Heart Hope by Olga

1 large onion diced 2 T olive oil 1 t orange zest 1 T mild yellow curry powder 2 lbs carrots, peeled and diced 1 quart vegetable stock Salt Freshly ground black pepper In large saucepan, sauté onions in oil until translucent. Add orange zest, curry powder and carrots. Sauté until carrots are tender. Add stock and puree with an immersion blender. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serves 8-10 www.hearthope.org

Each time I speak before a group, it is my prayer that God be lifted up and I will fade into the background. So last Thursday before speaking I got up early to review the message and prepare my heart and mind for the task, I told the Lord that I wanted Him to be the focus and that didn’t want people to even notice or recognize me. Then off I went to teach a lesson on understanding how God can use each of His children as one of His vessels. After the music had been sung, the musician prayed for our morning and that God would speak through “Inga.” I secretly chuckled to myself because it was not the first time that I had been called a foreign name like that--other times it has been Helga or Greta.  After teaching I laughingly told someone who commented on the slip of her tongue that I had gotten used to it over the years and that I really didn’t care what people called me as long as they call me. On Friday night after my husband and I had gone to the movies to see Tom Hanks in Larr...

You can tell it's the Fourth of July. The tourists have arrived in our resort town. The grocery stores are filled with people and empty of necessities. The bike paths are crowded with group after group of novice riders. People are lost in the round-abouts, unsure of which lane to use. And there is red, white and blue everywhere. It’s my favorite time of year in the Vail Valley.  Freedom in our country came at a great price to many who have gone before us, but we tend to take it for granted. Those who left their homeland in order to come to an unknown place full of danger and hardship often died an early death due to illness or other causes, but they felt it was worth it to have freedom to be able to worship God in the way that they knew was right.  There were also young men who risked their lives during the war for independence and other wars though out the years, so that today you and I can enjoy the luxury of being able to join together on a Sunday morning or a Wednesda...

Do you remember lying in the grass as a child looking up at the clouds trying to discover the different shapes hiding in the white fluffy puffs high in the sky? Perhaps you were able to spot a fish or a heart or maybe a rabbit floating across the expanse of blue. The downy cumulus clouds looking like cotton balls and the wispy cirrus clouds along with the dark thunder clouds are fascinating to watch. They are continually changing, moving and evolving with every sweep of the wind. My focus has changed over the years from looking for shapes in the clouds to looking for a person in the sky. That person is Jesus Christ. We are told in the Bible that one day Jesus will return in the clouds to take His people home. So when I am outside or driving in the car and notice a beautiful setting in the sky, my thoughts long for Jesus to return. It’s a fun exercise to imagine which cloud formation will be the one where He chooses to return.  Will it be in a blanket of clouds covering the sky w...

This morning as I began working, I noticed a problem with my keyboard. Every time I struck a key or hit the space bar there was an annoying shake and rattle beneath my keyboard. It had not been that way on Friday when I left the office, so I moved the keyboard around to see if something had gotten under it, but nothing was there. I checked to see if the feet were in the correct position and locked in place, they were all right.  So back to typing I went thinking it would just go away, however after a few more irritating minutes, I was getting exasperated and began searching for the problem once again. This time I flipped the keyboard over and noticed that one of the 3 tiny little rubber feet was missing. A piece no larger than a quarter of an inch was making my life miserable. The cleaning people must have swept it away when they were dusting my desk, because it was no where to be found.  Why do we let the small things affect us so much? No parking spaces, weather not to our...

It was the last snow of the season. In the high country, the roads were covered with several inches of the fresh white powder we had grown tired of over the long months of winter, but God had a purpose in that snowfall. A young couple had been in a fight, just one of many in recent days. Words had been said that were hurtful and cutting. The woman left the house and when she returned, regretted some of the things that had been said. Her boyfriend was no where to be found and that worried her for some uncanny reason. It nagged at her so much that she was compelled to go next door and ask her neighbor if he would go and look for the missing boyfriend.  The young man agreed, not knowing exactly where to start, but as he slid behind the steering wheel he began to take twists and turns through the desolate mountain roads. As he followed a set of lone tracks in the fresh snow until he realized that the previous driver had turned off the main road onto a hidden trail.  He decided ...

My friend Jayne Withers got me hooked on quinoa, so I am always looking for recipes that include it. This particular one was just simply a way of cleaning out my refrigerator, but it turned into a nutritious, delicious filling salad. You can add any ingredients that you want and in any proportions. Cooked Quinoa Broccoli Slaw Black-eyed Peas Cooked Brussels Sprouts Quartered Bite-sized Snow Peas Roasted Red Peppers, diced Feta Cheese Low Calorie Balsamic Dressing Salt and Pepper www.hearthope.org