The Streak Is Over!!!

WE WON!! Marion 44, Hillsboro 42!! Packed Marion Square Garden, rowdy crowd, overtime, controversial calls, stolen pass, last second shot at the buzzer, this game had it all. When was the last time the Marion boys beat Hillsboro? WHO CARES!! Life is good today.

De Colores

Fun In The Snow

While we adults struggle with scooping snow, keeping livestock safe, getting stuck, trying to keep from falling down, etc., the youngsters have a blast in it!! My son (the big one in the brown coveralls) and his friends spent countless hours making sledding and toboggan runs and just overall enjoying one of God's miracles of nature.

Me? I spent hours scooping off my driveway, helped dig the neighbor's car out and spent the rest of the evening on the couch with a sore body. Oh, to be young again!!!!

De Colores

Facing The Storm

This has got to be one of the most unbelievable pictures I have ever seen. It is a calf that survived the Western KS snowstorm this past weekend. It was plastered with freezing rain, and then driven snow. How it was able to survive is beyond me.

This poor little guy even made the national headlines this week when Senator Pat Roberts made a huge poster of this picture to show his fellow Senators on Capitol Hill just how severe the winter storm was, and why the state deserved to have some help from the federal government.

This picture reminded me about a story that was told in church this past Sunday about the Hereford breed of cattle being the "perfect breed" (stay with me, this really has a pretty good meaning). It is said that in a storm, most cattle will turn their backs to it and retreat along with the wind until they end up piled against a drift or fence, oftentimes leading to their demise by suffocation. The Herefords on the other hand, face into the wind and work their way into the teeth of the storm until it passes. Somehow, this instinct has proven to dramatically lower the mortality rate when confronted with nature's fury.

The moral of the story? FACE LIFE'S STORMS HEAD ON. With God leading the way, guiding and protecting us, even when we can't even see where we are going, we can be assured that we are being led to a safe place where we can weather the storm until it passes by.

De Colores

Dormant Christians

Yesterday on the CBS Evening News, they were reporting that due to the unusually warm winter the Northeast part of the US was having, the cherry blossoms were already popping on trees in Washington DC and New York!! These trees normally go dormant thru the winter, and the blossoms don't usually appear until March. Mother Nature has fooled them, and they have woken up and are blooming.

It got me to thinking how often we as Christians go "dormant" when we are in the winter of our Walk. When things aren't going well, when we are tired and discouraged, the warmth of our hearts often times fades, we go cold, and we become ineffective. We don't feel like praying, we don't feel like going to church, and even sometimes begin to question God.

In these times, a word of encouragement from a friend, an act of kindness, or an inspirational bible verse may be just what's needed to warm us back up and help us be effective as a Christian again.

As we look forward to the end of winter, and the beginning of spring, let's look for opportunities to warm our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, and help them to be active in their Walk, and not go dormant.

De Colores