Heart Hope by Olga

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

Daddy as a boy Father’s Day—a day to honor, celebrate, and cherish the influence that our dads have had on our lives. Many of you might argue with me when I say that I had the best dad, because you think that yours had to have been the best. We could resort to grammar school tactics by saying… “My dad is stronger than your dad” or “my dad is bigger than your dad” or maybe even “my dad is smarter than your dad,” but the truth is, it really does not matter. Your dad can be the best in your eyes and mine can be the best in my eyes.  The real travesty is when someone knows that they had a terrible dad and can’t even enter into the competition for the Best Dad Award. Maybe their father was never around or maybe he drank too much or maybe he was abusive in some way. The type of hurt that he bestowed is not as important as the fact that he did it. No child should have to suffer at the hands of their own parent.  God gave us dads to teach, to love, to encourage, to discipline,...

The 1971 class of William B. Murrah High School will converge on Jackson, MS on June 24-25 to celebrate 40 years since graduation. It’s hard to imagine that I have not seen most of my classmates for over 40 years, with the exception of a brief visit at the 10 year reunion.  It’s been fun looking at all of the old pictures, annuals, newspapers, stories and other memories that have been shared even though I was only at Murrah for a year and a half. We had a great time and didn’t even realize that the times were difficult in many ways.   We experienced many memories during the first 18 years of our lives in elementary school, jr high as well as high school that kids of today probably could not even comprehend.  We lived through the Vietnam War and Draft Cards that led to Draft Lotteries.  We learned of President John F Kennedy’s assassination together along with Medgar Evers, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. We used typewriters and princess phones, never eve...

Basic Pastry Dough-frozen or homemade 8 oz mozzarella cheese shredded 2 T fresh Basil 4-5 ripe tomatoes sliced in 1/4" slices ½ t salt ¼ t pepper ¼ c olive oil--I use much less, just enough to drizzle over mixture Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line 10” loose bottom tart pan with pastry dough. Cook pastry dough partially. Spread bottom of pastry shell with cheese and sprinkle with basil. Cover with tomato slices, arranging to cover as evenly as possible. Sprinkle salt and pepper over tomato layer and drizzle with olive oil. Bake 30-40 minutes or until slightly brown. Garnish with extra basil. Slice in wedges and serve warm or at room temperature.  You can easily double this by using an 11x16x1" pan an increasing the ingredients accordingly. www.hearthope.org

Do you ever want to just give up? Does life seem too difficult with too many problems, too many hardships, too many obstacles? Jillian Michaels, my personal trainer, says that it is the end of the workout when we are exhausted and want to throw in the towel that is most important. Those last few crunches or the push-ups that you think you cannot complete are the ones that make the biggest difference. Now Jillian is not really my personal trainer, but she is the workout queen of the 30 day shred video that I occasionally use and as she is giving instructions, she will encourage participants not to quit.  At times it would certainly be easier to give up or give in, but then you would not reap the full benefit of the workout. Sometimes I want to stop in the middle with an excuse like—“I’ve done enough for today” or” I’ll double up tomorrow”, but in all reality I know that both are lies. Often times in our everyday lives when things get tough we are tempted to give up, but the sa...