Salty Zebra

Scrolling through my Facebook feed is often discouraging, even depressing. You wouldn’t think that seeing all that people are accomplishing and enjoying would make me feel that way, or you’d think I was a pretty awful person if it did. The thief of comparison steals my joy for them though. I wish I could hike like that, travel like that, clean like that, paint like that, homeschool like that. I wish I had grandkids. I wish I had the energy to do those things. I wish I didn’t have pain so I could go to those places. I wish I could eat those things and not be ill. Jealousy. Envy. Ugliness. For a long time I couldn’t be on social media because of it. Slowly, over time, I was able to learn to celebrate and be glad for people, even though I couldn’t do the same things. I stopped comparing and I acknowledged that what I saw in their feeds were happy moments of their lives, not complete pictures. Funny thing, but I’ve had to learn to do the same with the Bible! “O God of my fathers, I ackno

Do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what is the will of God – what is good and well-pleasing and perfect.   Romans 12:2 This world is not our home. Its goals are not our goals, its values not our values. I live in America, but I do not share the American dream. My heart is not set on building wealth or establishing a financial legacy for my family. Of far more importance is the legacy of grace that I am attempting to live into. This verse in Romans calls us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Our fleshly minds, those we are born with, tend to think of themselves. As we walk with Christ and live life with Him, we watch and are taught to think of others, to see others more highly than ourselves. We are taught to love God and trust Him, even when our fleshly mind doesn’t understand what He is doing. Over time practicing this way of thinking, our mind is renewed. We start to think in ne

  I will give them the desire to acknowledge that I am the LORD. I will be their God, and they will be my people. For they will wholeheartedly return to me.’   Jeremiah 24:7 You know how when you were little adults would tease you that if you were bad Santa Claus would put coal in your stocking? Today I’m thinking a little extra about that coal. More specifically about the carbon that it is primarily composed of. Carbon, and coal, are boring, ordinary things. They, like us, are not very special or spectacular, until they are put under pressure. You see, when you put carbon under pressure, it becomes graphite. Now graphite is something truly useful. We’ve all used it – it forms the center of every pencil everywhere. You can’t do math without it or take a test where you fill in those little bubbles! But let’s be real, once you graduate from high school, pencils loose much of their usefulness. I’ll pick one up now and again, or use one to help a kid with math, and I do use them when d

  “I, the LORD, say: ‘O nation of Israel, can I not deal with you as this potter deals with the clay? In my hands, you, O nation of Israel, are just like the clay in this potter’s hand.’   Jeremiah 18:6 Are doctors prophets? Maybe, sometimes. I don’t know what their spiritual giftings are, they usually don’t list those on their profiles. Can God use them in those ways in my life? Definitely. God has sent several different doctors into my life that have affected its course and direction. Sometimes I listened to them, sometimes I didn’t. Sometimes I was supposed to and sometimes I wasn’t! Most recently I had an encounter with a neuro radio oncologist who prophesied sunshine and roses for me. He told me that the best and only information available for my extremely rare tumor stated that I had a 95% survival rate and so I shouldn’t be in the least concerned. I could have walked out of that appointment with a false sense of hope and gone about my life in peace. The reality was that his

All to Jesus, I surrender All to Him, I freely give I will ever love and trust Him In His presence daily live All to Jesus, I surrender Humbly at His feet, I bow Worldly pleasures all forsaken Take me, Jesus, take me now I surrender all I surrender all All to Thee, my blessed Saviour I surrender all I Surrender All Song by Don Moen How many times have you sung this on a Sunday morning? Dozens probably. Maybe hundreds if you've lived long enough and you have a music director that likes to cycle between three closing songs 🤣. Many of us can sing this song while thinking about our to-do list for the week and not even realizing what we're saying. How often do you slow down and really think about these lyrics? Do you mean what you are singing, or are you just offering lip service to the Lord? I've given this a lot of thought lately. What does it mean to surrender all? As always, I start with Webster's 1828 : SURREN'DER , verb transitive [Latin sursum, and rendre, to ren

 I've always trusted God with the safety of my kids when they were away from me, especially far away like on the other side of the state, or the country, or the world. But so much of that trust was conceptual, until last weekend.  Saturday, my youngest son, who is 21, worked a full shift at work and then headed out on a five-hour drive across the state to visit his brother for the first time by himself. He got off a little early with the express intention of getting over the mountain pass before dark, as this was the most intimidating part for him. The day before I had, in my most motherly way possible, gone over with him the signs of highway hypnosis and the ways to avoid it as once you get over the pass there is a three hour stretch of pretty straight highway that can get rather tedious. As much as I would have hoped for a text letting me know he was heading out, I didn't hear anything until his brother called me that evening to let me know that things did not go according to

He went away a second time and prayed, "My Father, if this cup cannot be taken away unless I drink it, your will must be done."  Mat 26:42 I am not a prophet, that's my husband. He'd laugh at that, but it's true. That said, there have been a few times in my life that I knew things with a certainty. This is one of them. Don't ask me why. Maybe I'll be wrong. I'm not basing my faith on this, or saying God told me this, but I have a sense of certainty that this brain tumor is heading down a nasty trajectory. I've "known" it for a while now. I don't know what God's plan is with it, but I have no doubt whatsoever that He has a plan. I think my husband knows this too, though I think he's desperate not to know it.  The thing is, everyone wants me to believe for healing. Everyone is always praying for my complete healing. If I told them what I believe about the direction this is heading, they'd be horribly shocked and disappointed