Heart Hope by Olga

A cool walk along the river makes the afternoon at work much easier to endure. It refreshes the body mind and soul. It usually is pretty standard with a couple of walkers, maybe a biker and an occasional fisherman, but today I found evidence. Now evidence can be ordinary like the golden leaves as evidence of the fast approaching winter or as exciting as the sound of the mountain lion in the night informing us of the visitor outside our window. However the evidence that I observed on the ground beneath the bench seemed out of place. White with red tipped rose petals were scattered about on the bank of the river. I announced to the passing walker, “It looks like evidence to me, evidence of a proposal.” She responded by saying, “You’re right it does look like evidence.” Every court of law requires evidence to prove a case. It is weighed, discussed, and determined correct or not. That's what ultimately determines the outcome of the case. As Christians our lives too m...

Have you ever been on an Indian hunt with a 6 year old, a 5 year old and an almost 4 year old? Well it has become one of the highlights of my summer over the last couple of years. It all started last summer when my grandson Will and my next door neighbor Jackson wanted to climb on the berm that encircles my neighborhood. We created an adventure by hiking up the steep incline by grabbing onto weeds and wedging our feet on rocks to make it to the top. Once we arrived at the summit we began spying for Indians since the boys had been told that there were lots of Indians in Colorado.  This year little Molly wanted to join in the fun and the activity was expanded because we began looking for real clues of who had been there before us. On our adventure we saw evidence of cool things like: Snail shells Tree stumps Deer poop Half eaten flowers Dynamite ( it was really just sprinkler heads) Bear claw marks on trees Flattened grassy areas that had been a resting spot for deer, foxes...

Yesterday I had four children between the ages of 5 and 2 eating popcorn on my back porch. You can only imagine the mess that was made by children grabbing the kernels and stuffing them in their mouths as fast as possible. When all of the bowls were empty, I swept the wooden deck and my grandson, Will and I discussed what might happen to the popcorn during the night. He thought perhaps a bear or raccoon, or maybe even a fox might eat it. I thought the sprinkler would come on and soak it into the grass. This morning Will woke up early and eagerly went to check on the popcorn kernels. There was not a one to be found, so we became detectives, looking for clues to solve our mystery. Since we found no evidence on the lower deck, we decided that we needed a better vantage point and would go to the upstairs deck to see if we could find any signs by looking down on the scene. Will thought he saw a bear track that could have been a hint, but it turned out to be an Aspen tree root. While looking...