Salty Zebra

  Your loyal followers trust in you, for you, LORD, do not abandon those who seek your help. Psalm 9:10  Do you ever come to God with a request, secretly wondering in your heart if He can or will fulfill it? I think David and the other psalmists definitely felt this way, so you are not alone. You see over and over in the psalms where they remind God of His promises and essentially call Him out, saying “Surely You won’t fail us!” But as they wrote these words to God, they were writing them for themselves as well. They were telling themselves, “Of course God will not let us down. He never has and He never will!” Oftentimes we need to be reminded of this truth, and what better way than by praising God for all He has done.   We can “know” that God is good and mighty to save, but when we focus on our problems , it’s easy to forget that. Here the psalmist encourages us to trust in God’s promises and truth, knowing that He will not leave us to shame. Over and over this is ...

  For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.   Romans 8:38-39 RSV Nothing can separate us from the love of God: Not Death : For absent from the body means I will be present with the Lord. ( 2 Corinthians 5:8 ) Not Life : There are many distractions and temptations in this life. But, in Christ, as we walk in the Holy Spirit, we will see them for what they are and be able to choose life with Him instead. ( Galatians 5:16 ) Not Angels : Ok, this one confused me a little. Why would angels want to separate us from God? But as I looked into it, according to Matthew Henry , this can refer to both “good angels” and “bad angels,” or demons. Remember, Satan and his army of demons were once angels and fell from heaven when they rebelled against God. And God’s Word s...

  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 .    When we found out that I was going to have to do radiation therapy, my husband started dreaming of a lounge. Initially it was called the "Rest Room", but when we talked about it, it sounded a lot like restroom, and that's just a strange place to hang out with people 😂, so my kids renamed it the "Lounge." Always with taking care of me front-of-mind, he wanted to make sure he'd be able to keep an eye on me and be available if I needed him while I recuperated from radiation. In February, my son moved into his own home and vacated the room across the hall from my husband's office, creating the perfect space. That way, my husband could work and still feel like ...

  What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?   Romans 8:31-32  In his commentary , David Guzik states, “One person plus God makes an unconquerable majority.” This morning, as I considered these verses, a great number of opponents came to mind. At first, I thought this was a rhetorical question, “who can be against us?” But as I consider it further, I wonder if it doesn’t go deeper than that. If God is for us, who has a chance against us?   In this world we will have trouble ( John 16:33 ). This is a certainty, Jesus declared it. That trouble often comes in the form of someone coming against us, whether it’s a person, Satan and his minions, or even ourselves. This passage doesn’t state that no one will come against us, but that their efforts are in vain. When they do, they come against us + God. We are not ...

  In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words;   Romans 8:26 NASB  On Friday nights, I get to hang out with my family, including my little nephews. They are 3 and 5, full of energy and spunk. The littlest has a thing for cookies. He always wants cookies. Before dinner. After dinner. While he is actively eating another cookie, this guy wants a cookie! If we gave him a cookie every time he asked for one, he’d never eat anything else, and as you can imagine, that wouldn’t go well for the growth and strength of his little body. But it’s awfully hard to say, “No” to that sweet little ask. As adults, we know that it is not best for him to eat cookies all day long every day, but he doesn’t understand that. Cookies taste good and they are fun to eat! That’s all he sees. If we say, “No,” he is deeply disappointed. He doesn’t get what he wants. We seem m...

 Radiation is a big deal. My husband keeps reminding me of that. Everything I've read on the subject tells me that I will be wiped out. My brain will not function. I will not be able to maintain the complicated systems that I've put in place for our life and finances. So, today I simplify.  For the last year, I've really enjoyed using the Door Dash and Instacart benefits on several of the credit cards I've opened. In fact, I've gotten up to $40 in free groceries from DoorDash and $60 in free groceries from Instacart every month! This is really handy, and fun if I'm being honest, but it takes time, effort, and a lot of thought. I have to pick my moment, ordering from Door Dash when DashMart has a good sale, ordering $12 here and $22 there from Instacart. You see, in order to receive these benefits, each card has to be used on a different order. This came out to as many as nine different orders per month. And these orders had to be carefully curated to come in as ...