Heart Hope by Olga

Southern to the core—that’s the way I have always thought of myself. After all, I was born in Jackson Mississippi, the heart of Dixie and was raised with all of the Southern traditions. As a charm school graduate I learned how to walk and talk, put on make up, fix my hair and paint my nails. I frequently use words like “ya’ll” and “fixin” and am proud of it. I love my Southern roots and would not trade my heritage for anything.  After a childhood in Mississippi, most of my adult life was spent in Texas which was a different form of Southern, but still entrenched in the friendliness and down-to-earth ways that had been so engrained in me. Texas taught me new and different things to love such as Friday night lights with its football rivalries and everything being “big” from hair to houses. Texans are the real deal and you’ve got to love them as flamboyant as they might be, because their hearts are huge and overflow with kindness. Even though I have been gone from the South for o...

A great summer morning, good friends and a beautiful mountain to hike—it just doesn’t get any better than this! While walking along the path to Shrine Pass God showed me how our lives often parallel the hike I was on. Since I had not been on this trail before, I started out with excitement and curiosity. Our lives are a lot like this, aren’t they? We begin our journey with great expectation about how wonderful it is going to be—free from hardship and hurts, but we quickly find out that things might not be just as we think they should be along the way. As I walked the path, there was beauty all around, but there were other things that could come in and steal the moment from me. There were gnarly dead trees that had been damaged by the wind, weather or fire and were really no longer good for anything. Some people end up like these stumps and logs. They allow the junk of the world to come in and kill and destroy the very life within and then become hardened and dry, not useful to anyone o...

Have you ever been on a hike with a five year old? If so, you know it can be quite an experience. If there are rocks, they want to kick or throw them. If there are puddles; they want to jump in them. And if there are hills to be climbed, they want to keep on going until they get tired and then they want you to carry them. While hiking today with Will, my 5 year old grandson, we came upon an area that had bees, yellow jackets and biting flies. Now up until this point he had been the brave warrior who could conqueror the mountain, but when he saw the bees, his whole persona changed. He started jumping up and down waving his arms and screaming at the top of his lungs in a high pitched voice. I don’t think it did anything to scare the insects, but it probably did draw more of them to us, because it seemed that more of them encircled us. When he finally calmed down enough to continue through the woods, Will walked right in front of me, in fact he was actually almost glued to the front of my...