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 -Update
Since posting their comment down below, Val & Herb Ruiss from Brantford, 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...
December 12, 2025 - Update
Yesterday, Marcel and I were meeting with Fr. Paul Shepherd who is pastor of St. Patrick Church in Fallowfield. While sitting down, waiting for my turn to meet with him, I began browsing through some books piled up on a little table beside my chair. I lifted up a few books (one of which had an image of Noah's ark on the cover with 2 giraffes), and I saw this little booklet for children. I had to take a picture!
There it was! A giraffe with its special blue tongue featured on the cover! The Lord is being very insistent about this word which was given to us almost 2 months ago. He is not letting up! He wants us to persevere in sticking our necks out and stepping out in faith.
December 7, 2025 - Update
Last week I was online looking for a house - since we have yet to move into our own home - and in this picture of the basement, something caught my eye. I noticed a little statuette of a giraffe on the window sill!
A few days ago, we got a call from Fr. Pierre Champoux of St. Monica's parish here in Ottawa after he had read this post, and he told us about his own giraffe! In his subsequent email to us he wrote "I’ve had a giraffe in my house for over 10 years. In one of my visits to a framing store, I couldn’t resist buying this Noah’s Ark painting by Warren Kimble."
We see how the giraffes are prominent and conspicuous in their surroundings. They stand "head and shoulders" above all the other animals as mentioned in one of the comments below.
December 21, 2025 -Update
Victoria Nigro of Ottawa, contacted me a few day ago to tell me about her own giraffe: "After reading your giraffe posts, an image of a giraffe came to me too. I don't know if my imagination was influenced by what I read or if it came from the Lord. And years ago a woman at my church went to Botswana. Before she left, I jokingly said to her, "Bring back a giraffe!" -- an odd choice for me because cheetahs and sand cats are my favourite African animals. And guess what happened? She brought me back a little wooden statue of a giraffe! I treasure it even more now that I've read your posts. In June I adopted two cats and one of them broke the snout but it's still a sweet little treasure of mine."
Victoria added this about the vision that she had gotten: "The giraffe image that came to me was rather unusual: I was looking down on it from rather high up and it was sitting down with its legs tucked around it. It was in a box, looking up at me. It looked like a cartoon drawing and was cute. It was female with a sweet expression. In the box were other wild animals, but I don't know what they were, as I only focused on the giraffe. After reading your post I had watched a YouTube video about Noah's Ark, so I could have been influenced by that. Again, I don't know if this was my imagination or if it came from the Lord."
We believe the image is from the Lord. What do you think? And what is the meaning of the image?
January 3, 2026 - Update
The Sunday before Christmas, Marcel and I decided that having pizza for supper would be a great idea!
When Marcel went to Gabriel's to pick up the pizza, his eye was drawn to the chalkboard by the counter. He took a picture of what he'd seen!
We both wondered what giraffes, pizza and Christmas have in common! As one friend commented, "What! Are they now starting to add giraffes to the Nativity Scene?"
January 11, 2026 - Yet another update
Joyce Jean from Pickering is also seeing giraffes! Joyce has travelled a few times all the way from Pickering to attend our Gather evenings and it is clear that the Lord is speaking to her as well about this very intriguing word. She sent the following a few days ago;
"Could not resist sending you this photo. Christmas Day gathering of our family, with even a couple of the many dogs amongst us, Linda’s dream and ongoing discernment about the Giraffe came to mind immediately as Molly, a large black lab entered with her new favourite toy! My family thought I was a little strange taking the photo.
For me, it was a small, maybe silly, sign connecting to the message.
Let us all continue in faith to stretch our necks out in 2026."
Today, Marcel stumbled upon the word "giraffe" while on Facebook. He writes;
I am very rarely on Facebook, but every so often I receive notifications about posts by "FB-friends”. Occasionally I’ll click on the link and have a quick look at what’s happening on FB these days. This morning I did so, and as I was scrolling down the page a video started playing. It was of no particular interest to me (a chap showing off his new vacuum cleaner), but for some reason I let it play a few seconds. As he was displaying the box his unit arrived in, the following caught my eye! Incredible!
Evidently, the Lord really wants us to steward this prophetic image/word. Linda and I continue to believe that great things are in store for those who “stick their necks out” in faith!