Heart Hope by Olga

Has anyone ever said that your faith is just a crutch? I have and I was very offended by it, until I really stopped to think about it. A crutch is something that you need, something you depend on, something that helps you along the way. So why in the world would I be offended by needing something like that? Perhaps it's because it was meant to be a derogatory statement toward me. It was meant to say that I needed something to lean on because I was weak or frail or dependent. A crutch is meant to support, to assist temporarily, so maybe it is not the best term to describe what my faith is to me. Perhaps a lifeline would be a better description. A rope for saving lives, yes that' what my faith is. It saves me from death, and it saves me for life. Without it I wouldn't be able to get out of bed. So the next time someone says my faith is just a crutch, I'll correct them, not by saying its not only a crutch, but by letting them know it is so much more. ...

My friend Janet shared the following story with me and I thought it might bring encouragement to you all to see her faith in action. Janet wrote: I’ve never told you before probably because of embarrassment, but my mom gets food stamps each month.   At first I was ashamed to use the card they gave her; I felt less than having to use them but I got over it knowing that I have to feed my mom according to her special diet. It is a way that God has provided for us during this difficult time. Last week I had to interview again for my mom so she could continue getting the money for food. In the past she has always had the money placed on the card on the first day of the month. I assumed it would stay the same after the interview, so on Saturday I called to make sure that the money was there before I went to the store. She used to get $89.00 a month so that is what we were anticipating however when I called the recording said she got $1.00 for the month. I couldn'...

I have no clue as to how an airplane gets into the air and stays there for hundreds of miles, but I do trust the fact that it will happen. Each time I board a jet-liner, I put my faith and trust in something that I do not understand and cannot explain. I know there are laws of aerodynamics that determine speed, size, shape, engine thrust, etc., but since I can hardly fold a paper airplane to keep it airborne for any length of time I would never attempt to describe the way an aircraft flies.  My lack of understanding does not prevent me from getting on the plane, buckling my seat belt and relaxing while the plane and pilot work in tandem to get me to my destination. If I can have faith in an inanimate object and a frail human pilot, why should I have trouble putting my faith in the Creator of the Universe? He has given us evidence of Himself in the world that He designed. It all points to Him, so why do we choose to ignore those signs and try to do things our own way? Faith is...

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...

My five year old grandson, Will, is very inquisitive, with dinosaurs being his main interest. He wants to read all about them and has millions of questions about what they looked like, where they lived, what they ate, what happened to them, etc. so it should have been no surprise when he began questioning his mother about what the Bible says about them. That’s when I received the phone call to find out why the Bible does not mention them. I fumbled through some answers, but then the thought came to mind, why not search the internet to see what I could find. As I googled “Dinosaurs in the Bible,” I found that there were actually many articles on the subject. All of the ones that I read pointed out that the term dinosaur wasn’t coined until the 19th century, so that particular name would not have been in early translations. Most of them also pointed out a passage in Job that could have been a description of a dinosaur. Interestingly enough as I read through the material, I came upon some...