About Karen Thomas Olsen
Born and raised in Ohio, I attended college and graduate school in Indiana, moved to Scotts Valley, California south of San Jose to teach, back to Ohio for many years, to Arizona for 11 years with my husband, and finally to Ft. Wayne, Indiana to be near family. (Leaving Prescott Valley, Arizona in 2018 was very hard. Sigh. But for family? Worth it.)
I have taught in three Christian high schools and one community college. My first teaching position was in Scotts Valley, California. In the summer of 1980, a tall, dark, and handsome 26 year old California boy, who had recently completed his degree in Aeronautical Operations from San Jose State University, followed me to Columbus, Ohio where I had accepted a new teaching position at Worthington Christian High School.
There in Worthington we were married. Paul became an Air Traffic Controller, and we raised two beautiful girls in Piqua and Troy, Ohio. We now also have a son-in-law and two precious grandsons born in 2009 and 2012. In 2007, Lockheed Martin transferred my husband to Prescott Valley, Arizona, which was a great adventure for us. Arizona was a good place for my health and great for Paul, a California boy who loves the sunny southwest! However, being far from family is not easy. So, in July of 2018 we moved to Ft. Wayne, Indiana, where we are near relatives and just hours from each of our daughters, one near Chicago and one north of Cincinnati.
For years, I worked in Christian school curriculum design and development, which was challenging, exciting, and satisfying. After retiring in the summer of 2012, I focused on completing a doctorate, pursuing some writing projects, and being involved in Christian education at our church. Maintaining this blog continues to be important to me. With great gratitude to the Lord who carried me through the process, I graduated from Trinity Theological Seminary in August, 2016, earning a DRS (Doctor of Religious Studies) with an emphasis in theology. My dissertation is entitled "A Taxonomic Theology of Suffering and Joy Designed to Assist in Christian Growth."
Besides reading, learning, teaching, and writing, I love to swim, stroll around the neighborhood on my bike, take Water Aerobics classes, mingle with neighbors, and participate in our local church. As my health permits, I love to travel and see God’s amazing creation.
I’m wearing my eye glasses or “life lenses” which instruct me to “Look for the Lord in every page of Scripture, in every corner of nature, and in every chapter of my life." No matter the direction of my life, it's a journey north.
While we walk through life one moment at a time, sometimes the moments feel like ages and sometimes they feel like fleeting breaths, flying through us unable to be caught. Such is life. I have a prayer to share with you today, but first, I’d like to repeat a few lines from a song by Claire Cloninger that I shared with you in my last post. After speeding through the first month of 2025, we need to remember:
From the first bright light of morning,
To the last warm glow of dusk;
Every breath we take is sacred,
For it is God’s gift to us.*
Therefore, together, let us pray:
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I opened the dashboard for this blog this morning wanting to write a new post. I’ve taken a break from writing, for the most part, since Thanksgiving. I needed the breather. While we are ten days into the new year, it is yet the new year, so I say with you, “Welcome to 2025!”
As I looked over my dashboard (the interior of my WordPress blog), I found that two readers recently had pulled up a very old post of mine dated January 17, 2012. (This blog was birthed in November of 2011.) At that time this blog was part of my ministry as the curriculum director for Troy Christian Schools in Troy, Ohio, although I was living in Arizona. My articles were short then because they were written mainly for parents of our students, and I posted more often.
The following is my January 2012 post which I find to still be relevant, as well as gentle and refreshing. It is short.
Let our work inhabit our prayer. Let our prayer inhabit our work.
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Take a read:
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This past week I received 110 copies of my newly published book and have taken time each day to eat and walk my way through my own copy, highlighting and marking as I go. Spiritually thirsty and hungry, I’m letting my own chapters, rich in Scriptures, feed me. I’m needy. I need everything in these pages and so much more.
I’m reminded of Martin Luther’s insight that to form a theologian (that is, every Christ-follower) three ingredients are necessary: prayer, meditation on Scripture, and affliction. We are blessed with an abundance of opportunities to experience all three of these. Really?
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A Traveler’s Guide through Suffering and Joy is now listed on both Amazon and Barnes and Noble!
My publisher says the book is now “live” meaning distributors have access to it now, so you should be able to find it at other book distributors besides Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
However, it will not be released until November 19 (instead of the 14th as previously expected), because of some glitches the printers experienced with the cover last week. All is settled now, and books are being printed. A box should arrive at my house tomorrow so that I will have the first physical look and touch!
You can find it on Amazon, add it to your list, and then order it on the 19th, or you can pre-order it now at Barnes and Noble.
Here is the Barnes and Noble link:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-travelers-guide-through-suffering-and-joy-karen-thomas-olsen/1146540977?ean=9781961093836.
We’re still adding things to the website and we’ve started a podcast called Trail Mix. My husband, Paul, and I recorded our first episode yesterday and hope to have it up on YouTube and on my website tonight – Lord willing! Check back on the website tomorrow to see if you can listen to the first episode in which Paul interviews me about the book. You may want to share this with friends.
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Autumn’s drama dances on the stage this season. Rich reds, oranges, and tans overtake our maple and oak trees here in Indiana, enhanced by clear blue skies. ‘Tis the season.
Everywhere the season is dramatic. Sorrowfully so, in weather-torn and war- torn regions within our country and around the world. Anxiously so, with the coming elections in the USA. Personally so for me, as my book, A Traveler’s Guide through Suffering and Joy, prepares to be launched. Hopefully so for you, my readers as you anticipate the benefits of reading and sharing my “labor of love”, as Dr. Walter Kaiser Jr. so graciously describes it in his endorsement.
“So, what’s the release date?” you ask.
I finally have an answer. The book will be released on November 14, and will be available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and I believe CBD (and other main sites I’m not sure of). Since it is so close to the election, my publisher and I decided to wait until after this to release the book.
My favorite tree of drama in our neighborhood. When you drive down our street, the street dead ends at this house where you must turn right or left. It is worth pausing at the stop sign just to stare in wonder at God’s artistry. Thank You, Lord!
During this season, what can and should you and I do?
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Within the next few weeks my book will be released: A Traveler’s Guide through Suffering and Joy. When I have a release day, I will let you know, and I hope you will order the book!
In preparation for its availability, I have contracted with a lovely web designer to construct a new website for me that will hold all of my various projects. When you opened this post today, you opened JourneyNorthCharacter on my new website: http://www.KarenThomasOlsen.com . Going to the blog as you normally do will also take you to the new site. After you have read this post, click on the box in the upper left to explore the website. This is just the start, but it is a beautiful beginning.
Danette, my web designer, is an artist and photographer. She also designed the cover of my book for both the front and the back. The photography is her original work, and she also designed the word layout. I love the fonts she chose.
Let me show you the entire cover wrap. The front cover photo features the Elk Mountain range in western Colorado, while the back cover shows the Maroon Bells, two peaks within the Elk Mountain range and the lake below. On the back cover are two endorsements, the book description, and my bio paragraph. Danette designed it all so attractively. What do you think?
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When I was a child in elementary school, we used these workbooks called Think and Do. They were a part of our Language Arts curriculum. We practiced our developing reading skills through our grade level reading books plus these corresponding workbooks. I liked the workbooks, I realized later, because the exercises broke concepts down into steps and showed patterns that I could then apply.
Reading did not come easily to me, so I needed process steps to make connections. No matter the mental process we engage, we are always thinking and doing. Think and do.
Where does the “feeling” come in? Emotion is always present in both the thinking and the doing. We cannot think anything or do anything without emotion permeating thought and action.
Why do I bring this up? Recently I was asked about how I process my feelings as part of my faith. Interesting.
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Today is the twentieth anniversary of my father’s home-going. I miss that dear boy.
In years past I’ve written a number of posts about him. If you look down the menu column on the left, you will find below the list of categories a list of tagged themes. My father’s name is in this list: Marion R. Thomas and Rev. Marion R. Thomas. If you click on either of these, you will find posts about him and his family, including photos and some of his poems, which I believe will bless you.
I’ve provided two links below to two of my articles about Dad. “Getting Home Before Dark” is the first link, which shows Dad’s sweet view of life as he looks back over 70 years, and then in the last line his mind turns to anticipate the future. This post also introduces Dad’s poem, “Suppose”, which presents a contemplative view of the meaning of life. You’ll find the entire poem in the second post. I offer you these two posts from ten years ago, which take us further back to my father’s time. They are encouraging testaments for us today. Click on the titles below and enjoy.
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I haven’t blogged much this spring because I’ve focused on completing my book that is to be published this year. I’ve recently submitted my second, entire draft. My publisher and I will be discussing it in a week. Thank you to all of you who are praying for this book and the ministry it can have to help many people. My book, A Traveler’s Guide through Suffering and Joy, develops a theology, an organized way of viewing, interpreting, and coming to terms with suffering and joy.
You can take any topic and develop a theology using the topic as the focal point. Theology is the study of God in relation to any topic. Nothing exists outside of a theological perspective. We need to ask:
“How biblically tethered is any given theology?” “How biblically tethered am I?”
First, we need to know what to do with the Bible. Some Christians feel ambivalent about God’s Word. Many Christians and nonChristians hold prejudices against it or assume untruths about it. Why? It is a book that is talked about but not read much.
You can get away with that with The Republic, by Plato: just read some online summaries. This approach will not work with the Word of God. So, I was thinking about a five or six step approach to God’s Word that is so straight forward. I learned several versions of this from Dr. Howard Hendricks, but I’ll give you my simple starter version.
Use your right hand for counting, and start with your thumb and go to each finger and finally the palm of your hand. What do I do with the Bible?
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I remember teaching certain principles of writing to my community college students in essay writing classes thirty years ago. Here are three of them:
- Writing is a recursive process.
- Good writing requires re-writing.
- Stop and submit. Of course, a number of points belong between the first and third above. As obvious as these three principles are, they can be difficult and frustrating to follow. With my book I’m currently finalizing for publication yet this year, I’m having trouble getting to the third because I’m in the muck with numbers one and two!
Life is like the recursive nature of writing. (Maybe it’s like all three principles.) Let me explain the three points, my experience, and my current situation.
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Journey North Character 