Elaine bio

ELAINE CARLSON

Elaine Carlson, a newly ordained associate pastor at His Present Glory, has lived in the Twin Cities area for all of her 49 years. She became a member of His Present Glory a few months after her born again experience in 1997.

When she first came to His Present Glory, she was a shy, self-conscious, anxiety ridden person burdened by the confusion of her past. Slowly, God (with the help of Pastor Judy and others) began pushing her out of her comfort zone.

Elaine became a founding member of the current worhip team in 1998, playing various instruments such as the bongos, congas, and the didjeridoo (an Australian wind instrument). She has been involved in almost every aspect of the church from the sound board to the heading up of the Helps Ministry. Though fear and a feeling of inadequacy would try to block her from growing in these things, the firm belief that “God doesn’t necessarily call the qualified, but qualifies those He calls” has given her the confidence to keep moving and changing.

As a co-facilitator and counselor at the “Spirit of Counsel” sessions, Elaine fills a desire to help others find their healing through the Jesus Christ, the lover of our soul.

The following is the testimony of her what she calls “Simple Faith”:
“When I was a child, God was just a fact of life. He wasn’t something I came to believe in, he was just a fact – like the sun, the moon, going to school, going to church every Sunday – God just was. He wasn’t even a matter of faith. He just existed.

I was raised Catholic and learned about Jesus through the gospels during mass and in religion class (which I had everyday since I attended a Catholic grade school). I learned my Catechism and the church rules. I had prayer book in kindergarten, a first communion prayer book, and a St. Joseph’s daily missal, which had both the English and Latin versions of mass. The one thing I never had or read was the Bible. There wasn’t one in our classrooms or at home. I only saw one during mass from afar.
My impression of the Bible was that it was a bunch of stories that were written to teach us morals, but that the stories were not necessarily true. For instance, Adam and Eve couldn’t have been real because we all knew that we were created through evolution.

By the end of the eighth grade I was pretty confused. I didn’t understand the Catholic religion—it kept changing the rules on me. First mass was in Latin, then in English. First you had to fast for communion from midnight till you received communion, then it changed to fasting for three hours, then it changed to fasting for one hour. I couldn’t understand why it would be a sin one year to eat meat on Fridays and the next year it was ok to eat meat on Fridays, except during lent.
I went to mass every Sunday with my family, I wasn’t rebellious about it, it was just something you did, a way of life. It wasn’t a choice. You just did it or went to hell when you died ( I believed it was a mortal sin to miss Sunday mass).

When I was in my early teens, there was a news article titled “Is God Dead?” It was my first realization that some people didn’t believe in God. I couldn’t even imagine not believing that there was a God.
After I graduated from high school, I still attended mass but occasionally missed Sunday service because I was sick (hung over was more like it). When I was 22 my mother died suddenly. She had been the center of my universe. My secure little world fell apart. I got married within a year and the center of my universe became my husband. But there was no security in the center of this universe. It slowly developed into a very emotionally and sexually abusive and ‘sick’ world.

During this period I read a book called “Chariots of the gods” which explained how the bible stories were legends which originated from the visitation of extraterrestrial beings thousands of years ago. Since I was such a logical person, and didn’t really have any belief in the bible, I thought it made good sense. New age beliefs were becoming popular, I was a Taurus and faithfully read my daily horoscope, got my tarot cards read, got my palms read, and generally believed in a ‘god force’ of some type, but nothing specific.
By 1994 I was clinically depressed, on antidepressants, on the verge of suicide, and could not see any possible way out of my nightmare of a marriage.
We lived on a farm, and I remember walking into the field at night, staring at the star filled expanse of the universe, crying for help, not knowing if there was a god out there to hear me. I felt utterly alone and helpless.

By 1997 I had gone through three years of psychological counseling, one lengthy divorce, two chemical dependency treatment programs for alcoholism, and one lesbian relationship. I was totally confused! I had a “higher power” from AA that I called God, but he was pretty distant and I didn’t quite know how to define him. I was of the belief that if I couldn’t believe in all parts of the bible (such as the Adam and Eve story) why should I believe any of it?

I was living with a Christian woman who was redeveloping her relationship with God. We talked a lot and she sowed a lot of seeds, but knew me well enough not to push me. Instead, she was a witness to me of how Jesus was changing and healing her.
One day, in the back yard, I listened to her Faith Study tape by Don Bierle on “The Fall of Evolution”. It totally dispelled the myth of evolution and convinced me of the truth of creationism. A charge went through me and myy spirit actually leaped within me as I realized that the Bible was true. It was so exciting. I knew at that instant my life would never be the same. My heart and mind were racing. I could barely comprehend the ramifications of all this.

My thoughts were – Wow! The Bible is really the word of God! God is real! Then Jesus must be real! God actually communicates to us through a tangible thing, the Bible! At that time I had no idea how this was going to change me, I just knew it would.

I started watching Joyce Meyer every chance I could on TV – she made the Bible come alive and showed me how God’s truth was for today, not just for the biblical times. Within a few months I was ready to try going to church. I had never been to service other than a Catholic mass and had no idea what else was out there. My roommate and I went church shopping. We stopped shopping after visiting His Present Glory.
Now I am totally on fire for God and I can’t understand why anyone who truly believes in God, in Jesus, in the bible, isn’t totally on fire for him! Jesus is the center of my universe. Not my mom, not my husband, not my job, not even myself.
Jesus is forever! Jesus is not a fad! Jesus is my foundation! Jesus is my salvation! Jesus is my hope! Jesus…just is!

Jesus is my life. Before Him I had no life. I was just an empty shell of a human being with a void so big that nothing – not people, not alcohol, not work, not sex, not food – nothing could fill that void but the Holy Spirit. Nothing else could satisfy the deep yearning, that emptiness, that deadness that I constantly felt before Jesus came into my life. The three years of secular counseling that I received before being born again, helped me learn to function in the world again, but I didn’t start to get any real healing until I made

Jesus Christ my counselor and he helped me learn to function in His world .
I believe in John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”. Because I believe this, I have a simple faith, which is defined in the Nelson’s dictionary as a belief in or confident attitude toward God, involving commitment to His will for one’s life. True faith is confidence in God and Christ, not in oneself.

My heart’s desire now is to do God’s will in my life and to become who he designed me to be.
The one scripture that sums it all up for me is Proverbs 3:5,6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight”. He has definitely straightened out my path and I can’t wait to see where the next steps lead!
The following is a poem that I wrote which speaks of journey my heart has taken as Jesus touches me with His healing powers.

Issues Of The Heart

A hardened heart
Covered in scar tissue
From injuries inflicted
Broken pieces welded together
The fit not quite right

Impermeable to pain, joy or love
Toughened to a point of paralysis
A soft center deep inside
Protected by a thick wall
Of dreams lost and nightmares lived

Each memory, layer by layer
Forging an armor
Impenetrable to all…

But God

…In His mercy and compassion
Quietly calls
To the hidden parts
Still alive and beating

Gently massaged with love and truth
The inner heart swells
Still constricted by the shell

Slowly, awareness builds
Cracks appear
A salve of forgiveness is applied
Scales fall off

The seams self-sewn
Are cut apart, stitch by stitch
Unraveling the past
Making room for the present

Making room for His Presence