The Giraffe
Linda Dion
November 16, 2025
The week before our first "Gather" evening last month, we had occasion to meet with the pastor of St. Maurice parish, Fr. Ben St. Croix. We of course started with prayer and at one point, Fr. Ben asked if either of us were hearing anything from the Lord. I answered that I'd received an image as soon as we had started to pray, but I felt a little reluctant to speak it because it was a little odd, situated as we were, in a priest's office! What I kept seeing was the top portion of a giraffe, silhouetted against a blue sky. It was peacefully munching away on some leaves high up on a tree!
We sort of understood the basic meaning of the symbol but we didn't really know what the Lord was trying to tell us. Since we all felt like this image was from the Lord, I decided to keep pondering the symbolism of it.
Of course, since a giraffe has a long neck, it will often symbolize a person's ability to see higher up and further away, but like the apostles, I still didn't understand the gist of the message.
I enjoy doing word games and later that evening, I decided to have a go at one of the puzzles in my book. I just simply and randomly opened it up and the first thing I saw was an image of a giraffe. I was now very intrigued. This was definitely not mere coincidence!
After our meeting, Marcel and I had some errands to run and one of our stops was IKEA. As we were making our way towards the exit, there were a few shelves already displaying Christmas stuff and all of a sudden I heard Marcel exclaim, "Look Linda, a giraffe! Sure enough, there it was, a stuffed giraffe!
I looked for it online and found it on their website. It's pretty cute! Now was this just coincidence or was the Lord really trying to bring home a point?
The next evening, Marcel and I were watching a CFL football game 😁 and a commercial came on. It is the one where people are on a safari riding in a jeep, and sure enough, there is a giraffe in the background!
It was Chris Keyes who had a hand in our further understanding of this image. He initially thought that the Lord might be advising us not to stick our necks out but then he thought that maybe it was the reverse. Maybe the Lord was actually encouraging us to go ahead and not be afraid of sticking our necks out because it was His will, and because He would have our backs and stand with us.
It all came together for me a few days later. Because of Chris' insight into the play on words the Lord was using, I finally understood what the Lord was saying. He was letting Marcel and I know this:
I want you to stick your neck out and by doing so, you will feed on higher spiritual food (leaves high in the tree) and you will receive greater vision and thereby greater revelation (ability to see above the tree line).
With this greater understanding of the symbol, we finally saw what the Lord was communicating to us, to our worship team and therefore to everyone who reads this post. He was encouraging us to step out in greater faith to declare what He really wants; to be welcomed in our gatherings, to ask great things from Him and to not be afraid of asking seemingly impossible things from Him! He wants to see us move in faith so that He won't have to say of us "But when the Son of man comes, will he find any faith on earth?" (Luke 18:8). The Lord really desires for us to "stick our necks out"!
If we stick our necks out and begin to really believe in "signs and wonders" and to fearlessly declare that God wishes to move - even amongst Catholics! - we will all feed on great and nourishing spiritual food (leaves of the tree) and we will all be given a greater ability to move in all of the revelatory and prophetic gifts (blue sky above the tree line). This is the inheritance that Jesus obtained for us through His life, passion, death and resurrection. He did not leave us orphans but He and the Father sent the Holy Spirit to enable us to fulfill the following scripture down below, which is to be understood in a literal way.
We were not created for the possible, but we were absolutely created for all that is impossible! (Matthew 9:24). We are alive and moving and breathing because God our Father hopes that we will believe for the impossible. So let us simply ask and "believe that we have it already" (Mark 11:24)!
Mark 16: 15-120
And he said to them, 'Go out to the whole world; proclaim the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.
These are the signs that will be associated with believers: in my name they will cast out devils; they will have the gift of tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands and be unharmed should they drink deadly poison; they will lay their hands on the sick, who will recover.'
And so the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven; there at the right hand of God he took his place, while they, going out, preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word by the signs that accompanied it.
P.S. I just wanted to add a few things. The first is that in our limited, fallen state, we don't always understand dreams, visions or words right away and that's okay. It will often take time to do so. The second is that God will use anything and everything to help us interpret his "parables" and "dark sayings" and that the needed understanding won't necessarily come during our time of prayer. I've actually found it to be quite otherwise. He will more often use very mundane things such as events, movies, books, jobs, kids, songs, ads, commercials, conversations and more to help us understand, and this is actually really good for us because it encourages us to pay more attention to His still small voice in the midst of our very mundane tasks of the duty of the moment.
November 18, 2025
Since posting their comment down below, Val & Herb have sent us a picture of their own giraffe that they have discovered tucked away in a drawer. They had found it in a park not too long ago and put it away but this word about "The Giraffe" brought it back to mind. They wrote:
"This is our very own giraffe! I just took her out of the drawer. She will stand tall and help us remember to stick out our necks!!"
The Lord continues to speak and encourage...
