Heart Hope by Olga

Do you ever stop to think about how your actions affect the people around you? When you perform a random act of kindness it can have a positive effect on the people that you encounter daily. It can be as simple as letting the frazzled mom at the grocery store check out in front of you or paying for the person's coffee behind you at Starbucks. Any way that you can treat another person with kindness can help to show them the love of Christ. But have you ever stopped to think about the flip side of that behavior? How does a negative action affect others? You would probably agree that churches should be the best breeding ground for the ideal behavior, but let me share a couple of examples that show that we might need a little bit of help. One of the young girls at our church confessed that she had accidentally pulled out in front of a car because the parking lot where she works is difficult to see oncoming traffic. As she glanced at the oncoming car she saw the middl...

The beautiful border collie had gathered a crowd of on lookers. He had been bred to herd and his master said that he would herd anything. This particular afternoon it was a huge red ball.  Most dogs chase tennis balls or run and jump to catch a Frisbee, not an exercise ball.  The dog was not afraid of the size, but would happily run 20-30 yards out in the field to await the ball being thrown toward him. And once it arrived he would race toward it, pushing the ball down the field as though it were a sheep going to the pen. Most dogs would have been intimidated by the size of the ball. Many would not have known what to do with a ball that big. But this dog was excited…no ecstatic with his challenge. Most people miss out on the excitement that God wants to provide because they are fearful of the size of the mission He has for them. They would rather sit on the sideline and watch instead of getting in on the fun or they would rather play with a small ball becau...

What in the world was it doing there? A lone cottontail bunny was lounging on the small patch of grass outside the Courtyard Marriott just steps away from bustling Colorado Boulevard in Denver's retail mecca. When I first caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye, I thought it was a lawn ornament because it was so still. However taking a closer look I saw the bunny blink and then raise up from the outstretched pose to a more typical crouch. Why was it there? How could it survive with cars racing by? Was it lost? What would happen to it? were the questions flooding my mind about the little bunny. It seemed out of place, however when we arrived home after dinner it was still there, having moved to a different spot on the lawn. And then in the morning when it was still around I realized that maybe that was its home. Maybe it had found a safe, secure place to stay out of harms way even though danger lurked just feet away. Perhaps he was the hotel mascot and the em...

"Cleanliness is next to godliness" is one of those phrases that many people think is from the Bible, but in reality although it does have a similar theme as the Bible, it was probably penned by John Wesley in 1791 when he said in one of his sermons, “Slovenliness is no part of religion but cleanliness is indeed next to Godliness.” Most of the time when I ride with my husband when working on an appraisal the homes are beautifully decorated and well maintained since many of them are multimillion dollar properties. Those are fun to see, but the one we went to inspect a couple of weeks ago was an exception. We should have known what we were in for by glancing through the window of the uninhabited condo. And it was definitely reinforced when we found the lockbox on the back deck that was so cluttered with trash that you could hardly reach the door. However I must admit that I couldn't have imagined what we would see inside the abandoned place. The once off white c...