Sea Dragons and Knees

My visit to San Diego is nearing the end.
I'll be flying home to the Denver area in a few days.
It's been very satisfying to see my daughter recover from her knee surgery.
She's looking forward to resuming her active lifestyle and competing once more in jiu jitsu.
She limps slightly, but that will end once her repaired ACL completely heals.
The scars will fade.

A few days ago we went to an aquarium where I saw a nursery of sea horses at various stages of development. In the same room were the horses' cousins, the leafy sea dragons and weedy sea dragons.
If I hadn't read the info underneath the tanks where these creatures floated, I would have passed, never noticing them.
Only the eyes, swiveling to take in their environment give the creatures away.
The "weeds" and "leaves" that surround the sea dragons are actually appendages.
God, in His creative glory, has bestowed on these little sea creatures the ultimate camouflage.
Sea horses can't move very fast. They have tiny dorsal fins that wave rapidly to propel them from place to place. And tails that wrap around sea plants to help anchor them.

Amazing! God is truly amazing.

When I see a tiny creature so blessed by God, I remind myself that if my Heavenly Father can put such care and thought into the creation of a sea dragon, then He certainly can devote care and thought to my many concerns and requests.
Right now, one of my prayer requests is that Kiri's knee heals so completely that she will not re-injure it.

When Kiri tells me about the complexity of her knee surgery and how the doctors took part of her hamstring to fashion it into a makeshift ACL, I praise God because she is fearfully and wonderfully made.

Doctors, God bless them, have learned how to cut and suture.
Then they wait for nature (God)  to heal the wound.
But no doctor could create a human body, no matter how much scientific knowledge and advanced technology he or she had.

Only God could fashion a sea dragon, or a human knee!

"For You created my inmost being;
You knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from You
when I was made in the secret place;
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in Your book
before one of them came to be. " (Psalm 139: 13-16 NIV Bible)

Wednesday's (June 12th) Word

Wednesday's Word:
Umbrage, noun
Pronunciation: um-brudge
Definition: offense, sense of slight or injury

Are you skillful enough to use this word in a sentence?


Last week's word was taciturn.
"Judy's talkative nature starkly contrasted with her husband's taciturn ways."

Tuesday's (June 11) Thought

Tuesday's Thought:

"Notice the difference between what happens when a man says to himself 'I have failed three times,' and when he says, 'I am a failure.'"
S. I. Hayakawa, U.S. Senator and sematicist

Road Trips

My daughter and I were discussing travel plans. She and her husband and two daughters are planning to come visit us later this summer.
They'll fly out to Denver. Which is a good idea because their girls are very young and very restless.

On the other hand, I love road trips and always have.
My daughter shudders when I express my love for the open road.
I say there's so much freedom when you're in a car.
You can stop and get out when you feel the need. You can't do that in a plane.
You don't have to sit next to a NRS (not-recently-showered) passenger or listen for hours to a squalling baby.
If you see something of interest, you can pull over to investigate.
I love to see the geography change as the miles unfurl.
I love to race the sun toward the finish line when we're driving west.
I love to read the license plates on cars and make funny words out of them.

Bruce and I keep a travel journal in the car.
When we go on a road trip, I pull it out and log all the interesting things we see and all the restaurants, convenient gas stops, and tourist spots we visit.
We even write about rest stops so we remember which ones are awful, or well cared for, and which ones offer museums or playgrounds or gorgeous vistas.
We time how long it takes to get from Loveland to Casper, or Billings to Bozeman so we know next time.

In Washington state we admired miles and miles of a beautiful yellow crop. Never did find out what it was because the lettering on the sign was too small to read. But I appreciated that Washington farmers post signs to inform passing motorists what the crops are along I-90.

As we drove along the Columbia River I tried to imagine how Lewis and Clark had built makeshift boats to carry them downstream toward the Pacific.

I miss the days when we took our first road trips with our own kids and witnessed their delight in Yellowstone's geysers or viewing bison up close through the car windows.

I suppose that most die-hard road trippers love the process of getting "there."
And most flyers either don't have the time, or would rather skip the stuff along the way.

Like the road trip experiences, I'm learning to enjoy the process of "getting there" in my writing profession,
as well as journeying toward emotional and spiritual maturity.
There are times when I'd like to just get there quickly.
But then I'd miss experiencing hills and valleys, deserts, and beautiful vistas, places of refreshment.
I wonder what Jesus saw and experienced along the way as He traveled the dusty roads of Nazareth?

Are you the get-there-quick type or the enjoy-the-journey type?
Or are you a combination of both?
Leave a comment about your travel preferences.

Flight Delays

My husband dropped me off at Denver International Airport with plenty of time to spare before my flight to San Diego.
That's okay.
An airport is a great place to people-watch.
It also has long stretches of space perfect for walking.
Lots of tourist type stores for browsing.
Book and magazines.
Chairs for lounging.
An uninterrupted time to read my email or ebooks.

After two hours of doing all of these things, the time came to board my flight.
The important people boarded first.
Finally, we peons lined up and shuffled forward, dragging our chains—er, carry-ons.

The airline representative at the gate, who'd spent the last hour intimidating and snapping at anyone who dared to request an upgrade or seat change, now had to pick up her microphone and explain to a hundred and fifty irate passengers that a mechanical malfunction would delay us for an hour.

I sighed and headed down the hall to get another iced coffee.

Later, another unfortunate announcement made us wait an additional two hours.

I really don't like delays.
Who does?

An airport delay is annoying, but at least we know it will usually only last a few hours.

The delays I struggle with are the ones that I know God has to power to stop, but He doesn't.
Why do I have to pray for years and years for a loved one to be healed, or for another come to faith in Jesus?
Why, when I'm praying for a really good thing, does God not answer right away?

(Rhetorical question here, folks! Please do not attempt to answer this question for me.)

A friend once said to me, "God tends to answer prayers at the eleventh hour. He seldom answers prayers before we're played out!"

Who knows what the Lord is doing behind the scenes to make the "rough places plain."
Just like those airline mechanics: I'd like to get going right away, but not at the expense of my and the other passengers' safety.

Would I be safe in the air if the plane was not properly prepared?
Would I be safe if God answered my prayer before I was properly prepared?

Delays always cause me to to have to readjust my expectations.
Not pleasant.
Very inconvenient.

But necessary for me as a child who continues to learn that God can be trusted, even during delays.

"Bessed are those who listen to me,
watching daily at my doors,
waiting at my doorway." (Proverbs, 8:34 NIV Bible0







  

Wednesday's (June 5th) Word

Wednesday's Word:

taciturn, adjective
Pronounced: tass-i-turn

Definition: uncommunicative, saying little.

Would you like to try using this word in a sentence?
Leave your sentence in the comment section of my blog.

Last week's word was saccharine.

"The woman's saccharine smile and tone of voice led me to believe that I was the most special of all her boyfriends."

Let Us Love

I'm in San Diego helping my daughter, Kiri, care for her two little girls.
Kiri is a brown belt world champion jiu-jitsu competitor.
I'm so proud of her. She's worked very hard to achieve this dream.

Two years ago she felt something in her knee pop as she competed in the World Championship.
She says her knee felt very unstable, but it never got very inflamed or especially painful.
Then, this past season as she trained for June's World Championship her knee began to bother her a lot.

She saw an orthopedist who sent her in for an MRI.
Sure enough, her ACL was completely torn away from her knee.
Apparently, she'd been competing and training for the past two years with this condition.

So, a couple of weeks after knee surgery to repair the ACL (they took some of her hamstring and fashioned it into a new ACL) she's hobbling around not listening to her husband's advice to use crutches.

Kiri is so used to being physically tough that it's very hard for her to let someone else take care of her.
I'm more than willing to help with most things, but Kiri jumps up and gets to it before I can.
So I'm learning not to wait for her to ask me for help.

My granddaughters are learning that I can be trusted to make them breakfast, get them dressed, and even draw some pretty neat pictures for them to color.

I treasure these few weeks that I can leave memories of me with my granddaughters.
I brought them both luggage tags that look like animals. Kaya's looks like a horse and Kira's is a little green frog. This morning I wrote their names on the tags with indelible marker.
I explained to Kaya, "Now, when you come out to see me and Grandpa, you can attach your luggage tag to your bag and everyone will know who your bag belongs to."

Later in the day, I will drive them all down to Kiri's physical therapist so she can do her strengthening exercises. While she's in treatment, Kaya and Kira will play blocks with me.

I love being a part of my children's and grandchildren's lives.
I also hope that my activities with them will plant some special memories.
I pray that I can build a special bond with my two precious granddaughters.
So that they know that I love them, think about them constantly and that they are being prayed for each day.

I want them to know that, just as I am willing to drop my usual life to come out and spend three weeks with my daughter, that I would do the same for them.

Then, when they are a little bit older they will begin to understand that this is how God operates: that He invests constant care and vigilance for His children, too.

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for loves comes from God. " (1st John 4:7 NIV Bible)