Heart Hope by Olga

The red and white candy cane stripes on all of the metal poles along the bike path in strategic places are meant to indicate danger, however I have discovered that there are many dangers much more hazardous than the immovable guardrails. You see, it's summer in the mountains and the crazy visitors are beginning to congregate in my quiet little town. Yes, the vacationers are the real hazards along the path. The locals seem to know the rules, but the tourists seem to have forgotten their brains when they packed for their vacation. A few of the dangers encountered today include: Teenagers walking five across covering the entire path, almost daring you to make them move The man letting his dogs sit in the middle of the path stretching the leash as tight as a bungee cord in front of people passing by  The child crisscrossing along the path on her scooter, so others don't know whether to pass on the left or right The hazards abound on my bike path as we...

Is it better to be the best player on the worst team or the worst player on the best team? If you're in the best player scenario, you will get to play more, you will get recognition and awards and you'll have your teammates looking up to you. The downside is that even though you are good, you will still be losing all of the time. If the worst player situation, you don't get much playing time, you don't get much recognition and not many people will even care if you show up for the game, but you will have bragging rights because you are on the championship team. So which is better...I'm still not sure. But one thing I do know, in the game of life I would always prefer to be on God's team, because His is the winning team. On His team there is always playing time, because He has the game plan that utilizes each person according to their strengths and abilities. Each player is important and special in His plan and is missed if not part of the game. ...

  Oxygen...we must have it to survive. Our bodies were made to breathe in air and extract the oxygen, then release the other parts back into the atmosphere. That's the way a normal body should work, but my friend Molly's doesn't process that way and therefore needs to have straight oxygen shooting into her nose to keep her body oxygenated. On our recent trip all was going great until Paula noticed her mother's coloring looked a bit pale. The next sign that things might not be right was when Molly declared that she wasn't feeling so well. But the final blow came when she put her head back, closed her eyes and began breathing with a gurgle. A quick check of the oxygen tank revealed that it had not been turned on that morning and Molly had almost passed out from lack of it. What could have turned out to be a disastrous situation was quickly rectified by just a few deep breaths of the pure oxygen. Our spiritual lives can resemble this experience. We nee...