Salty Zebra

   On our way home from the beach Sunday evening, I told my husband that I would like to stop by our favorite little hole-in-the-wall restaurant and get some celebratory milkshakes, a way to mark our thanks to God for giving my husband a job. He thought this was a little strange since he has not yet gotten a job, but I insisted that I wanted to thank God and celebrate in advance because I knew  without a doubt that God has things lined up perfectly and has just the right job in store for him at just the right time.   To be honest, I'm kind of hoping that God put this on my heart because it's coming soon, my husband's new job. It's been a rough road of late and we'd both really like him to be employed. God has provided wonderfully and abundantly for us, we're not short on money or stressed about how we will pay our bills. It's just that my husband really  feels like he wants to have a job. The idea of his job being finding a job has worn off and to say he is...

   For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light  Ephesians 5:8  This is a beautiful passage, and a fitting metaphor, that God gave us through Paul. Similar messages are shared in John 1:4 , 8:12 , 2 Corinthians 4:6 and lots of other places . God, goodness, righteousness are represented by light and evil and all it’s tricks and fallacies by darkness. This is helpful for us to understand and gives us insight into a deeper truth, but on its surface, I struggle with it at times.  You see, today I have a migraine, and with migraines, light is my enemy. It causes pain; torture really. When a migraine is really bad, I have to lay in a dark room. Even the little lights from the smoke detector or the outlet next to my bed that has a small blue bulb embedded in it are too much. So far, today, I can handle the outside light coming through the window, but the lights in the house are off and I even had to dim the screen of my...

  Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.  This is the end of a passage that lays out some foundations for Christian living. In it, Paul writes that we should not sin in our anger, we should not steal, our words should be beneficial, not gossipy or mean, and that great big mysterious command – do not grieve the Holy Spirit. I still don’t fully comprehend what that means, and no one I’ve read seems to have a solid handle on it either. Hey Paul, you want to give a few more details on something so seemingly important?!? Finally, just before today’s focus verse, it says that we are to get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. That’s where I got stuck.   You see, I don’t struggle with a compulsion to steal, and I work really hard to make sure my words are beneficial, though I am certainly not perfect, but recently I have had a big struggle with anger. You can...

  Sometimes life isn't ideal. Let's face it, most of the time it isn't! So, we do what we need to, to make things work. In my "Making It Work" posts, I share life hacks and ideas that have helped me so that, maybe, they can help someone else too. I hope you enjoy!  I have SO MUCH DATA about my health this year!!!! It got to be so ridiculous that I couldn't begin to make heads or tails of it, let alone use it to benefit my situation. So I asked my data scientist husband to see what he could do with it, and here's what he came up with:  Pretty impressive, eh? He made lots of other visuals as well that you can look at, and even manipulate, here . Why did I ask him to do this? I thought maybe if I looked at the data in a cohesive, visualized way, I would be able to see WHAT TO DO. I've been tracking my blood sugar , my pace points (spoons), and my symptoms for almost a year now. You'd think that if you look at the data just right , maybe if you squin...

  Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.   Ephesians 4:2-3  Seeing this passage transports me back in time to February of 2019. At that time, I was a part of a beautiful ministry at our church that had brought hundreds of people that wouldn’t have darkened the door of a sanctuary into a space where they heard about God’s love. The thing is, we have an enemy that doesn’t like such ministries and so he sowed seeds of discord in our church over it. A small, but vocal, group decided that what we were doing in the ministry (Christian Yoga) wasn’t in line with what they thought the church should be doing, and they actively, vehemently, went about seeking to destroy it. I talked with them, shared my teaching and lesson plans, invited them to sit in on classes, and at every step they agreed that what I was sharing was completely Biblical, and yet they continued t...

   Sometimes life isn't ideal. Let's face it, most of the time it isn't! So, we do what we need to, to make things work. In my "Making It Work" posts, I share life hacks and ideas that have helped me so that maybe, they can help someone else too. I hope you enjoy!   In past hospital stays, I had been given a puny, almost worthless little "kidney shaped emesis basin" when I was nauseous.   Needless to say, these don't do much to contain mess and are fiddly to try to hold when you're very sick. During my tenure at the hospital (several different ER visits and stays, including nearly 2 weeks in the neuro ICU) over the course of my three brain surgeries in 2023, I became acquainted with a much more practical, useful tool, the emesis bag. In  part 14  of The Whole Story of my Brain tumor and surgeries (really the story is ongoing, but this is the name of the series), I mentioned my use of " green bags " as well as a funny happenstance where...

   Have you ever lost something? I'm not talking about misplacing your car keys, but losing something for good. Like, it's not coming back, ever. It can be disheartening, disappointing, or downright depressing! But sometimes I think it's a good idea to step outside of the situation a little and look at it from a different perspective.  Many, many years ago, when my kids were little, I had a Winnie the Pooh coat. It was my favorite winter coat. In fact, it was my only winter coat. I had a closet that was on the small side, so every spring I would pack up my sweaters and winter coat and other winter clothes and break out the summer wear. Then, in the fall, I would reverse the process. One year, the fall of 2004 to be exact, I went to get out my winter clothes and my Winnie the Pooh coat wasn't there! I searched all around where the bin had been in storage. I checked other bins with the kids' clothes in different sizes. I went through every closet in the house, checked...

Warning: I get a little outside of my standard writing style in this post. As my husband says, I am usually "flowery" and subtle in the way I present things. Today I'm being brutally real.     I've mentioned lots of times on this blog the fact that I have Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes (EDS), but I thought that today I would share a little of what that means to me. It's hard to know how to communicate this to people who don't share my experience. For example:  I am never not in pain. Do I take pain meds? Yes. I take a great deal of pain meds. But no, they don't take my pain away. What they do is (sometimes) take my pain down to a level where I am able to function. My daily functioning pain level is more than many people will experience in a year. Is it easier for me to deal with pain because I am so used to it? No. No, it is not. In fact, the ongoing, constant, chronic pain builds on top of itself over and over and makes it MORE difficult to deal with. I just do...

 When I adopted my daughter from Liberia, West Africa, I was concerned that she would be hurt by careless comments and questions from others. Thankfully, those were few and far between and neatly handled by the list of replies I had dreamed up while lying in bed at night worrying about it 😏. What I never expected was how much of an issue it would become once she grew up! When she was little, most people encountered us with her in my shopping cart or holding my hand. It was clear that we were together. Now, however, when we are separated sometimes things go awry.  A couple of years ago, my daughter and I were flying home from a trip to Hawaii. We were flying standby and were not able to get seats together. My super-sweet daughter bought me a bag of my favorite popcorn during the flight and asked the flight attendant to bring it back to, "my mom, in row 17". I noticed the flight attendant walking back and forth a couple of times, clearly looking for something, and then I clued...

 Today would have been my Grandmother's 94th Birthday, but she passed away this fall. In her honor, I wanted to share today some of the memories I have of her and some of the lessons she taught me.  As far back as I can remember, my Grandma is there. One of my earliest memories is of looking out of her window eating frozen peas and hot dogs. Yes, they were still frozen when we ate them - it was a treat, don't judge!  She raised a family that stayed close in their child-rearing years. I got to grow up with all my cousins running around her house, inside and out. Grandma's house was filled with things that told stories: spoons on the wall, knick knacks from Japan, an extensive doll collection. What my cousins and I remember with a shudder was her dragon-headed foot stool. We all swore that thing was possessed, and it would reach out and bite your toes as you walked past!  I will forever remember Grandma's kitchen. I remember coming into her house and being met wit...