Salty Zebra

  Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given to me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ,  “What can God do with me?” you may have asked. You may see yourself, as I do, as small and insignificant in the Kingdom of God. I jokingly mentioned in an earlier post that I sometimes wonder if, in the Body of Christ, I am the appendix. We see people out there like Billy Graham and Beth Moore and Priscilla Shirer and wonder how someone like us could ever measure up, could ever do something big.   When I was a young mom, I used to read a lot of missionary biographies. I was so inspired by how they headed out into the unknown with nothing but a pith helmet and their Bible. They suffered tragedy and loss, but in the end, something great and amazing came from their ministry. A hundred, or two hundred years later, people were still reading and writing about what God had done through them. I really thought this was my destiny...

   Today is my 47th birthday! As it approached, I've had a lot of thoughts and feelings come up that I wanted to share here. Maybe some of these things come up for you near your birthday as well?  We have a lot of birthday traditions in my family. Many of these were created by loved ones who have since gone onto glory. In this picture I have a bow from a package on my forehead. My Grandpa McCoy used to always put his bows on the top of his head (there was no hair there so it was easier for him). Inside the cake in front of me, there is a penny. My Grandma McCoy used to stir a penny into the cake batter and then pour it in where no one would know. The person that got the slice of cake with the penny in it was supposed to have good luck! My Grandpa and Grandma are in heaven together with Jesus now and I miss them especially on days like this with so many memories. But I'm also grateful for those memories and the joy they brought into my life.  My Mom and I have birthda...

   As a young wife and mom, I struggled. I was also young in my faith, having only started walking with Jesus a few months after my first son was born. Everything was hard. I had four kids under 6, one of them newly brought into our home from a war-torn country with all the trauma that goes along with it. The other 3 were no cake walk either with serious food allergies that had to be catered to, making it so that I had to make nearly everything we ate from scratch. I was also in the early years of my marriage, and we were simultaneously learning how to be good Christians and good spouses, and had mastered neither. I heard the story of Esther, and I wondered, could God have brought me here for such a times as this?   Fast forward several years and I’m two years into braces, not a fun journey, and facing complete reconstructive jaw surgery. Months of recovery while trying to balance caring for and homeschooling four kids. My husband was travelling regularly, being gone...

   Homeschooling my kids was one of the most important things I've done in my life. It won't work for every family, or in every season, but when it's right, it's right.   When my first baby was born, I knew I wanted to homeschool my kids. I had been homeschooled for a few years as a child and I had strong, positive memories of it. From the time our children were born we started reading them books and singing songs. Toys were both fun and educational. Once they could sit up on their own, they had educational computer games they would play. My oldest son taught himself to read at 3 years old with a computer game! He became a voracious reader and, even though he had a September birthday, I decided to start him with kindergarten the fall he turned 5. The following summer we brought our daughter home from Liberia, West Africa, and because of some family transitions we decided to place our oldest in public school for the year. Unfortunately, because of his birthday, they d...

  I go six months in between MRIs to check on my brain tumor at this point. You might think that gives me a six month break in the worry, but it doesn't. My husband and I were discussing this in the car today, on the way home from a doctor's appointment of course, and what we decided is that it gives us about two months of, "Boy I'm glad that scan was clear." Followed by two months of, "Well, I'd better not book anything six months out because I don't know what the next scan will show." And finally two months of, "I wonder what the next scan will show? Are my symptoms worse? What will we do if it's worse? What if they say they just can't tell still?"   Living like that is exhausting! Both of us are so over it, but not sure how not to live it. It's not like we're actually caught up in worry. We've really handed things over to God and we trust Him for it, but the wondering has us in pretzels. Do you know what it's ...

Logo designed by Teri Zebarth And in future days the Lord’s Temple Mount will be the most important mountain of all; it will be more prominent than other hills. People will stream to it.   Micah 4:1  When I started hearing God’s call on my heart to start blogging, I put it off. I thought, “Someday I’ll be able to do that, but not now.” Then, as the call grew more insistent, I started taking classes on how to blog. Finally, I took the plunge and prayerfully created my blog, The Salty Zebra .   When I was learning about blogging, the focus of most of the lessons was on people-pleasing. You were supposed to see what people wanted to hear, and tell them that. You were to discover the most commonly searched words and create blog posts around them. You were to make sure to incorporate numbers into the title, “The 7 best places to eat in Las Vegas,” “10 Ways to build a stronger body,” “Eating for health, 4 Foods you should focus on.” The teaching showed me that I shou...

 February 28th is Rare Disease Day. Yeah, it's technically February 29th, but that's, well, rare, so we celebrate it on the 28th on those years that don't have a 29th! Between 3.5% to 5.9% of the World's population live with a rare disease. Why the range? Well, the numbers aren't really accurate. In Western countries where healthcare is readily available, it is still difficult to receive a diagnosis. The average Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes diagnosis takes 12 years. I didn't get diagnosed until I was 43 although I started showing symptoms at a very young age. But when it comes to developing nations, health care is an entirely different story. Even if you get to see a doctor, the odds of them recognizing that you have a rare disease is pretty unlikely. And then, if they do diagnose you, it's unlikely that your case will be counted by a national agency of some type. So, they make their best guess! According to this report :  There are over 6,000 rare diseases, ma...

     Bandana Print Shirt Collar Button Through Blouse – BloomChic  My brain surgeries, and perhaps the tumor itself, had more than a few unexpected side effects. Two of these were me becoming pre-diabetic and having high cholesterol. These both changed shortly after the surgery and without any change in my diet. My doctor has been working with me for quite some time to address these issues - my body is not cooperating so far - but in the meantime I have gained a significant amount of weight, about 50lbs. I weigh more now than I ever have in my life, even when I was pregnant. As you can imagine, that is a challenge for both my physical and mental health. Adding on to the mental side of this, none of my clothes fit anymore. Kick a girl while she's down why don'tcha?    V Neck Crocheted Cut Out Jumpsuit – BloomChic  My husband, in his precious compassion and wisdom, encouraged me to find some new clothes that I would enjoy. I kept seeing ads pop up on Fac...

  Confessions of a people pleaser. I have allowed my life to be ruled by fear. I am afraid of what strangers in a grocery store will think of me. People who I do not know and will never see again influence what I do and say on a daily basis. It’s foolish, and I know it, and yet I cannot seem to break away from it. How can I hope to live in my true identity as a child of God, free from the entanglements of this world? But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may proclaim the virtues of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.   1 Peter 2: 9 A line from today’s devotional stood out to me today, “Your identity is firmly rooted, not in the fleeting moments but in the eternal embrace of our Savior.” Who I am is not decided by what people think of me. It is not determined by a chance encounter, or even a long-term relationship. It is firmly rooted in Christ alone. I can stand strong in Whose I am,...

      After our cruise this fall, my husband encouraged me to try out solo cruising.  The reasoning was that I would like to travel more than he is available and cruising is a cost-effective and accessible form of travel.  So I booked my first solo cruise for April of 2023 on Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL).  You see, I had only ever cruised on NCL and I thought that I always would.  The logic is sound. When you sail consistently with one cruise line you earn loyalty points that equate to bonuses and potential savings. As I began to look into my dreams of travelling every month in 2023 on the $7,500 budget that my husband had given me though, I quickly realized that cruising on Norwegian wouldn't get me very far.  Between the one I had booked in April and the one I had committed to with my son in the fall I was down nearly half of my travel budget for the whole year.  I didn't need to budget for our travel in February because that was for our ann...