a time to keep

Packing while unpacking.

It seems like a contradiction, but it’s really just a delicate consideration about things kept, things discarded, things remembered, and decisions therein. One doesn’t pack up a house … a history … without a little unpacking of the soul alongside.

A time to keep and a time to throw away, as Solomon would say.

Such has been my portion since April 10th, the day I first learned of our impending move to Benson, NC. It almost seems like yesterday when our moving van pulled up to the parsonage in Laurinburg and we began to unpack our lives here.

Six years of living history in this space. Six years of being loved, being sheltered, being known, and being well-cared for. Saint Luke UMC has been a good place to grow and to rest our hearts. Some would call us crazy for leaving this place, this congregation and this community. In fact, on paper, it doesn’t make much sense as far as pastoral moves go.

But every now and again, “what makes sense” gets trumped by something greater, something higher, something more akin to choosing “what’s best for now” over “what’s been best for the past six years.” And that best for us?

Moving closer to home.

“Home?” you might ask.

Yes, home. You see, for me, home is portable.

It’s not a place. It’s a people. It’s not a house. It’s a family.

And my membership in a family began a long time before I married Preacher Billy. Before I was part of the Olsen family, I was part of the Killian family. Before I was a pastor’s wife or Nick, Colton, Jadon, and Amelia’s mom, I was a daughter. I still am. I belong to Chuck and Jane, and they belong to me. We’ve been a family for fifty-three years.

I spent the first twenty-one years of my life living under their roof in Wilmore, KY. Eight years later, I returned home for an additional three years where they continued to parent me as well as their two young grandsons. I moved away from Kentucky a final time in 1998, and four years later in 2002, my folks followed suit, relocating to North Carolina to be closer to their family. Dad left his fruitful career as a professor at Asbury Seminary to pastor two small churches in Mayodan, NC, while mom came along for the ride as his help-mate.

Apparently, “home” was portable for them as well.

Not a place, but a people. Not a house, but a family.

Us. We are that family. We were the reason they uprooted their existence of thirty plus years and said good-bye to their community, their countless friends, and their comfort. If you asked them today, I don’t imagine they’d voice any regrets. Their great sacrifice has been our great gain. The life we’ve shared together because of their being closer to us cannot be calculated in dollars and cents. It can only be measured in the heart, in those deep kinds of ways that shore up a foundation, solidify a history, and fortify a future. My parents brought “home” to us seventeen years ago.

Two months from now, we will have the rich privilege of returning the favor … of bringing “home” to them. For how long, only God knows. But for however long he ordains, we will be able to “do life” more practically with our parents. More time together. More face to face. More memories made because of more access. And that, friends, is what is best for now.

A home delivery to the Killian family from the Olsen family.

Indeed …

A time to keep.

Even so, Lord Jesus, grant us your peace for the journey as we walk these next steps in absolute faith and expectation. Amen.

on the edge of something

It’s 4:00 AM; I can’t sleep. A strained shoulder and a pack of prednisone are to blame. I’ve started and finished a 350-page historical novel that’s been sitting bedside for weeks. I’ve read the book of James. I’ve prayed over my family. I’ve shed a few tears. And now, out of a restless need, I dare to open this blank page wanting to say something, but not completely sure I know what it is.

I’m on the edge of something.

There have been a lot of those edges lately, a lot of tossing and turning, reflecting and remembering, wondering and wishing my way through my nights.

I’m standing in between … teetering precariously on the edge of yesterday, just before the dawn breaks on today, and God pierces my edge with a truth I’m often prone to forget:

I still have a plan for your life, Elaine.

I am undone by the hushed voice that penetrates the darkness, so certain in my spirit that I have heard from his. This is the edge we share, God and me … a moment of teetering between things unseen and things perceived. And it is a very good place to stand, here in this hour …

On the edge of something, even if I cannot see it.

God and I have been on these edges before, all of my life in fact. He’s been with me from the beginning. And while I cannot remember a day when I was unaware of his presence, it wasn’t until I was in my mid-30s that I began to really open up my heart and my mind to understand the deeper things of God.

With two young toddlers in tow and a barely used high-school graduation Bible tucked under my arm, I dragged my soul to my first ever, in-depth Bible study in Little Washington, NC. It was Beth Moore’s To Live is Christ, a study on the witness and ministry of the Apostle Paul. Two weeks into the study, I remember lying on my bed in the parsonage on Respess St., Bible and study book wide-open, tears streaming down my face, with the most honest confession I could utter …

I am sorry, God. I have wasted so much time.

That was an edge for us, an exhilarating jump onto the next page of my life with Christ. Fifteen years later, I’ve yet to recover. I have loved standing next to Jesus on that edge of discovery. Every single minute we’ve shared on the pages of his Word has fed me, shaped me, and enlivened me for the road ahead.

Along the way I’ve been so privileged to share that road with countless others through my speaking, leading Bible studies and Sunday Schools, writing books, teaching Bible for four years in a 4th grade classroom, and shaping my own children with the truths I have learned.

It’s been my great joy, and it’s been for God’s good. I know that deep down. Truly.

But just now, right now, before the birds begin their morning chorus, I need to know that there is more. My body is weak and my mind is cluttered. I’m having trouble standing on this particular edge because I so long to see that which remains hidden. And that kind of blind faith sometimes feels just out of reach for me. The edge of something isn’t always as certain as I would like it to be.

How about you?

Where are you standing right now? What edge hosts your in-between? Has the new day brought with it a new hope, a fresh dispensation of daily grace and forward steps? Is your agenda filled with God’s? Has he made it clear to your heart what is dear to his? Is your edge a place of release or has it become, instead, a place of refuge? Is the uncertainty you have about tomorrow shattering your confidence therein?

If so, then might I lend you an old truth on a new day almost arrived?

God still has a plan for your life.

Despite the darkness. Despite what’s happened. Despite your flesh. God still thinks thoughts about you and would like nothing more than to stand on the edge with you as you prepare your heart for your next steps.

Fresh grace. Forward steps. The edge of something … more.

A very good place to stand here in this hour.

Welcome to today! 

As always, I pray for you God’s companioning peace for the journey,

A Wounded Church

My dad, Chuck Killian, the first circuit-riding preacher I knew and who introduced me to Methodism.

 

“Even if it wounds him.”

That was the prayer that I prayed several years ago on behalf of one of my sons who was going through a particularly difficult time in his life.

It was a hard prayer to pray. No good parent wants to invite unnecessary pain into the lives of their children. Pain is a difficult teacher; still and yet, pain is sometimes the most precise, shaping tool in God’s sanctifying toolbelt.

Pain is diagnostic. When allowed its probing investigation, pain brings us to the mirror of self-examination, a closer look inward at the condition of our hearts … the foundation of our thoughts. How we feel, what we believe, and the truth underlying both considerations, … yes, this is the good, diagnostic work behind a painful wounding. To settle for less–to run and hide–would be to stop short of pain’s potential.

Woundings deserve a good look, don’t you think?

In recent days, the church has been wounded … my church … the United Methodist church. We are a global denomination and in this last week, I gathered (via livestream with thousands of others who were tuning in) alongside 864 on-site delegates to watch the already festering wound among us open up in such a way that all who were watching could not escape the pain. In many ways, albeit odd, the severity of the wounding kept us attached to the festering until the clock ran out, the mics were silenced, and the screen went black. And there we were … there I was … released, dismissed into the night with a bleeding heart that needs both a dressing and addressing–a covering and a closer look. I imagine I am not alone.

The wound belongs to all of us. The pain is ours to hold. Perhaps, at the end of the day, this is the one issue upon which we can all agree. This is a collective sorrow.

As an eye-witness to the wounding and now a heart-holder of an aching discomfort that cannot be unseen or easily mended, it only seems best for me to come to the mirror, to allow my very good parent, my Father, to probe the depths of my feelings and the strength of my thinking.

Pain in the hands of a Masterful Surgeon offers cleansing.

Pain in the hands of a Masterful Surgeon offers conviction.

Pain in the hands of a Masterful Surgeon offers clarity.

Pain in the hands of a Masterful Surgeon is, indeed, diagnostic. And therein, friends, lies the rub.

For pain to work its potential, pain must be given over for examination to the only Surgeon who is completely holy and wholly skilled for the job. Not many will be able to arrive at this place of deep trust, of letting go and letting God. But I can go nowhere else because I have learned that God’s hands are the safest place for me to reside. He is my only hope for holiness.

So friends, those whom I know and those who are strangers to me but who have found themselves (like me) entangled within the reach of this tremendous pain, I make an invitation to you even as I am making it to myself. If we want this wounding to matter eternally, if we want it to do more for us other than to momentarily wreck us, then we must surrender our heart-hurts to the nail-scarred hands of the Master Surgeon. This is our first and best step. He is our only way forward.

Let’s not let this be for nothing. Let us, instead, allow this to be a time of deep, soul reflection. In doing so, a better “us” just might emerge.

Even so, I love you deeply. Even so, I pray for you each one God’s …

Peace for the journey,

PS – This blog has always been a safe place for dialogue, prayers, healing, and peace. I welcome your thoughts, but I humbly ask you to not let this be the time for debate. Shalom. 

a little more time on the court…

Jadon looked at me from across the court. He was sitting with his teammates on the bench. It was “senior night,” and with about three minutes to go in the game, our boys had a significant lead. I was sitting in the bleachers. I knew what he wanted. I’d been expecting his glance all night. Accordingly, I had my eyes fixed on him for most of the last quarter of the game. As soon as he caught my eye, his face said it all. And even though I heard no words from his lips, I knew what he was asking of me.

“Mom, can I go in the game?”

I was ready with my reply. I’d been working up to it all day; a mothering nervousness had needled me from the early morning hours, wreaking havoc on my digestive track. This was a big deal. Four months ago, the “big deal” was my son surviving the ambulance ride to Charlotte. Four months ago, I would have been happy with my son waking up and (on command) giving me his thumbs up. But last night, what was needed wasn’t his thumb’s up. What was needed, instead, was one of mine.

And so, across that ball-court, I gave him one … a thumbs up indicating my approval for him to enter the basketball game to play a little bit longer than his initial first-quarter, obligatory “start of the game” hoorah. Mind you, that would have been enough for him; it would have been enough for all of us, but something inside of me moved me to risk allowing him to have a little more time on the court.

A little more time on the court.

Another moment or two to bask in the gloriousness of it all. My dad would call it a Hoosiers’ moment (you remember that movie, right?). You know the kind–the glory that comes around once in a lifetime that celebrates a great accomplishment, a milestone that collects as a stone of remembrance and serves as dinner-table conversation for generations to come.

No, it wasn’t the closing moments of the NCAA Final Four. It wasn’t even the closing moments of Scotland Christian Academy’s basketball season. But for Jadon (and for us) it was a moment that felt just as weighty and significant. The miraculous work that God began in Jadon on the night of September 14, 2018, was on display and in full measure as Jadon was able to score his only basket of the season. His name and his two points are now forever recorded in the annals of SCA basketball history. They are forever etched on our hearts as well.

And today, nearly twenty-four hours removed from that gloriousness, the memory that most beautifully resonates within me is not when Billy and I were standing next to Jadon on the court when his name and senior status were announced. It’s not his dramatic and certain entrance onto the court, leading the team out from the locker room (although that was magical!). It isn’t even his scoring a bucket (and the gracious gift of an opposing team making the way for him to do so – thank you Antioch coach and team!). No, the moment that stirs my heart this morning and that forces the tears to flow gently down my cheeks, is the memory of the look shared between a mother and a son–an understanding that gave my boy…

A little more time on the court.

In these past four months, there have been many times when I’ve had to give my “yes” even though I would have rather given my “no.” Last night was not one of them. I didn’t have to give my “yes” but in not doing so, I would have missed the joy of watching my son playing alongside his teammates and of honoring the Father’s mighty work in Jadon’s recovery.

Some moments are worth the risk. Some moments are worth …

A little more time on the court.

Who of us doesn’t want the same … more time on the court? A moment or two longer to get in the game, to feel the court beneath our feet, the ball within our grasp, and the hammer of feet pounding alongside us as we inch our way closer to the goal? Who of us doesn’t want to feel the glory of a senior night that plays itself out in an arena before a home crowd hungry for a win? To suit up, wear the number, lace the shoes, and charge on to the court with adoring fans championing our every step? Who of us doesn’t want to look across the court, see our Father in the bleachers, and get his holy nod of approval for a little more time on the court?

There is something eternally beautiful about that picture, a truth that should both enliven and encourage our spirits today. It’s a comfort that sows deeply in mine, so much so that I don’t want to overstate the moment for you … to project too many of my own thoughts into what your heart might already be considering. But I do hope you’ll consider this:

Your Father is in the bleachers and he has given you a little more time on the court.

Is there risk involved? Well, all of life seems to call for it at some point. But with our Father in the stands, there is no game we will play, no risk we can take, where we’re not without his watchful eye and within reach of his loving arms. So, suit up. Get in the game, and go forth in his power and his love. Apparently, God has given us all …

A little more time on the court.

Peace for the journey,

Thanks to Nick Tippett for this video footage!

And here’s Jadon’s mighty entrance onto the court…

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getting on the bus with your children

First day of school – 1996

 

Several years ago, one of our church members cornered me in the hallway and seriously asked me if I would be interested in teaching a parenting class. I had to hold back the laughter as I (just as seriously) declined her offer.

“I’m not your girl. I don’t think most of my parenting tips would be welcomed. I’m old school to the core. In fact, I’ve told all my children to send me their future therapy bills when they get older as they’ll probably wind up on a psychologist’s couch one day because of me. Plus, the jury’s still out regarding my kids. Talk to me in ten years, and we’ll see where they’re at.”

Well, ten years have come and gone. And just a few days ago, someone made a comment to me about my four kids (now ages 29, 27, 18, 16) … about how “good” they are. Naturally, I beamed inside, quietly remembering the earlier request for me to teach a parenting class.

Oh folks, it’s only by the grace of God that these kids have turned out remotely “good.” Truly. If anyone shouldn’t have had four kids, it would be me. I’m a daily mess. In many ways I’m still “not your girl” as it pertains to parenting tips. But in talking with Billy last night and wondering what one tip (besides daily prayer and putting your kids smack dab in the middle of strong and fierce believers in Jesus Christ) might prove helpful to those of you in the middle of “growing up” some little ones, I came up with this. It didn’t originate with me, but it is something I’ve held onto ever since technology began to infiltrate every nook and cranny of our daily lives. Are you ready? Here goes…

When you hand your kids a phone, you are handing them the world.

Go ahead and read that again. Let it sink in.

When you hand your kids a phone, you are handing them the world.

Think about it this way.

You get little Johnny or Susie ready for the day. They’re fed, clothed, and let’s say, have a pack full of $$$ strapped to their backs. You take them to the nearest bus station, buy them a one-way ticket to anywhere, kiss them goodbye, maybe even say a prayer, and send them on their way to a big adventure. You’re excited for their new-found freedom, and so are they! Yippee. Johnny and Susie are growing up. Their independence stuns you, and you give yourself a pat on the back. They’re on their way.

To where?

Who knows, but they’re going.

The only problem is (well really there are a ton of them at this point), Johnny and Susie are five years old, maybe 10. Heck, maybe even 15. For sure they’re ready, right?

But before the day is out, you slowly begin to realize you’ve lost your child. You have no idea where they’re at, where they’ve been, who’ve they’ve talked to, who they’re with, or when they’ll return.

They are just gone. Hard to find. Lost and, by now, listening to anyone who might be inclined to offer some free advice on how to get back home. And you wonder where it all went wrong.

As it goes with Johnny and Susie on the bus, so it goes with technology.

When you hand your kids a phone you are handing them the world.

So you, as a good parent (not a perfect one mind you, but a good one), have a responsibility and a choice to make. Are you going to get on the bus with them in the morning, be in their space and in their day of wild exploration, or are you going to trust them to navigate safely through a big city … a really big world … and return to you in one piece?

It’s your choice to make. I know which one I made all those many years ago and the one I’m still making today.

I get on the bus with my kids, every single day. I know who they’re texting, and I’m not above reading those texts when necessary. We don’t do secret apps on our phone where messages mysteriously disappear (seriously, parents, don’t you get this?) and, to date, my teenagers don’t have social media accounts. They might someday, and when they do, they’ll better be able to take that bus ride by themselves. But for now, they’re still under my roof, and I still take seriously my role as their mom–to shepherd and shape their hearts safely through to adulthood.

So, there you go, folks. After reading this, you might agree with my earlier assessment about my parenting skills. I may not “be your girl.” That’s OK. I didn’t ask to be. But I’d be neglectful of this nagging feeling I’ve had in my head and on my heart all day if I didn’t tell you one last time…

Get on the bus with your kids before you lose them to the world. You only get one ride with your child, and it’s a short one. As always…

Peace for the journey,

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