Ohio Bound

Colorado is really, REALLY beautiful and yet it’s not home. 

I was up early yesterday morning, enjoyed my avocado toast &chocolate mint tea, then packed bags & I was ready to go home. 

Good byes to these dear friends and I was thankful we could simply do regular life together for a week. 

While in Colorado I had some heavier hearted blogs so I’ll lighten it up a bit. I discovered a new favorite salad while there. Here’s the recipe I thought I’d share. Anyone who knows me knows I love lemon anything and everything!! Of course I will make this Lemony White Bean & Arugula Salad with organic food if possible. Plus we exchanged the cannelloni beans for great northern white beans and it was just as yummy!! 

My flight was easy and John picked me up in Cincinnati. We had a busy evening. 

Visited his friend, Todd, whose wife recently died very suddenly. He has a Tibetan monk as a guest this week who is a friend of his that he wanted us to meet. Evidently this monk personally knows the Dalai Lama and we got to chat with him for about 30 minutes. It was fascinating to be able to share that John and I were close to his area in 2014 when we visited China but I was also very aware that we as humans tend to easily venerate other men to a point of idolatry even when having an appearance of innocent intention. I was pleased to have met him yet I wondered how Jesus would have responded to one man calling another man, His Holiness?  To whom is this man praying? I don’t know and we didn’t go there to question him, yet in my mind I did ponder these things as this monk shared about how he personally has something like 3000+ online students and they had a 3 hour class on the mantra of 6 sounds when meditating. It was truly interesting to hear him speak and made me ponder its truth when compared to the Bible’s teachings on God’s Commandments. Yet he teaches on wisdom and compassion too. I saw first hand the syncretism that I’ve been studying about in the book I’ve been reading, By This Name.  

After that short introduction we were off. We then had to meet up with a group of hockey players in Dayton to send off an acquaintance of John’s whose being stationed in England next week. 

I was thankful to have had so many social gatherings but honestly it was sweet to finally get home and see that John picked me a vase of my last zinnia before the frost!

I drew a hot bath, soaked in my new favorite Epsom salts with Peppermint Rosemary scent and realized how destroyed the skin on my feet are from chemo!!! This is after an hour long soak and a pumice scrub!! Thankfully it’s not painful despite the severe cracking. 

I’m about to start my busy  day before we pack up to go camping this weekend. 

I’m very appreciative today for the extraordinary beauty around me this Fall, a loving faithful husband to come home to, family and friends who support me, but mostly I’m indebted to my Savior, Jesus, who gave everything to know me and reveal Himself to us all so I could know Him and be comforted in my current situation. I believe that only in Him do I have peace with the one and only holiness named YHWH, my God.