Salty Zebra

  and everyone who was willing and whose heart moved them came and brought an offering to the Lord for the work on the tent of meeting, for all its service, and for the sacred garments. Exodus 35:21  I’ve written about it before , but fiber arts are kind of my thing. I actually spent last weekend with dozens of my fiber arts people. Shepherds and spinners and dyers and weavers. It was at an event called the Shepherd’s Extravaganza. I got to help out with the fleece sale where shepherds brought in this year’s fleece, the wool freshly cut from their sheep (don’t worry, it’s like a hair cut – doesn’t hurt at all). A judge came and looked them all over, noting different qualities and deficiencies in them. She chose the best to receive fancy ribbons, and one among them received the judge’s choice award. In another area, craftspeople had brought things they had made with wool (and other fiber) to be displayed and judged. My Mom won the judge’s choice in that area, she’s super tale...

  And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.” Exodus 34:6-7  Who is God? What is He like? There are thousands of different references in the Bible and we could compound them and break them down, but how much more accurate, more exact would it be to look at who God, Himself, says He is?   God starts out by introducing Himself as “The Lord, the Lord.” In other versions, this is represented as “Yahweh, Yahweh God.” He gives His Name, that by which He is to be known to all mankind for all generations. This is the name God gave to Moses at the burning bush when he asked for it. It literally means, “the existing one” ( Strong’s ). God is the...

Over the next few months, I'll be sharing regular posts about how I'm preparing for radiation in the fall. 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 .    Last weekend, my family came together to celebrate my husband's 50th birthday. The timing of this was pretty special as I'd just received confirmation from my medical team that my brain tumor had officially entered progression (at least 20% growth) just a couple of days before, which I explained in my post last week . One of the hardest parts of this process has been having to communicate, at each step, what's going on to my family, especially my children. Don't get me wrong, they've been amazing about it! But I hate seeing the burden of knowledge weighing heavily on them.  Each of my kids have reacted differently to news of my tumor at different stages in thi...

 Have you ever asked God for a sign? How about a really specific sign? How about a flashing neon sign? Yep. That was me. I did that. You see, two years ago the radiologists' measurements on my MRIs showed that my tumor had grown, significantly. Between the MRI that we'd settled on as our baseline, taken about four months after my resection surgery, and the one taken in June of 2024, there was about a 76% increase in volume. Considering you only need to see 20% increase to be considered in "progression" and moving on to the next stage of treatment, this was a lot, even though the tumor itself was still pretty tiny, only about 1 sq cm, so the growth was pretty tiny as well. At that point, my surgeon referred me over to the Tumor Center and said that I'd likely need radiation treatment, though he wasn't an expert and deferred to their wisdom.   After my first, not great, appointment, we were assigned to the head of Neuro Radiology Oncology who was an amazing ble...

  Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to their tent. The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.   Exodus 33:10-11  Have you ever heard the phrase, “Familiarity breeds contempt” or its counterpart, “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone”? Sometimes we become so used to a really special, wonderful thing, that we no longer see its special wonderfulness. It’s just regular, the way it is supposed to be. This morning, I’m considering this when it comes to prayer.   Moses had the privilege of speaking to God face to face as a man does with a friend. This was such a wonderful and amazing thing that, when Moses went to the tent of meeting to do this, all the people would come and stand at the entrance to their tents and worship God. Imagine if th...

“They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’ So I told them, ‘Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.’ Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!”  Exodus 32:23-24  In case you aren’t familiar with the story, let me catch you up. God used Moses to lead the people of Israel out of captivity in Egypt and through the Red Sea, bringing the sea back down upon their enemies and destroying them completely. Then, knowing that the people were not yet ready to be tested in battle, He led them into the wilderness where they were to learn from Him and grow to trust Him. And there was a lot of growing to do! At every turn, at every hiccup, they whined and complained about ever having left Egypt, where they were horribly treated and enslaved. Never did they come to God and humbly say, “We have a need and we trust that You will provide for us...