Heart Hope by Olga

Getting up at 5:15 on a Saturday morning is not exactly my cup of tea. Since I get up early on six days out of the week Saturday is the day that I prefer to sleep late. However I had to work at the Exterra Games as part of my volunteer commitment for the Avon Rec Center which required a 6 AM arrival time. My job was to mark the bodies of the athletes with their numbers and age category using indelible ink. In some ways I felt like a nurse. I had on the plastic gloves, so that the paint would not stain my hands and as people would walk up to me they would have to expose their arms. Some proudly flexed their muscles…some men would strip off their shirts in preparations…others slathered on the sunscreen making it difficult to get the ink to adhere. I didn’t know there were so many different sizes and shapes of arms. Long ones, short ones, hairy ones, shaved ones, freckled ones, scarred ones, muscular ones and flabby ones. Although the numbers we were meant to be permanent,...

Most people have heard of Lucy and Ethel, Lavern and Shirley and Cagney and Lacey all famous television duos. You can hardly think of one name without the other. But have you heard of another famous twosome, Lois and Eunice? No they are not TV stars…in fact there is only one time that I can recall that they are mentioned together.  Lois and Eunice are a mother and daughter team written about in 2 Timothy. They are Timothy’s mother and grandmother and are noteworthy because they are praised for being instrumental in instilling faith into the young church leader. The letter describes their faith as sincere, being passed down from the grandmother to the daughter and then to the child. This is the kind of pairing I want to symbolize. Today, new life came into our family, so may it be said that Will, Molly and Griffin have sincere faith which first lived in their grandmother Olga, and in their mother Margaret. Welcome Griffin Hunt Murphy Born July 25, 2012 at 2:20 PM 6 lbs. 15 oz 1...

While living in Boulder, I would gaze at the magnificent, majestic Flatirons in awe of their beauty. When hiking them or simply passing them in a car the marvel would fill me with great joy and peace. I would question people who had lived there for a while to see if they ever lost the sense of wonder when looking at them. Some said they hardly noticed them anymore while others said that they would occasionally fix their eyes on them to view their beauty. I vowed that I would not become complacent or unaware of their splendor. The incredible beauty of the mountains even caused one creative soul to paint a picture that looks like they were constructed by man instead of being designed by God. It almost fooled me, but man can’t even come close to creating what God can. Sometimes as Christians we lose the wonder and excitement of God and His Word. We become so used to it that we hardly stop and give Him much attention at all. We read our Bibles, but many of the passages are ...

Hope in Tragedy When tragedy happens like Columbine, or 9/11 or the Batman movie theater shootings, the first question in our minds is probably why—why did this happen. And then the question quickly turns to who…who was hurt or killed and who could do such a thing? We begin to lash out at the person or persons who have caused pain, hurt, heartache and loss. We cry out for them to be punished, imprisoned or maybe even executed for what they have done.  When the random acts happen to people that you do not know, you may have one response but when you know someone who has either been affected by the criminal act or is the person who has committed the heinous crime, your response my be entirely different. I have experienced this very thing. The news has been filled with the senseless murders in Colorado, but another crime happened last year that has had people calling for the death penalty. In a little publicized event a young man that I know stabbed a 10 year old girl in the a...

Have you ever tried to drive your car down the road by looking in the rear-view mirror? If so, you probably didn’t get too far very fast. You would most likely never try to go 30, 45, or 60 miles an hour while using only the rear-view mirror to guide your way. It would be ridiculous and dangerous to you and to those around you. This is however the way some people seem to navigate through life. They are always looking back at what happened in their past, but fail to look ahead to see that the best is in front of them, not in the past. It doesn’t matter if you have had a wonderful past or one filled with pain and suffering, the principle is still the same, we don’t make much progress when we are looking back.  For some, the rear-view mirror is wishing for what is gone in a relationship, others might look back at a mistake made and wish it could be erased and yet another might look back with a “what if” mentality. It really doesn’t matter what you might be looking back at, the re...

At a recent conference, I sat next to a young man who was from the UK. He was in youth ministry at his church and so we began talking about adolescents today, his family and his life growing up. Since I enjoy hearing about other cultures and what is going on in Christianity around the world I began questioning him about the churches in England. He informed me that only 2% of the population in his homeland were actually Christians...only 2%. That seemed like an incredibly low number for a country that at one time was a leader in the world of Christianity. He continued by saying that more people might go to church once in a while, but were not really saved. The conversation reiterated what I had experienced several years ago when I attended a church while visiting London. The beautiful old cathedral was almost empty leading me to wonder how it had been in years past. Was it overflowing and vibrant? What caused the decline in attendance? What could be done to restore faith to th...

Max-Peter, the intern for our sales and marketing department is from the Netherlands. When he arrived last summer he would come to work wearing his coat and tie looking very dapper. In some parts of the country that would be considered the normal attire in an office, but we live and work in a ski resort. His parents are both professionals and taught him to look and act the part of being successful. Max-Peter’s attire has transformed over the months he has been here. The ties were gone almost immediately after his arrival; the jackets were worn less frequently and eventually turned into sweaters and ski jackets. His trips to the Silverthorne Outlet Mall produced new clothes bearing the emblems of American designers such as Ralph Lauren. Upon returning from a recent road trip across the western United States Max-Peter was sporting cowboy boots and red Converse Sneakers. A far cry from what he had worn just 8 months ago.  Max-Peter has conformed to life in this country, trading the...