Who needs Halloween decorations when you've got a snake-charmer cat?

I'm considering leaving my box of Halloween decorations in the attic this year...not for any profoundly moral reason like "it's unchristian," but because Cleo, our snake-charming feline, has brought 3 reptiles inside the house in the past two days! Yes, Cleo, has decided to make her own Halloween mischief by dropping 2 baby diamondback rattle snakes (or maybe it's the same snake) and 1 gecko inside our home! Creepy enough for ya?! No need to hang up any fake cob webs or lizards this year! We've got our own version of goulish decorum...and it's not fake!!!

My "deeply" analytical mind is trying to process this as something big like God's intervening (albeit creepy) "whisper" to remember my own mortality and seize the day...2 close calls with a couple of vipers tends to wake you up a bit. But why couldn't he just send a benign butterfly to do the whispering? A rattlesnack?! REALLY GOD??!!!

Who's driving you around?

Before my brain thing, I was in control and driving life...or so I thought! Graduate high school...Check! Get a degree...Check! Get a job...Check! Get married...Check! Have 2 kids...Check! Brain aneurysm...Check! Whoa! Okay, now who's driving the bus?

I surrendered my driver's license a year ago due to disability, but what a wonderful metaphor this turned out to be! I am both literally and figuratively no longer able to drive. God had me raise the bar on my perspective of life and surrender to His taxi cab.

I now have a new mantra..."Let life come to you!" Let it meet you where you are and leave the driving to someone else! And guess what? It's been okay! Really! I manage to get where I'm supposed to be, and go where I'm supposed to go! I'm letting life drive me around now for a while, and Wow! Such freedom!

Ever feel like a pinball?

I am overwhelmed! Just spent the day surfing the web about blogging and realized I am completely uneducated! Wow! Blog forums, SMS, RSS feeds...ACK! What have I gotten myself into?

I have been jumping around much like those old pinballs, but I am definitely at "TILT"!! Who knew it was so complicated? And who is the authority anyway?

Thank God I have an authority on life...Jesus! His Word is so simple. I think it's the only way to navigate through the mess! Now I'm ready to rack the high score!

Got gnomes?

Okay, five months is a bit neglectful, but life got in the way...my bad. It's time for a fresh start! It's summertime and I am heeding the nudges to write...be it blogging or grocery lists, so here goes!

It's been over a year now since my brain aneurysm and my thoughts are now turning more reflective and always grateful. I am so glad not to remember much about the aneurysm itself. What comes to mind now are silly memories of the trauma, like remembering a conversation I had with Dave in ICU wherein I asked him if there was a little gnome sitting in the room with us... no doubt drug-induced, but I have to wonder...maybe a different sort of whisperer? This memory recently prompted my son to purchase a cute little lawn memento for me that stands 6 inches high and now sits atop our piano to keep me grounded. I've always thought butterflies were the only God-whispered creatures in my life, but I'm expanding my circle now to include a mystical bearded phe-gnome...pun intended!

The little gnome represents my disbelief that I actually had the aneurysm. I am almost 100% recovered it seems...just trying to regain my balance now. That being said, I have to rely on the testimony of friends and family to complete the story of my trauma since my recollection is sketchy and unclear. "Did I actually have BRAIN surgery?" "I flew in a medi-vac helicopter...REALLY?!" I find myself once again having to put my faith in the "unseen"...be it gnomes or God!

"If You Build It, They Will Come..."

My head is flooded this morning with a whisper about "reliance." God keeps bringing me back to it, so I must need to listen. On whom or what do you rely? Up until this past year, it was "self" most definitely for me. Then that quickly turned to a neurosurgeon, then to countless nurses...next to family and friends. Over the past few weeks my reliance though seems a little more super-natural, if you will. I can't put my finger on it, but I've been placing my trust in life itself to come to me instead. My reliance has shifted from self, to others, and now to "life-force" (Yoda's voice can just turn off now). It may sound a little new-agey, I guess, so maybe I shouldn't call it "life", but rather "God." I read a devotion this morning from Oswald Chambers and the phrase "There was no part of himself he would ever rely on again" struck me. Chambers was referring to Simon Peter following Jesus without question, not once, but twice in his lifetime...the first time as a fisherman, then later as a denying disciple. Just like Peter, we must check our reliance which should be on God and trust that "life" will come to meet us. It will!

Is Your Head Droopy Too??

You know I couldn't get through this journey without God bringing me to Psalm 23 sometime, right? Okay, the timing seems a bit off for me...it's 3:10 a.m. on a Tuesday morning almost 6 months following my dance with death...my sensibility tells me this should have resonated with me closer to my ICU visit months ago, but okay, here I am. Ready God? Here goes!

The first of two phrases you put on my heart concerning this psalm..."The Lord is my Shepherd..." You God are my comfort. The Lord. Only You! Enough said I think.

The second phrase I took notice of from my Message translation..."You revive my drooping head (verse 5)." As I listen to stories from family and friends who comforted me along this journey out of what can only nearly be described as a coma, it was God who comforted and revived. He gently wrapped me in a cocoon of forgetfulness during the aneursym and pain, and He is there for me as I transform into my new MG (Miracle Girl) butterfly state! I am revived, yet a new creation...but only because of my shepherd...Christ! Let Him revive your drooping heads my loved ones! He is there...always!

God's Divine Spatula!

Come with me on this one...woke up at 4:30 am this morning with the thought that I needed to flip all the negativity over whenever I can and then I had a vision...I saw SpongeBob and his "Golden Spatula"! No, really...I had a SpongeBob moment! I think God wants us to be his spatulas! He gifts us with the ability to lift others up around us with positive thoughts and outlooks...we just have to flip the burgers of life! There are so many opportunities to flip it all around! So, join me fellow spatulas! Let's go flip those burgers!!! "You are my lamp, O Lord; the Lord turns my darkness into light." 2 Samuel 22:29