Heart Hope by Olga

Those of you who know me, understand that I am not your typical mountain woman. I prefer to sit on my veranda drinking iced tea and reading, but I am trying to get out and enjoy the beauty and nature of the outdoors more often. Several friends encourage me, push me, teach me and most of all are patient with me when I do venture out into the sporting world. So when my friend Deb asked if I wanted to ride bikes to Vail, I cringed inside thinking I could never do that; she doesn’t know my skill level, after all, I am a flatlander, but I consented to try it. We got off to an early start to beat the heat of the afternoon and enjoyed the cool crisp morning air and the magnificent views of the green mountains and the raging river. As we rode, I thought of all the blessings I would have missed if I had chosen to say no—the views, the workout, the wind in my face, the fellowship with a friend. But the funniest thing I would have missed is seeing my friend, Christy’s face when we ran into her ou...

Our local chapter of Pet Partners, which trains volunteers and their pets to visit hospitals, nursing homes, schools and other facilities, had their annual fund raiser over the weekend. As a volunteer, it was fun to see all of the different dogs and their owners who came to participate in the Doggie Dash, a three mile walk. There were huge ones. There were tiny ones. There were graceful ones. There were unique ones. There were pretty ones and maybe even a few homely ones. There were even dressed up dogs for the event. Each dog had a look and personality of their own. One small cocker spaniel, sporting a vest that said “Adopt Me,” was shy and frightened at the crowd of people and dogs. A black Irish Setter thought is was much more fun to roll in the grass than to walk the trail. But most of the dogs wanted to stop at my station, because they could jump in the river and enjoy the cool water before continuing on the last leg of the dash. As I surveyed the motley group that had assembled,...

After spending the morning in the library doing research for an upcoming talk, it was perfect to be able to take a walk around Nottingham Lake, since there was cloud cover, and temperatures in the mid-80s and I needed some fresh air and relaxation. Kids were playing on the playground, moms were strolling their babies, men were fishing and the lacrosse teams were practicing, which made it a pretty standard day in the park for a June afternoon. Listening to my praise and worship music trying to determine the perfect song to use at the Bible study on Contentment in Our Circumstances, suddenly I spotted something that didn’t look ordinary--in fact it looked a bit scary. A station wagon was parked on the walking path at the top of a steep hill. A man had the back end of the car open which contained a computer, a large metal box and a telephone and he was looking off in the distance toward the bottom of the hill. Now in these days and times, you can imagine what went through my mind—what is...

My friend Ikie had her hip replaced less than a week ago. After having several experiences with hospitals and surgeries in recent months, I thought I would give her sometime to recover and get over all of the pain, drugs, and lack of sleep, so I was quite surprised when she called me today and sounded better than ever. She reported that her recovery had been a breeze and that she had even been “entertaining” friends. Ikie also informed me that she had learned some things from this experience that I thought were worth passing along. First of all, the people in her church had stepped up to the plate and had showered her with gourmet meals and cards of encouragement. I think the thing that astonished her most was getting meals from people that she hardly knew and cards from people she had never met. The impact that this had made her realize the importance of doing the same for others when they are suffering in some way. Since Ikie has been such an active and independent person, using the...

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...

Did you know that McDonald's is being sued by a consumer group for putting prizes in their Happy Meals because it is an illegal marketing ploy? For quite sometime now I have felt that America has become “sue happy.” Anyone and everyone can sue anyone for anything, but this one just seems to take the cake. Do you really think that kids want the Happy Meal just for the toy that they get? If it is the prize that children are after then why is it that many of the toys never leave the restaurant and even more end up being left in the car, never to enter the child's house? In my opinion, there are other reasons that kids want that particular product and it is not the toy. Maybe they like the burgers and fries, maybe the parents are too tired to cook after working all day and it is an easy dinner, or just maybe they want to go to the cool playground and the food is just and afterthought. And there is the also the issue of the size of the meal--children do not want or need to have the ...

All garage sales are not created equal. In Texas, they are big, with lots of stuff, in Mississippi there are treasures to be found, but in Colorado, they tend to be small since people are generally not big collectors of things due to space limitations. Garage sales, estate sales, junk sales, or yard sales, no matter what you call them, they usually have certain elements in common. You can almost always find some kind of fitness items (which were bought at another garage sale when you thought you were going to get fit), vases from the Valentine, birthday and anniversary flowers from the past year (which no one else needs either) and wedding gifts that you didn’t want or need in the first place (no matter whether you got married last year or have celebrated decades of marriage). Now I happen to love garage sales; not going to them, but hosting them. If I sound a bit weird, let me explain, it is not because I love to clean out closets and get organized, but because I enjoy the people who ...