. It strikes me hard, but it gives me hope.
I cannot fully see the end of yesterday’s parenting mistakes. I remember some of them, but most have been forgotten, swept away by the love of my children whose forgiveness breathes deep and whose love reaches always. I will never parent them perfectly, but I will love them with the firm belief that…
If faith is to be raised, then imperfections must be embraced.
Not forgotten. Not unmentioned. Not pushed aside and tucked away in a drawer where pride and stubborn hold the keys. No, imperfections must be owned and acknowledged. They must be treated as real and as raw, for there is no profit in pretending. No merit in the masking. And if grace is to be tilled, then grace must be sown through our humble confession. I want my life to seed eternal. I want the same for my children, and so I pray…
Keep me, Father, from the imperfect parenting that perfectly scripts a disastrous result. Instead, make me a better parent through the transforming power of your Spirit within. And when I fail…when sin finds a root because of the flesh that remains…till my soil for a better seed that blooms eternal and that raises the faith of the generation who follows. I thank you for the immeasurable privilege to parent. Forgive me when I treat it as anything but your sacred gift to me. Amen.
Copyright © May 2008 – Elaine Olsen. All rights reserved.