20 Years

My wife and I celebrated our 20^th Wedding Anniversary this past Wednesday. There are a vast number of great ideas on the internet as to how a couple could spend such a monumental event.  I considered several. One popular option is to go on a second honey moon…you know…back to those first days of the first year…for us that would have meant a trip to New Hampshire…on Lake Winnipesauke…looking for Dr. Leo Marvin.  But…Covid ended that.

I considered taking her on a cruise, after all, that is really what she wanted to do for our honey moon, but I was too cheap to take her.  But…Covid again put a stop to that.

Perhaps, a nice bed and breakfast up the coast of the North Shore of Lake Superior might be nice? Nope…Covid.

I even debated for a while about heading up to Lutsen, Minnesota to enjoy the many lodging amenities while I entered the Lutsen 99er bike race…yep…you guessed it…Covid.

So…we ended up going camping for a few days.  Nice you say??? Well…we brought the four children.  Who does that? Who brings their 4 children with them on their 20^th anniversary getaway? Short answer…we do.

We arrived to the site on Tuesday.  The weather forecast was perfect…bright and sunny everyday and each day becoming warmer.  I lit a fire to cook our supper and just as the fire hit peak cooking potential our beautiful forecasted weather turned sour with an unexpected torrential down pour.  There is an equation that the Olson family has come to live by and trust. Olson + Camping = Rain.  Try it sometime…it appears to be a certainty. 

On Wednesday, our official anniversary day, Sarah and I exchanged gifts.  We had agreed ahead of time to not exchange any gifts and both broke the rules. She gave me a nice package of Lindt Dark Chocolate Truffles.  I gave to her…an inflatable rubber duck pool floatie…hey after 20 years, a guy runs out of ideas. Next year, I think I will get her an electric air pump…my lungs and lips can’t take another inflating episode.

The children spent much of the three days fighting, attacking and criticizing each other.  Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to endure the never ending bickering? I think I would have been less exhausted with a 99 mile bike race.

Just when I think that I can’t take another minute of it…our children pulled out a small envelope.  The outside said “To: Mom and Dad, Happy Anniversary.” Upon opening the envelope, I pulled out the blue card that simply said “Just a little note,” with a single musical note near the writing; I opened the card and found a $20 bill and sweet words of encouragement from our children.

It nearly brought my wife and I to tears. I barely managed to squeak out the words, “But the campsite costs $28 per night,” before my wife of 20 years swiftly backhanded the wind out of me and prevented me from asking them for more money…after 20 years, she really knows me well.

Despite continually falling into my own lack of encouragement, I have become convinced, that a single word of encouragement can melt away countless burdens. Having children is great…but it is not easy…it is, astoundingly exhausting. Yet, in that one encouraging act…where my 4 children each contribute $5 for their mother and I to go out to eat…was one of the most uplifting and encouraging moments in my recent years.  We all need encouragement. Sometimes we are really good at giving it…sometimes not.  Sometimes we are really good at receiving it…sometimes not. God created us to need encouragement. Indeed, I believe that he created us to thrive on it. I would go so far as to say, that when we encourage one another…it points back to Him…because encouragement is in His nature.

Our world needs encouragement. We see the need all around us. People need to be encouraged. You need encouragement…I need encouragement. Acts 13:13-52, Paul and Barnabas enter a new city on their missionary journey.  When they arrive in the Synagogue the religious leaders ask them to “Share any words of encouragement” that they have for them. Paul shares the message of the Gospel.  The Gospel is THE and should be THE most singularly encouraging truth that this world has ever known or encountered.

Let me encourage you with this. Jesus is love and He loves you deeply and He has all of this stress that lies before us…already figured out.  That…is encouraging!

Yo-Yo

I watched it transpire from the living room window.  My wife was heading outside in the morning to water her potted plants. Despite our superlative abilities at killing any and all plant life, we continue to make efforts to better ourselves and the flowers that have been placed in our care sitting at our front door during this years’ growing season. Truth be told…we purchased them already potted…and have had to do nothing but water them.

As my wife stepped out into the humid Minnesota morning my son calls from the window…”Mom, would you grab my yo-yo from the van before you come in?”

It is shortly after this request that my son and I hear a squeal coming from the front yard.  “Aaah!...No!...Ahh!...Stop!...”  As we investigate out the window we see an incredibly large, mangy dog chasing my wife around the front yard.  The dog is stupidly smiling and panting with his tongue practically dragging on the dry brown grass, as he pursues my wife from one side of the vehicle to the other. 

This dog looks BAD!...not angry, mean or vicious…just REALLY BAD!.  His hair appears to be shaggy and falling out in clumps…he looks desperately thirsty and longing for affection.

“Aaah!” my wife cries…"Son, help me!”

He steps up to the window and calls out…”Mom!...my yo-yo!”

“Ahh!”

“Mom…get my yo-yo!”

“Son!, help!”

“Mom…grab my yo-yo!”

After seeing my son’s apparent disregard for his mother, I went down to the front door to engage the situation. I open the door and yell at the mangy beast, “No! Go Home!”  It is at this moment the 6 foot dog turns and bolts straight at me with his long tongue licking the sidewalk on the journey to the front door. “No!” I yell and quickly close the door nearly severing his large wet nose, just before he enters our home.

He turns back again to pursue my wife. “Isaac! Help!”

“Mom!...don’t forget my yo-yo!”

I open the door to attempt to re-engage…and again the dog turns.

We repeat this process until finally my wife makes a lap around the van…and sprints back to the house…yo-yo in hand. I open the door and let her streak inside and slam the door in the dog’s face. The unintelligent canine then turns and trots away.

“Mom…Did you get my yo-yo?”

Wow! Talk about centrally focused! In Acts 12 we find the establishment of the Church continuing to flourish, despite the persecution and challenges from Herod Agrippa and others. Yet, we find that the enemy of God will relentlessly continue his efforts to derail the growth of the Church.  Acts 13:1-12 clearly reveals this. The Church is moving with the central mission of Jesus Christ in mind and heart…to be His witnesses…to the entire world. The enemy…or mangy dogs…will try and distract us from the mission at hand. To be witnesses.

That IS the mission!

We do not need to over-complicate it.  We just need to stay true to it…to be centrally focused on it, just as Isaac was focused on his central mission of regaining control of his Yo-Yo. 

Let us not be distracted by the mangy dogs of the enemy…and let us stay true to the mission of the Gospel…to make Christ known.

May we become centrally focused on Christ and his mission…while I try to help my son see that perhaps saving his mother may have been a loftier mission to attain…

Pinned

It was the winter of 1998.  My younger brother was a senior in High School and I was a second year junior in college.  I decided to take the five-year plan…after all…I was 22 years old…knew all that there was to know and had no ability to see that I would one day have to pay back these government subsidized loans.  Who knew that the government didn’t actually give out free money…they actually wanted it back???

My younger brother was wrestling in the Section 6A tournament, in which the top two finishers would advance to the State Tournament the following weekend.  The final round was about to begin.  Two mats were laid out side by side.  One mat would feature the championship matches and the other would host the 3^rd place matches.  The seats were all filled as we awaited the beginning of the round.  It was incredibly exciting.

I couldn’t help but reflect on how just a few short years prior I had been wrestling in these rounds as well.  Oh, how I longed to get out there and show the people that I still had what it took to excel at the elite varsity level of High School.  I could feel my muscles tense…I became fidgety in my seat…finally I couldn’t stand it anymore.  With about 5 minutes before the start of the round I jumped up…grabbed my mother next to me…lifted her over my shoulder and strode to the center of one of the mats amid the sea of surrounding wrestling fans.  I gently laid her down in the center of the mat…put her on her back…and slapped the mat! I pinned her!  I jumped up in jubilation…raising my arms in celebration…I had done it!!!  I was the victor…I won! I am somebody!!!

“Ryan, what is wrong with you?” asked my red-faced mother.

It is difficult to tell if the redness was embarrassment or anger…or perhaps that the blood rushed to her head as I carried her nearly upside down out to the mat.

“What!?...I couldn’t help it!” I walked back to my seat and left her to humbly walk back to her seat alone.

Now that I think about it…my mother asked a pretty good question. “What “IS” wrong with me?”

Somewhere in life I have come to realize that I long to win…to be the victor…to be of value…to be important…to not be forgotten.  I have come to see that each of those desires revolves entirely around me.

I find that I am not that much different than Herod Agrippa…who had arrested and killed the Apostle James in Acts 12.  The people were thrilled with him. So, he arrested Peter to do the same. We find him in Acts 12:18-25, at the pinnacle of his popularity…he appears before the people glistening in the sun…almost godlike…basking in the people’s pleasure. When suddenly he dies and is eaten by worms.

Why?...because it is not about him. It is about the CREATOR of him.

Thank God…that it is not about me…because if it were…it would be all about some insecure, self-focused, has been, whose past keeps getting better as his age increases.

I am glad to serve a God who is Glorious.  So, I will strive to always give Him the Glory.  May you find yourself…seeing the Glory of God and making it all about HIM.

Get to the Table

It’s hard being a boy.  Girls think that they have it so rough…but it is boys who really have the greater hurdles to overcome in life.  Girls get to stay inside and play with tea sets and dolls…while boys have to go outside and play Cowboys and Native Americans…when we shoot our cap-guns at each other and say… “Hey I got you…”

“No you didn’t”

“Yes I did…”

“Fine…but it was only in the liver…I have a few minutes to live before I kick the bucket…so I got you back…”

“That’s not fair.”

“Oh yeah!?...I will show you fair.”

Then the wrestling match ensues which relents to fists flying and me grinding my brother’s face into the dirt, until mom calls out, “Boys!...Get to the table…supper is ready!”

When we arrive to the table and sit down…our mother then sends us away to “wash up.” 

“Why?” I ask…”I am just going to get ketchup on my face anyway.”

When girls come to the table, they are already washed up and ready to dine.  This just doesn’t seem fair.

Girls have long flowing hair…boys, lose their hair.

When you finally find your place at the table…the girls get served first, which appalls young boys because they know that they are hungrier than girls, (except for the brother who just ate a pound of dirt), because after all…they either just had the tar beaten out of them…or spent all of their energy bloodying their brother’s noses. There is nothing like physical altercation to build an appetite.

“Why does she get the first hot dog? I just spent 48 minutes looking for the baseball that I hit over the barn…Oh look mom…I just found a wood tick!...Cool!”

“Go wash again.”

Here is the thing.  No matter where I had been…or where my brothers had been…or been into…or what my sister had been up to…when it came time to be called to the table…there was a place for us at the table.

In fact, even when company was invited over…there was room at the table.  There were times when chairs needed to be added…table leaves brought in…card tables set up…TV trays and piano benches…but there was room at the table. Why? Because when it is time to get to the table, all who are part of the family…whether blood or adoptive had a place at the table.

There is a time in John chapter 13, where Jesus calls people to the table.  He and his friends are in the upper room and he begins to share the meal in a unique way.  He breaks bread and uses it as a symbol for how he will give his body for them.  He shares a cup of wine in a symbol of how he will shed his blood for the forgiveness of our sins.  Despite my endless list of imperfections and inadequacy…that is a table that I want to be called to. The beauty is…He is calling us to the table.

Perhaps it’s time…to get to the table?

May you find yourself led to RSVP to the invitation…to become a part of the family of God…and get to the Table.

Soul Peace

About a year ago, my dad bought himself a Harley Davidson.  He has owned many motorcycles in his life, but never a Harley.  I recall him day dreaming about Harleys when I was a child. Well…he finally pulled the trigger.  There are certain possessions or experiences that can make people…well, how should I say it…weird.  The first time I saw the Harley in person was when my parents came to visit us one night last summer.  Both of my parents have lived more than 6 decades and yet…this experience seem to throw them back into the teenage years that they never quite out grew.  My parents arrived in their leather chaps, sunglasses and bandannas like the young characters out of easy rider…minus the red, white and blue helmet.

The biggest tell in their regression toward the nether regions of their youth was when they saddled up to leave…my dad fired the twin cylinder engine and my mother held two fingers out in a “v” formation, and said… “Peace.”

Sure could use some of that right now, huh? It’s fascinating to consider the time in our nation’s history when those two fingers first came into prominence…the 1960’s.  The nation was filled with tie dye shirts, bell bottoms and tiny round John Lennon glasses. Peace was all around…kind of.  The nation was at war, the civil rights movement was in full swing and the drug culture was expanding greatly, and people were calling for peace.

Truth is…I think we ALL want peace…I think we all NEED peace. The peace we need is not the kind of peace that comes from raising two fingers and letting your hair blow in the wind.  The peace we need…is deep peace…inside kind of peace…a peace in the very depths of our souls.  We need soul peace. 

In Acts 9:31-43, we find the New Testament Church is experiencing “a time of peace.” What does that mean? It is really interesting, because in this passage we actually find; sickness, death and mourning.  Yet, upon deeper reflection…what we see is that the followers of Christ were free to live in peace…because the peace giver was living within them.  They lived freely…because peace had been freely given. They still encountered death and dying…but they also encountered life, love and peace.

May the Lord grant you deep, inner soul peace as you rely on Him…lean into Him…and let His loving and peaceful arms wrap around you.

Toilet Paper

It’s band concert season again.  It kicked off last Monday with the 42^nd Annual Massed Band Concert at the Little Falls Community High School.  This is the concert where all of the bands from 5^th grade up through high school, gather to play 4 songs together.  When you have 400+ students playing their instruments…you also have the parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers, neighbors, and teachers of these students, gathering to hear the music.  1,200 people sitting on each others’ laps raising the room temperature to 98.6 degrees and sharing air and breath mints.

The concert began with the 5^th grade band playing something like “hot cross buns”…and carried through the grades and ended with all of the band members for each grade moving their chairs into a huge 400+ piece band playing something like “hot cross buns.”

To entertain myself in the down time, I like to wave at my children and other children I know in the band.  To do this, I raise my arm as high and as straight as I can, and then flutter my wrist so that my hand flaps wildly at my children whom I love…to torture.  I have vowed to continue this motion until my children wave back at me.  Then, I move on to the next child…one by one, until they return the wave.  I may, then, turn my attention to other students that I know…I wave until they wave back.

After this years’ concert, my 8^th grade son told me a story.  As he sat in the regrouped massed band, next to a senior, baritone saxophonist, he heard the upper classmen say… “Hey did you see that crazy dad waving at his kids in the band?...That guy is weird…funny…but weird.”

My son replied… “…____...” with silence.  He said nothing.

Sadistically, I took this upperclassmen’s comments as quite a compliment.  It meant that I was peculiar…different…odd…weird even.  It is not necessarily my life’s goal to be as strange as possible…but I will admit that it is not necessarily my life’s goal to blend in and conform to the world’s standards of accepted behavior.

For example…I don’t want to live my life in fear as I am convinced the media wants me to live.  I don’t want to conform to the values that the world says that I should value...just because the world says that I should value it.  I want to be a person who loves in a peculiar fashion…be a peculiar giver…I want to care in peculiar ways. 

Our world is currently entrenched in fear of Covid-19…and honestly…I get it…I find myself fighting the urge to conform to the fear.  But I refuse…I fight, to refuse.  It is not easy.  This does not mean that I have not and will not continue to wash my hands vigorously and perhaps avoid touching things or even shaking hands.  But, I refuse to allow fear to affect the peculiar way I may love and care for people.  I may not shake your hand…but perhaps greet you in another way…like giving you a roll of toilet paper in the name of Jesus.

Acts 9:19-31, gives us a picture of what Paul’s life began to look like after he became a follower of Christ. It is an evidence of love, care and boldness…not of fear, bitterness or resentment.  It is an evidence of a peculiar wisdom.

As followers of Christ we need to be both wise…and loving…both sensible and caring…both discerning and faithful.  We are to share the love of Christ…with or without toilet paper.

Chevy vs. Ford

We all have a plethora of opinions that we hold to…there may be differences, however, in the way that some people choose to share…or not share these opinions.  Often our opinions and beliefs are rock solid…unchanging…etched in stone, like the Est. 1890 cornerstone on the historic courthouse in Little Falls, MN, that may or may not exist.  Let’s be honest…how many of us are actually swayed by political debates?  Most of us have already chosen our favorites…then we just sit on our sofas, eating nachos, while rooting for our debater to score a touchdown.  Are we swayed by the arguments of others?...Doubtful. 

As I was growing up through Jr. High and High School, I was adamant that there was only one automobile manufacturer worth their salt.  General Motors. The rationale was simple…two reasons. 1. Chevrolet’s wide ability of interchangeable parts.  You could take an engine from a 1968 Camaro and drop it into a 1978 Silverado.  Everything fit…without the temptation of excessive creative language. (Truth be told…Ford was probably the same…but I insisted that they were not). 2. General Motors is what my dad drove and swore by…thus by default…I was also adamantly loyal to General Motors.

In college, I would often spend my time helping people out with car problems that they were experiencing in the campus parking lot.  I replaced alternators, starters, radiator hoses, thermostats, changed oil, shocks, head gaskets, mufflers, oxygen sensors…and many more I do not even recall.  On one such occasion my bald headed friend Geno called and gave me an offer that I could not refuse.  “My Ford Ranger won’t start…I want you to fix it or I will remove your eyeballs.” Geno was on the football team.

“Geno…I already know the problem!”

“Really!? What’s that?”

“It’s a Ford…”… “No! No! Geno…put down the spoon…I was only kidding…I will fix it…I don’t mind…it’s only -30°F…it’s not like it -40°.”

I braved the snow and cold and began to work on Geno’s Ford Ranger.  It was the starter.  I already had a predisposed disgust of Fords and my frozen fingers were not aiding in building any affinity. I banged my head 3 or more times on the frame of the Ranger and Geno’s truck likely still has some of my frozen knuckle flesh left stuck to the bell housing. I finished the job and went back to my dorm room to thaw. The next morning, when I woke, I could not move my neck…like at all. I went to the doctor so that he could tell me that I was dying of Menegitis…instead he said it might be cancer.  “Go home and take this Vicodin…and if you are alive in 24 hours you will be ok.” 

It was neither of those illnesses.  I am convinced that it was the curse of the Ford.

Fast forward 4 years.  I married a beautiful girl from the Detroit area whose dad was a Ford Engineer for 30+ years.  This was an interesting twist in my life.  One of the first things I did after we were married was went out and bought a Ford Ranger.  What can I say…I had a change of heart…I was converted.

In Acts 9:1-19, we find perhaps the most incredible conversion recorded in the history of mankind.  Here we find a man, Saul, who was actively involved in the destruction of the church and the Christians that were following Christ that were establishing it.  Saul was involved in the plans to destroy the followers of Christ…to the point of murdering them. This is perhaps the greatest enemy of God, who is fully converted into the fold.  Saul…the arrestor of Christians…becomes himself…arrested…by the incredible grace from the very one he is persecuting…Jesus Christ.

I, in no way, deserve the grace of Jesus…yet, I have been arrested by it.  I have been captured by it.  I need his grace more than any of you…more than all of you…combined…AND yet, you also, need his grace more than anyone else. I hope you see…that we ALL need his grace…we all need to be arrested…we all need to be converted by His grace.  Ford or Chevy no longer makes any difference to me…but Jesus Christ does.