Salty Zebra

  Our eyes continually failed us as we looked in vain for help. From our watchtowers we watched for a nation that could not rescue us.   Lamentations 4:17 What is lament and how are we, as Christians, to use it in our spiritual life? Lament isn’t something that is often talked about in church or by the Christian influencers online that we follow. According to Bible Hub , lament is, “a form of prayer and expression that encompasses sorrow, mourning, and a plea for divine intervention.” It is a spiritual discipline, much like prayer and Bible reading. But lament is not just an expression of grief, it is also an articulation of trust in God amidst suffering and injustice. Lament turns us toward God when God seems far away ( Annaliese’s sermon on lament ). So how should lament factor into a healthy spiritual life?   As I’ve mentioned often lately, Jesus promised us that trouble would come ( John 16:33 ). If you are not currently experiencing a season of difficulty, as I a...

  Over the next few weeks, I'll be sharing regular posts about how I'm preparing for radiation. I'm hoping these can help someone else, as I struggled to find a conversational source like this that dealt with the subject. For more information on my brain tumor, check out these posts .  Today I head into the City for my first radiation treatment. I'll write a post for next Monday to tell you all about it, but I don't know yet what that's going to look like, so today I'm going to write to you about Zora. I would super  appreciate your prayers as I head into treatment though!  When you're going through something hard, it's nice to have a buddy, a friend, someone who will be with you through thick and thin, someone who can even come into the room with you during a radiation treatment, in other words, a stuffy. My husband first suggested it shortly after we found out that my treatment was being moved up . We've taken a small stuffed animal with us on ...

  But this I call to mind; therefore I have hope: The LORD’s loyal kindness never ceases; his compassions never end. They are fresh every morning; your faithfulness is abundant! “My portion is the Lord,” I have said to myself, so I will put my hope in him.   Lamentations 3:21-24  Humanity, as a whole, likes to put things into boxes of good or bad. Love, peace, joy; those are good. Hate, anger, pain; those are bad. But are they? If God made them all, and uses them all for His perfect plan and purpose, cannot all things be good?   This morning, I’ve been reflecting on the fact that, these days, people are quick to attribute blessing to God, but when it comes to suffering, at most they say, “God allows it.” They would not be willing to say that God could or would cause us harm. I wonder, though, if this is something we have devised for our own comfort instead of it being strictly biblical? Today our reading was Lamentations 3, written by the prophet Jeremiah as he w...

  My eyes are worn out from weeping; my stomach is in knots. My heart is poured out on the ground due to the destruction of my helpless people; children and infants in the town squares. Lamentations 2:11  The consequences of sin are devastating. We live in a fallen world. That means that all of the world is subject to the effects of sin. It’s not just the person who sins that deals with its consequences, but everyone that person interacts with, everything that person interacts with, in a ripple pattern. And because ALL have sinned ( Romans 3:23 ), this is a global, universal phenomenon.   Today’s verse deals with the situation in Jerusalem at its fall to Babylon. There were evil people who had done evil things in the city who were experiencing their just reward, but there were also regular people who had committed regular sin that also fell under judgement. On the one hand, sin is sin and there are not supposed to be tiers to it as far as I can tell biblically, but we...

Over the next few weeks, I'll be sharing regular posts about how I'm preparing for radiation. I'm hoping these can help someone else, as I struggled to find a conversational source like this that dealt with the subject. For more information on my brain tumor, check out these posts .  I don't know why, but with me, there's always a catch. Before my brain surgery, I ended up with a horrifically painful sinus infection that blew out the back wall of my sinus, leaving tiny pieces of bone floating in my head, and preventing me from getting the surgery that was critical to my survival. Turns out, it's not a good idea to perform brain surgery on someone with an active head infection 😬. That delayed my brain surgery for a full month, and it weighed heavily on my mind as I approached radiation therapy and, yet another, bizarre, unexplained complication arose.  I've struggled with scalp issues for months, I don't know why. Perhaps it came from reverting to comme...

  Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by on the road? Look and see? Is there any pain like mine? The LORD has afflicted me, he has inflicted it on me when he burned with anger. Lamentations 1:12  Oftentimes, when someone faces a season of challenge and tribulation, they are asked by others if there is some sin in their life for which they might be being punished. I think there are two reasons for this. First, the one asking would like to see that there is something different between them and the person experiencing trial, something that keeps them safe and prevents trouble from coming their way. This gives them the comfort that as long as they are obeying God, they won’t have to deal with whatever they see their neighbor going through. Second, they may genuinely want to help and think that by removing sin from your life through confession you may be restored from your problems. It’s a classic example of “Us and Them,” of trying to separate yourself from trouble by seeing ...