Penguins...

"Superman isn't brave. He's smart and handsome, even decent. But he's not brave. No listen to me. Superman is indestructible, and you can't be brave if you're indestructible. It's people like you and your mother, people who are different and can be crushed and know it, but they keep going on out there every time" -"Angus"

"Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some and some for common use?" -Romans 9:21

Penguins have always been my favorite animals. It's kind of surprising to me that I don't wear tuxedos more often actually. They were always just such a fun animal to me growing up. I loved going to the zoo and watching the penguins waddle around and then dive through the water at blazing speeds. When I was in elementary school, we were supposed to send a list of our favorite things to a high school student. I wrote, "Penguins and outer space." Well, a month later, I received a little picture book written and illustrated by a senior at Santa Rosa High about crazy alien penguins that came to earth to play football with me. Needless to say, it's still in my closet... somewhere.

Every time today that I wish I was someone different or wish that I could change something about me, I think about those penguins flipping around in Antarctica. That's right. I think about penguins when self-conscious thoughts take root. Penguins. The birds that can't fly. The birds that live down in the sub-zero temperatures of the South Pole. The birds that swim. The birds that don't fit into any categories that all of the other birds do. They defy the norm. They are different. And they were made just the way they needed to be to survive.

Penguins don't look like everyone else, or anyone else for that matter. Penguins remind me that we were made just the way we needed to be for what we needed to be made for. The potter wouldn't have molded me any differently than he has, because he knows what I will face. He knows what gifts I will need to bless others and love as well as he allows me. Penguins remind me of that. Maybe they can remind you too.

forever unfinished...

Footsteps in the sand...

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky. In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, other times there was one only.

This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life, when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat, I could see only one set of footprints, so I said to the Lord, "You promised me Lord, that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there has only been one set of footprints in the sand. Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?"

The Lord replied, "The years when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when I carried you."

-Mary Stevenson

forever unfinished...