"Consider the Ravens..."

 A student walked into my room recently, took a deep breath and declared, "There's good air in here." I looked at him and asked what he meant. He said very seriously, "I'm very air-sensitive, Ms. Olson." I laughed a little and said, "For real?" He clarified that he has asthma, but reassured me "you always have the good air in here." He said he breathes better in my room. I had no idea "air sensitivity" was a thing outside of major pollution issues.  I turned 35 this month and I have to be honest: this isn't what I thought my life would look like. If I'm brutally honest, the air is sometimes a little dry. My days are full, but my apartment is empty. My calendar is full but the future is a question mark. Sometimes I wonder if anything I'm doing is purposeful or if I'm just marking time until God calls me home to Heaven. Don't get me wrong. Life is good... but it's different than I imagined and some of that ...

   Maybe it's the time of year or maybe it's the season of life I'm in, but lately there have just been a lot of decisions to make. I suppose it's always been true, but I feel it more lately. Maybe you can relate. What's for dinner? What am I wearing tomorrow? Do I need to do laundry today or can it wait until tomorrow? What about groceries -- am I good for the recipes this week? Should I go to the gym before work or after? Well, how am I going to do my hair tomorrow? Oh shoot -- was that Amazon package supposed to show up today? Maybe I should go home early so it isn't sitting out. No -- I have to get these papers graded. Well, maybe I can get them done on my prep tomorrow. Ugh -- I'm too tired to exercise. Did I go enough times to get the health insurance kick-back yet? Decision fatigue. It's a real thing.  We've all been there. As a teacher, I think I feel it more than ever because aside from the questions listed above, I'm also managing quest...

 Maybe it's just me, but my favorite music tends to come in waves in my life. Favorite songs don't usually emerge one-at-a-time, but in small groups.  For a short while, those few songs seem to say everything I can't quite find words for. Since I listen almost exclusively to Christian music, the songs I gravitate toward tend to be applicable to things I'm praying about. So as I'm listening (or doing car karaoke) to them, my heart is also praying the words.  And then, inevitably, they just kind of fade into the background. Their lyrics aren't floating around in my mind 24/7. I don't wake up humming the choruses. I don't put music on for a few days and just kind of forget what used to be such a regular rhythm. And soon, songs I once listened to daily become estranged melodies that make me say, "Oh yeah! I forgot about this one."  But occasionally, before a song gets through its full lifetime on my playlists, I will start skipping it.  It's su...

 It's been a while since I've posted. A career shift and a much busier schedule has preoccupied my mind and blog posts just don't come to mind as easily. But I've been thinking about something today and wanted to share.  It's Halloween -- a day when many are dressing up and pretending to be someone they're not as a cultural game of acquiring sugary snacks and saying hi to the neighbors. It looks different this year because of the pandemic, but the holiday is the same.  I, however, am not of the trick-or-treat demographic. So, I'm at home reading and writing and thanking God for a weekend with nothing more than a small group dinner on the calendar. Aside from work, life is really simple right now and I'm okay with that.  But somedays, if I'm honest, there's a restlessness in my heart. Being in my 30's means that my peers are mostly in very active life stages with the families they've built and the careers we're growing into. I'm wa...

When I lived in Manila, I had a couple coworkers from commonwealth countries who would occasionally use the phrase "slogging on." It usually provoked a smile out of those listening because the word is not commonly used outside of commonwealth dialects like British or Aussie English. When asked for a definition, the reply is something along the lines of "pushing through even though it's really messy and imperfect and probably uncomfortable or frustrating." Synonyms might include trudging, plodding, walking heavily, or laboring.  We're halfway through 2020 and I can't think of a more appropriate word for how we're handing it: slogging. Absolutely slogging through 2020 -- every last one of us! Everyone on the planet has entered a reality we could hardly fathom just 6 months ago. There are no easy answers, but everyone seems to have an opinion. The stakes are high on many fronts and in a few areas like public education, there simply doesn't seem to b...

I've attended two funerals in the last two weeks. Not exactly happy days, but part of the life cycle nonetheless. One part of my extended family is all buried in the same cemetery and so, per usual, with every visit for another funeral, we've made a habit of tracing our steps past the other markers of our family's remains. I'm not usually alone at funerals for family members, but I was on this particular occasion, so I did my best to find the plots all over the place. On my journey, I began to notice something. All the headstones had names, a few had numbers that corresponded with names, but a majority also had a title. What titles did I see? Mom Dad Loving mother Beloved father and grandfather Papa Mama Sister Brother Mother Father Mr. and Mrs. (His name) (Family name) Loving husband Faithful wife Over and over, the titles of mom or dad came up. Sometimes grandma or grandpa, sometimes husband or wife, but all were family titles or nicknames. And it go...

Today marks six years since I stepped off a plane and traded the title of ex-patriot missionary for all things American. In the last six years, so much growth and change has happened. I am genuinely so much happier and healthier and sure of who I am and who God is in my life. But the journey hasn't been an easy one. Over the course of the last six years, I've had more than a dozen jobs. Each of them had a purpose and while many of them were stressful in negative ways, I can say with confidence now, each of them was a necessary step. It's fair to say that for a few years, I was drifting in my career... but I struggled with whether I actually cared  if that was true. #millennial I've come to realize that the idea of a career of 30+ years in one place or one role is beyond rare, if not becoming somewhat extinct. The corporate norm is to climb ever-upward, which inherently creates instability over the long haul in favor of greater personal gain with the expected sacrifi...

May in Minnesota is my favorite. It's finally warm enough to put the heavy winter coat away and just keep a sweater handy. Everything turns green again and then all of the sudden, the flowers pop up everywhere declaring an end to the threat of that 4-letter "s" word we're so fond of in the northland. Today on my run was the first time this year I've seen lilac bushes opening. The tulips have been around for a while, but lilacs are the unofficial start to summer -- and they're baaaaack! But today I noticed something I hadn't before: here in MN, we tend to grow lilacs either in the alley or along a side of our property for privacy, whereas other flowers like tulips we tend to showcase in the front yard. I'm not much of a gardener, but it struck me that this parallels with the season we're in right now.  For many of us, our journey has been filled with relatively consistent sidewalks, front yards we're familiar with, and traffic signs ...

Pastor Ben Stuart said in a sermon last year, "Ambiguity breeds anxiety." I don't know how the COVID-19 crisis has impacted you personally, but one of the words I keep hearing from friends is how anxious they have become, or how much the uncertainty of all of this is wearing on them. But what I've been pondering is whether or not it would actually  be helpful to our emotions if we had the end-date and it was secure. Now, by all means, I am praying for and doing my part to support those battling the illness and its spread, but we're seeing a growing tension in quarantine. We all want out, but no one knows when it will be allowed and in the meantime, those rebelling against restrictions are creating risk that the rest of us are sacrificing to mitigate. We have the hope of eventual freedom, but no set "go date." In so many ways, this is the life of faith and just like tests of faith spiritually, this physical crisis is testing our character and reveali...

We're right in the middle of Easter weekend. I've heard friends say they enjoy the Good Friday service as much as Easter Sunday and obviously, Sunday is what the whole thing is about... but honestly, I enjoy Easter Saturday the most. Maybe that seems random -- it's the day of nothing, no special events, no big hurrah. Exactly. Easter Saturday is the most down-to-earth, realistic view of what it's like to live as a Christian. I love it because I can identify with it 364 other days of the year. Easter Sunday is the high point and causes us to celebrate the good things, and Good Friday's deep sorrow walks with us in the low points. But Saturday is a whole lot of "Now what?" It's really quiet. And it's up to us to handle it. The way we handle silence and uncertainty reveals a lot about our beliefs and our character. (Just look at how our world is handling the COVID-19 crisis. Uncertainty is revealing a LOT of both character flaws and personal resi...

In part 3, I'd like to wrap this up by talking about loneliness and longing. (If you missed Part 1 or Part 2 , click the underlined text.) When we recognize that we're experiencing loneliness, it can be really tempting to try and fill it with something just to make the awkwardness go away. But if we just pacify it, we won't grow. We need to understand why we long for peace or comfort in the first place. Right about now, we're all beginning to wonder when quarantine will actually  end. The predictions are all over the map and the truth is, no one really knows. All that's certain right now is... uncertainty. Well, and, I think it's safe to say most people are craving a return to normal. But, what is normal? And, is that really what you want? I know each of you can quickly generate a picture of your "normal," and while I'm sure it's fantastic, I just want to think through the longings of our hearts with a biblical lens. Here are some ques...