Suzanne Schaffer

What I learned by cruising to Alaska

I get seasick.
Curled in a fetal position seasick.  
Boat rocking back and forth. 
Watching the hangers in the closet sway.
Watching the swimming pool become a wave pool.
Hyperventilating seasick. 
Crying seasick. 
Throwing up seasick.

Being told "Eat green apple...." repeatedly.
Wanting to scream, "YOU eat green apple."
I don't like them on a normal day. 

I can nap on a chair in plain sight of myriads of people going up and down in the glass elevators when I'm seasick and under the influence of strong meds. 

Pretty sure I'm in some picture on Instagram somewhere.

There are thousands of people on a boat and they all eat at the same buffet.
I've long had buffetphobia.
Thousands of people using the same serving tongs. 
Where they put the food on their plate and then pick up a piece and eat it and then lick their finger and then move to the next set of serving tongs.

Nope.

I found a bucket of serving spoons, took one and dug out the f…

"In this world you will have trouble," Jesus said in John 16:33

He wasn't kidding.

Much of that trouble we bring on ourselves. We get our opinions tossed in the blender with those of people around us. Mixed up, they get confused and tossed back at us in a way we never intended. We allow ourselves to give into temptation and find our lives unraveling as we justify our actions.

Want to know a secret?

We need to learn to say no to temptation.


"No temptationhas overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted,he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it."
 -1 Corinthians 10:13

The Bible is very clear that we will be tempted and that we can overcome it because God will always provide us with an escape from temptation.

Temptation leads to sin and sin separates us from God. God does not want us to be separated from Him so He offers help.

Sometimes that help is obvi…

A good friend posted an update online and I was able to read between the lines. I sent a quick text to check on her and she replied, "It's not my story to tell..."

Using wisdom, she asked for prayer without giving any details. At all. And that's okay. In fact, it's more than okay. It's a sign of maturity.

It reminded me of a situation I found myself in a few years ago. We had a guest speaker at church who invited everyone to the front for special prayer after he spoke. We lined up, waiting our turn. Some were singing, some were quietly praying, some were worshiping, some were...gossiping? At first I couldn't believe what was happening right next to me. We were at the altar, waiting to receive a blessing or healing from God, and they were gossiping about someone who wasn't there that day.

I didn't want to correct them. I tried to reason myself out of it. I asked God to have someone else do it. But He wouldn't let me go. 

I hate confrontation. Hate.…

I've been avoiding this topic for six months, since my daughter married and moved out. Leaving us with the new normal known as the empty nest. 

The first few weeks were the most difficult and I found myself roaming the house, tears streaming my face. I wailed and screamed one day. I would've torn my clothes if I'd known how (let's be honest, I also didn't want to ruin a perfectly good tee). I found myself in the middle of a grief I wasn't expecting. 

The night sounds were gone. The Bachelor wasn't on my TV screen anymore. Taylor Swift's voice echoing through the house was gone. The fragrance of her perfume evaporated. 

"What's for dinner, mom?"
"Want to go to TJ Maxx?"

The choreography of living together for nearly twenty-one years stretched thin like an old rubber band and now there's silence in this home as she's off learning the dance of life with someone else.

It was hard when our son left for school and then started a life…

Sometime in between scouting for items to sell on Ebay at yard sales and then switching to auctions I found myself in a local store that was unlike anything I had seen before. 

This story is for posterity, giggles, and a little shock value, nothing more. 

It's a memory of a strange encounter that seemed the norm for the town I live in. 

We'd gone to lunch on what we've dubbed Date Day and were at a restaurant directly across the street from what I could only call a junk shop. After eating I begged my husband to check it out with me, "just for fun," because I'm always up for an odd adventure. 

The store was called Darlene's Kids Shop but I grew to call it Darlene's House of Horrors....

People would take their used items to the shop to sell or trade for items in the store. She'd been in business for over twenty-five years and had so much stuff that she no longer knew what was in there.

Imagine rows and aisles stuffed so full that the store vomited some of…

Saying Have a nice day to someone sounds friendly, but saying have a nice next twenty-four hours sounds threatening.

We really need to be careful with what we say. 

Especially if you are sharing a word from the Lord.

Tammy (not her real name) was with someone she respected and received a word from the Lord. Months later she was talking to me about the encounter at a Bible study I was leading.

"She's a very Godly woman and she knows things," Tammy said. "She told me  God said something bad was going to happen to me, something so horrible that she wouldn't even tell me what it was, but it was going to happen and it was going to be in my house."

Tammy was obviously shaken, and with good reason. 

Taken back, I interrupted, "Let's stop for a minute and talk about this because I don't think this was from God."

"But she's a Godly woman, she tells people things all the time. I've been so scared, every day, wondering if this was going to be t…