Finding Faith, Beating Fear

Hi Friends,

As we are in "shelter in place" now in our county and the world seems to have erupted with fear and anxiety over the Covid-19 virus, I was reminded of this little story from when my daughter, Bria, was trampled by her horse. As you choose today between faith and fear, I hope this story will help you to be the person you hope to be in the crisis that is unfolding around us.

Faith or Fear?

by 

Marlo Schalesky

            The door burst open. Bethany rushed through, her thirteen-year-old sister screaming in her arms.

            I leapt from the couch. “What happened?”
            “Comet trampled her.” 

            Bria loved her new horse. She spent hours with him, and nothing like this had ever happened before.

            Bethany hurried to the couch and laid a writhing Bria on it. I knelt beside her. “Where does it hurt?”

            Tears streamed down her face as she pointed to her pelvis and upper thighs. “My lower back too,” she gasped.

            Ever so carefully we pulled off her jeans and examined the deep, already-forming bruises. 

            “Can you move your toes?”

            She did. “He, he got scared.” She spoke between sobs. “Didn’t know what he was doing. Ran right over me.”

            I frowned. “Do you think anything’s broken?”

            She gulped. “I don’t know. Ahhhhh!” A yowl burst from her lips as my fingers barely brushed the bruises. “It hurts. It hurts really bad.” She choked on a sob as I rose and turned to a terrified Bethany. 

            “I’m going to bring the car to the front door. Can you get her in the back seat?”

            Bethany bit her lip and nodded.

            I ran for the car and drove it as close to the door as I could. Bethany scooped up Bria and laid her in the back seat. 

            Then we sped to the emergency room of our local hospital. Bethany lifted Bria and raced her inside. I parked and hurried after them.

            By the time I entered, Bria was already sitting at the nurse’s station, describing in gasps what had happened.

            “I was leading my horse up the hill to the round pen like I always do. Everything was normal. But then something happened. Something rustled in the bushes. I don’t know. He got scared. I tried to calm him, but he wouldn’t listen. He pulled away. Then pushed me down. Trampled me as he ran off into the poison oak.”

            The nurse then typed in notes about her injuries and called for a bed. Moments later, Bria was rolled inside, given painkillers, and scheduled for numerous tests and scans that would happen in the following hours.

            Late that night a doctor entered Bria’s hospital room and smiled. Then he shook his head. “I don’t know how, but she’s going to be okay. There are no broken bones or internal injuries.” He glanced at Bria. “It’s going to hurt like crazy for several days, and I suggest you use crutches, but I don’t anticipate any problems with you healing right up.”

            After a collective sigh of relief, Bria was fitted for crutches, and we headed home. Halfway there, I glanced over at Bria. “What are we going to do about Comet?”

            She sighed. “He just needs to learn to not lose his head when he’s scared. He just needs to learn to trust me.”

            Profound words from a thirteen-year-old girl who just had the scariest experience of her life.  In all her pain, all her fear, she had kept her head. I had too (you have to when your kid gets hurt!). Comet had not. In his fear, he had hurt the person who loves him most in all the world. He had run right over her. 

            In Isaiah 41:10 (NIV), God tells us, “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” 

            Unlike Comet, we need to trust the One who leads us to where we need to be. When there’s something rustling in the bushes, when we see something flapping out of the corner of our eye, we have a choice. Faith or fear? Do we stay calm and keep following the One who is taking us up the hill to the place where we can grow stronger? Or do we let fear dominate our actions so that we turn on the ones who love us and hurt them?

            Fear hurts, not only the one who’s afraid, but also everyone around them. It tramples, it bruises, then it runs off into places filled with poison.

            But we don’t have to fear. In the months since the accident, Comet has learned how to trust, how to have faith, despite his fears. We can too. 

            Even in the face of triggers, of things that have scared us or gone wrong in the past, God is asking us to trust the One leading us to higher ground.

Feeling Choked by Life's Worries? Here's Help!

Hi Friends,


It's poison oak season again here at Wonder Wood Ranch, and it's been a very busy season too ... and so I reminded of this story that I wrote a few years ago . . .

The Choked Oak

by 

Marlo Schalesky

It was tall.  It was green.  It was bushy.  But something wasn’t right.  

I crossed my arms and looked up at the fat, green oak tree.  Beside me, my husband sighed.  I shook my head.  “I don’t want to do it.  Do you want to do it?”

“I don’t want to do it.”

I stepped back.  “Someone’s got to do it.”

“It’s an ugly job.”

“That thing will be right outside the window once we build the cabin.  We can’t have it looking like that.”

“I know.  But still . . . ”  Bryan crossed his arms over his chest.

I put my hand on my hips.

            For a moment, we both stared at the oak and didn’t say a word.  Shiny green and red leaves poked from all parts of the tree.  But they weren’t oak leaves.  Thick vines twisted around the trunk and branches.  Those didn’t belong to the oak either. 

            I shivered.

            The green wasn’t the green of a healthy oak.  Instead it was a sign of poison.  A huge batch of poison oak had grown up into the tree and twined around every branch.  The tree was thick with it.  Lush and green, but with nasty poison.

            Bryan tugged on his sleeves.  “Okay, I’ll do it then.  But get the bleach ready for the laundry.”

            Four hours later, the laundry was in, Bryan was taking a cool shower, and the tree was clear.  I tromped up the hill and looked at it.  It wasn’t lush anymore.  And it wasn’t green.  Scraggly branches with a few sad leaves spread from the trunk and reached toward the sky.  

            “Ugh, it looks awful,” I murmured.  

            As I looked at the now-bare soil beneath it, I noticed there were no acorns scattered on the ground, and no little baby oaks growing around it. 

            Then it struck me.  That big, strong oak was stifled by that little vine.  The oak was bigger, taller, thicker, and more established.  And yet, that small, thin, poisonous weed had nearly choked the life from it.  

            As I stood and gazed at the tree, I was reminded of Jesus’ parable from Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8.  In that story, seed fell on four different types of soil.  In the third, the seed sprouted among thorns and the life was choked out the plants, just as the poison oak had choked the oak tree.  Jesus likened the thorns to the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth, and desires for other things.

            If something as small as poison oak could choke the life from a big, strong oak, how much more vulnerable was I to worry and wrong desires?  After all, there are so many things in life to worry about – finances, schooling, job concerns, health, family crises.  It’s easy to allow those to twine around my mind and shove poisonous leaves through my branches until there are acorns of God’s word dropping into my daily life.  No little oaks springing up around me.  I had to ask if I was I producing any kind of crop in God’s Kingdom.  Was it growing stronger through me, or was I just barely getting by?  

            As I asked those questions, I realized that I had some poison oak in my life – worries that kept me from focusing on God, goals I was pursuing that were good but weren’t God’s plan, things that were distracting me from fully living the life God had for me.  And just like we did for the oak tree, I had to cut off the poison oak at its base and peel away all the vines from the branches of my life. 

Over the past few years, we’ve kept the poison oak away from that oak tree, and now the tree is full, healthy, and green with leaves all its own.  In time, it recovered from the stranglehold of the poison oak.  It became the beautiful tree God meant it to be.

And I know that if I, too, keep the thorns away, I can be full of the greenness of true life.  I can be all God intends me to be.  I can be a tall, strong oak in the Kingdom of God.

Women of the Bible Speak Out - Concept and Cover Reveal!

Hi Friends,

I wanted to share with you the new cover for my next book, releasing on June 1st. Here it is!

And here's the original concept for the book...

The recent #MeToo movement has given voice to millions of women struggling through experiences of gender-based harassment and/or physical violence. What’s been overlooked in this needed, new conversation is that the problem isn’t new. In fact, the Bible is filled with women who endured undeserved abuse and hardship from men—living in societies that treated them as second-class citizens, where their lives were subject to systematic male domination legally, religiously, socially, in their own families and homes.

What if the women of Scripture could speak out in a #MeToo movement of their own? 

What stories would they would tell? 

What would they reveal about God, and faith, and life? 

How did an oppressed and/or victimized woman encounter God in biblical times? How did these women keep faith when they’re bodies were considered “spoils of war” or the properties of their husbands? When they were socially outcast simply for being infertile, or being unwed? How did these women approach God? How did God meet those girls, communicate his love and goodness to them? What did they learn about God’s goodness in the midst of harshness? What can women today learn from the lives they led?

Perhaps it’s time we found out.

Wearied by Brokenness? You're Not Alone!

Hi Friends,

I'm preparing to travel too Michigan next week to record the audio version of my upcoming book, Women of the Bible Speak Out. I've never done my own audio for a book before, so this will be quite an experience!

So, as I prepare, I thought I'd share a bit that I cut from the first chapter of the new book (the chapter that looks at Eve). This includes some of the women that are covered in the various chapters of Women of the Bible Speak Out.

So, now for a bit of a preview, and a bit of hope for anyone weary of living in a broken world ... God is with you. Don't give up!

SECTION CUT:

God tells us that sin is not the end of the story. He tells us he has been working to redeem every tear, every injustice, every hurt that results from sin. We know because Eve isn’t the end of the story either. Many women come after her.

            --Sarai, who was betrayed by her husband not once but twice, and put in sexually compromising positions. She was co-holder of the covenant of redemption between God and mankind, that all nations would be blessed through her offspring.

            --Hagar, given like property to a foreign man to bear a son who was not intended to be her own. She became the mother of great nations.

            --Lot’s daughters who were offered up for the worst kind of abuse. Yet God saw them and saved them.

            --Tamar, who was cast aside when her husband died and offered no justice. She made her own justice and was blessed.

            --Hannah, who was devalued for her infertility and driven to despair. She became the mother of Samuel who would speak for God to kings and the nation of Israel.

            --Abigail, whose husband’s foolishness nearly resulted in her death. But God gave her wisdom and a future.

            --Bathesheba, who lost both a husband and a son to the arrogance of one man, who was chosen for the line of Christ himself.

            --Esther, who was dominated by a foreign rule and a foreign king, who rose to save her people.

            --Mary, who was oppressed not by man but by another woman, and was defended by Jesus himself.

            --A Samaritan woman who was so ashamed of her #MeToo past that she went to the well in the heat of the day, and encountered a savior who set her free.

            --A sinful woman, scorned by the male leaders of her people, praised by Christ with a promise of remembrance.

            --A woman caught in adultery, dragged before courts, threatened with stoning while her partner got off scot-free. Forgiven and given a new start.

            --Women at the tomb of Jesus, doubted and disbelieved, the first witnesses to the most wondrous event of all time. The first witnesses to the resurrection that redeemed us all. 

            And the list goes on. These women lived in the broken world created by Adam and Eve, and yet discovered a God of redemption and hope. They did not give up. They did not give in to hate or despair. And they stand as witnesses to us all that we need not be beaten. God stands with us. He will always stand with us.

Living in the Messy Parts of Life

Hi Friends,

Here's what I'm thinking about lately as the Ranch here turns into a muddy mess . . .

Winter Wonderland?

by 

Marlo Schalesky

In winter, we don’t get snow. We get rain. A lot of it. It falls from the sky in tiny sprinkles, in waving sheets, in giant bucket-dumping sloshes until driveways glisten and puddles form enticing pools for kids to jump in with their new canvas tennis shoes. It rains until potholes become craters and horse pens become mud baths. 

Until there’s nothing but mud and muck and mess.

I’m a much bigger fan of spring. At least, I used to be.

After all, the winter slog is the same every year. I slip on oversized rubber boots, tramp through swamp-like terrain to clean horse stalls, scoop out puddle-filled pig pens, and scrap gunk off equines who have all become the same dark brown color of soggy dirt. Palominos, greys, whites, chestnuts, and duns … all the color of wet earth. Then I trudge back home. I wipe doggie feet. I wash shoes. I clean too many floors. I do it all over again the next day. 

And I thank God for the rain because I live in California where there have been too many years of drought.

But mud is no fun. Muck can be discouraging. And nobody likes a mess.

We like life to be tidy. We like it to go according to plan, our ducks in a row, our horses all their natural colors. Just as it should be.

We like the spring. Winter is too messy.

Yet, as I pull on the big rubber boots one more time, grab a shovel, and head to the barn, I notice something. The patches of clover that died in the fall have started to come to life again. A few bright yellow flowers dot a landscape that had turned to dust. And the little sprigs I planted months ago, the ones that refused to grow in the autumn heat, have perked up their heads and have just begun to look more like plants than dried weeds. 

Maybe the mess and muck and mud aren’t so bad after all. Maybe it’s precisely in the mess that new life can take root … on the path to the barn and in life.

 After all, it was through the mud of the parted Red Sea that God led his people out of slavery and to a new life of freedom (Exodus 14). It was in the muck of a stable that the Savior and Messiah was born and God became human is the mess of childbirth (Luke 2). And it was through the mire and horror of beatings and a bloody death on a Roman cross that redemption and reconciliation were won for us all. 

Perhaps God does his best work in the mud and messes of life.

And so, maybe, it is time to be a fan of winter. Because winter reminds us that it is often in the yuck of life that God works most powerfully to bring new life, new hope, and amazing redemption. It’s in the messy places that we find new ways to bloom through his grace. Those places in life where rain has come instead of snow and it’s made a mess of things, those times when we have to put on the big boots and muddle through as best we can, those areas of life that aren’t neat and tidy as we hoped and planned … those are the very places in which God is most deeply at work to bring new growth and new life.  It’s in the messiest parts of life that we most fully encounter God’s wonder.

So as I’m slogging through the mud of winter, wiping away grimy paw prints yet again, scrubbing shoes that were once clean, and dreaming of the picture-perfect scenes of spring, I remind myself that it’s here, in the mess, that I encounter the beauty of an active and loving God. It’s here that I find him with sleeves rolled up, working to bring me out of slavery, to come into my world and give me good news of great joy, and to redeem all the mud and muck for his glory. 

It is here that I encounter God’s winter wonderland. And today, I am glad that it’s winter.

Hitting the Mark in 2020

Hi Friends,

As I'm thinking about this new year, I'm reminded that archery is a lot like life, and the practices of hitting the mark with an arrow help with hitting the mark in life. Read on to see if you agree . . .

Loosen Your Grip

            Her grip tightened on the bow. She drew back the string. The arrow wobbled. Her knuckles whitened. 

            “Bethany, wait.”

            She didn’t wait. The arrow flew from the string, missed the target, and skittered off into the grass. 

            She strung another arrow.

            “Wait!”

            “What?”

            I strode over to her. “You’re never going to hit the target like that. First, you have to anchor the string.” I showed her how to place her thumb at the corner of her mouth so the string would be pulled back and anchored at the same place on her face every time. 

            “That feels weird. I don’t like it.”

            “It doesn’t matter if it’s weird. It’s the only way to aim properly. If you don’t, you’re not looking down the same line every time. You think you’re aiming straight, but you’re not. You can’t go by how you feel.” 

            Bethany anchored the string at the corner of her mouth.

            I nodded. “Good.” 

            “Can I let go?”

            “Not yet. Loosen your grip.” I touched her left hand that held the bow. “The arrow won’t fly straight if you’ve got a death grip on the bow. Relax, loosen your fingers, let the bow do what it’s made for.”

            She glanced at me askance, string still anchored, brows furrowed. Her fingers stayed tight around the bow.

            “You can do it.” I caught her glance, understanding that desire to grab on as tight as possible in a vain effort to force the arrow straight. Instinct screamed, “Hold tight!” but wisdom whispered to loosen her grip.

            Slowly, slowly, her knuckles turned from white to pink. Her fingers relaxed.

            I smiled. “Now you’re ready. Let go.”

            The arrow flew from the bow and thunked into the target. Not a bulls-eye, but a respectable hit all the same.

            “Whoo! This is great!” 

            I chuckled. “Try again.”

            She did.

            “Anchor the string. Loosen your grip.” As I repeated the instructions, I realized they were not only good tips for archery, but for life. 

            If we want our life-arrows to hit the target, we must anchor the string. In Ephesians 6:14 (NIV), Paul says, “Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist...” If we are to aim our lives well, to see the target properly, we must stand firm and be anchored in truth. Culture would have our arrows flying every which way as we believed whatever whim was popular at the moment. Culture tells us to look out for number one, that relationships are meant for our happiness, that we should be the gods of our own lives. When we live our lives that way, our arrows miss the God’s target and go skittering off into sin, discouragement, and emptiness. But anchored in God’s truth, we look down the arrow’s shaft and clearly see where we should aim.

            Next, we must relax our fingers. It’s so easy to hang on tight, white-knuckled, and think that by trying to control life we can master it, we can hit the target. Desperate prayers for a lost love one, desperate clinging to hopes and dreams, desperate desires to have life just the way we imagined it should be, desperate determination that God act the way we want. Tight fists miss the target. We must trust God enough to loosen our grip. Psalm 21:7 says, “For the king trusts in the Lord; through the unfailing love of the Most High he will not be shaken.” And again, Psalm 28:7 says, “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.” When we trust God, our frantic fingers can relax. Only then can our arrows fly straight.

            Lately when I find my life missing the mark and shooting off into the grass, I remind myself to re-anchor my life in the truth. Then I ask God to relax my grip, calm my desperation, help me to trust him more than I trust myself, trust him enough to let go and do what I was made to do.

            When I see terrorist strikes on the news, or encounter children brought up to believe in Christ who no longer believe, or face crazy blood sugar numbers on the meter of my son who has Type 1 Diabetes ... When I lose a job, when sales aren’t what I’d hoped, when children’s grades aren’t what I’d expected, when relationships are strained... that is the time I must whisper to myself, “Relax your hand, take a deep breath, anchor the string.”  

            And then I let go.

What Kind of King is This?

Hi Friends,

As we prepare our hearts for Christmas, I'm thinking of what it might have been like for Mary, Jesus' mother, to encounter Christ the King.

I wonder if she would tell us something like this:

He was born in a barn, wrapped in rags, laid in a feeding trough.  No palace, no crib, no soft silk meant for a king.  The animals were our witnesses.  Lowly shepherds our first visitors.  

            What kind of King is this?

            I held him in my arms. He nestled, and nuzzled. So normal. So real. He let out a cry, his mouth open, searching. I smiled and guided him to eat.  He was strong, this newborn son of mine. Of God’s. This Messiah. 

I rolled the word over in my mind as I gazed down at his pink cheeks, his stock of curly black hair. His eyes were closed, his lashes dark against his skin. 

Messiah. Rescuer. Deliverer. Redeemer. King … Baby.

What kind of King is this?

            He grew up, my Messiah-Son.  And was nothing like I expected.  He didn’t conquer Rome, he didn’t rule the nations, he didn’t raise an army or free Israel . . . at least not in the way I had dreamed.

            Instead, he asked me to face my deepest fear. My darkest doubt. My nightmare.

            A young man came to me in the night. He came disheveled and out of breath. Told me they had arrested my son. Men came—soldiers, crowds, but not only them, the priests came too. The leaders of my people. They came by night to a garden with clubs and torches and swords. And they took him.

            They took him to Gabbatha, the Stone Pavement. The place of judgment.   

            I went too.  I stood there, shaking, in a courtyard with a crowd. The noonday sun beat down on us, illuminating the stones, the people, the priests, Pilate, and my son, my Jesus, wavering on the platform before me. A glance stole my breath, constricted my heart. I barely recognized him. His eye was swollen, his clothes bloody. He looked like a lamb already slaughtered.

            What kind of King is this?

            He did wear a purple robe, but it was to mock him. And on his head ... Oh, ... My soul shattered.  

            On his head was not a crown of gold, but a crown made of the thorns of the akanthos bush. Blood ran down his forehead, his cheeks. 

            Akanthos, a symbol of my people’s shame ...

            Pilate held up his hand. “Behold your king!” he shouted.

            I covered my face, peeked through my fingers.

            “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?”

            For a moment, hope soared through me.

            And was crushed by a single word: “Barabbas!”

            Just days before the crowds welcomed him like David coming into his kingdom. They laid palm branches, they cried hosanna! They sang, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the king of Israel!” They threw down their coats so the colt’s hooves would not even touch the dirt. 

            And I believed he rode in to claim his kingdom at last.

            But what kind of King is this?

            A king isn’t beaten.

            A king isn’t bloody.

            A king doesn’t die a criminal’s death.

            Or does He?

            Pilate spoke again. “What shall I do with this Jesus?” he cried.

            The question drove into me like a soul-piercing sword. It drove through me, became my own. What shall I do with this Jesus? What shall I do with a King destined to die?

            What shall I do with this kind of King?