Salty Zebra

For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so that no one can boast.  Ephesians 2:8-9 Long ago, I used to struggle with blame. Whose fault was it that something had been done or not done? Whose responsibility was it? Keeping track of everything was exhausting, and left me feeling bitter and very unhappy. These days, I’m so glad to say, my home is run far more on grace. If something needs to be done, I either do it or ask for help with it. If something gets done, I am blessed and grateful for it. It feels so much better. The other thing I struggled with was worry. That’s something that will eat you alive! Especially with kids. There is no end of things to worry about. I would worry all day and all night. Do you know what the cure for worry is? Faith. I had to start handing all my worries over to God and trusting Him that He was able to handle them and He knew best. I had to recognize that I wasn’t in charge

 Then Jesus came up and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”   Matthew 28: 18-20 The ultimate goal of parenting is successfully launching our progeny out into the world and watching them flourish (you thought I was going to say grandkids, didn’t you?). Jesus managed to do this with His disciples in only three years and we are typically given more like 18-20. He got to start with adults, you might argue, making it easier to teach them! Ah, but He also had to UNteach them! By the time Jesus got them they already had a lifetime of bad habits developed that Jesus had to patiently work with and love them through. One of those bad habits, Judas’ greed, even got Him killed. But Jesus didn’t have to deal with teenagers

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were bewildered and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest-ready fields.”   Matthew 9:36-38 When the kids were younger, they got to participate in ministry with us in lots of ways. They served as helpers at Sports Camp and VBS at church. They acted and directed in our church’s dinner theater. As a teen, my daughter got to go on a mission trip with my husband to the country she was born in, Liberia, West Africa. Most of them have served at the homeless mission with my husband both in the kitchen serving dinner and out on Search and Rescue visiting the homeless camps. One of our sons even got to serve in the -3 degree freezer alongside my husband for a day sorting it out. They grew up in an atmosphere of service, seeing its importance and getting to experience it a

I have a brain tumor measuring 0.8 x 1.1 x 1.2 cm. That’s pretty small. You know what’s smaller? The space it’s in between my brain stem and my cerebellum. That means it’s pressing on several things, including the nausea center of my brain. That is a very small thing indeed that has VERY big effect. You see, it is not the size of a thing that matters in a body. You do not have to be a hand or a foot to be of importance. The nausea center, or the tumor pressing on it, even though drastically smaller, can have just as great a power. For just as in one body we have many members, and not all the members serve the same function, so we who are many are one body in Christ, and individually we are members who belong to one another.   Romans 12: 4-5 All the parts of our body matter and work together. In the same way, all the parts of the body of Christ matter and need to work together. God designed us to be a community, to need fellowship, to be a team. While there might be lonely seasons in

  And let us take thought of how to spur one another on to love and good works, not abandoning our own meetings, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and even more so because you see the day drawing near.   Hebrews 10: 24-25 Studies vary significantly, but they show that people speak from 6-7,000 (lower end) to 15-16,000 (higher end) words per day ( How Many Words Does the Average Person Say a Day? (wikihow.com) ) That sounds like a lot, but once you take into account that the average person speaks at a rate of 150 words per minute, that’s just 20-60 minutes of speaking per day. As you can imagine, people in speaking professions, like teachers, would use a lot more words than someone like me who stays at home most of the time. When you take into account the power that our words can have, that is a very great responsibility. How often have you thought something encouraging about someone, but the thought never left your mouth? Encouragement never benefits an

  Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in our troubles so that we may be able to comfort those experiencing any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.   2 Corinthians 1: 3-4 What does comfort look like? The original Webster (1828) defined comfort using the words strengthen, invigorate and cheer. In the Psalms, it talks about God comforting us with His rod and staff and His promise which preserves our lives. In Isaiah, God’s comfort is compared to the comfort of a mother for her child. When you comfort someone, you are bringing them up. If they are depressed, you are cheering them. If they are physically weak, you are invigorating them perhaps with food or rest. The goal is to increase their strength. This is so important that the US Code actually defines giving comfort to our enemies as treason and it is punishable by death. The rod and staff of the shepherd were used

These words I am commanding you today must be kept in mind, and you must teach them to your children and speak of them as you sit in your house, as you walk along the road, as you lie down, and as you get up.   Deuteronomy 6: 6-7 Teaching my children God’s Word looks a lot different these days than it did when they were little. When they were young, they went to Sunday School and after church we would discuss their lesson at lunch. On Wednesdays they would do AWANA and we would practice their memory verses at home. We homeschooled, and our most important subject, the one I never skipped, was Bible. We went through lots of different curriculums for this subject, but for years we practice a mastery model where the kids would read a story out of a story book for themselves, read the scripture verses from the Bible that it was based on, write out questions about the story, and then present the story and their questions to their siblings (learn-practice-teach=mastery). It was easy to be