Up the Sunbeam

-- Somehow he looked at me and still thought I could do it. Perhaps he was an angel and I was unaware. My little brother Chad and I had just entered the lodge at Cathedral Lakes Provincial Park. Since we were both visiting for the first time, we wanted a little guidance to help us decide which trail to choose for our day trip. We asked the quiet, but friendly young man who had been our driver on the 9-mile, 1-hour, 4-wheel-drive climb from the floor of the Ashnola River Valley up some 5400 feet to the lodge which sits at about 6800 feet above sea level. He told us about the popular but difficult Rim Trail, which I knew would be too hard for me right now (I have a bunch of weight to lose and a lingering problem with one foot that has kept me from doing much walking/hiking for the last few months), so we asked him for a less strenuous recommendation. He told us we could take the Glacier Lake Trail part of the way up to the Rim Trail and still get some beautiful views and that it would...

-- For two weeks I had been trying to no avail to block out the raucous and incessant screech emanating from the mulberry tree outside my dining room where I do all my writing. Imagine the sound of a rusty door hinge stuck on infinite repeat!  The noise was so unpleasant and distracting, I had to all but abandon my usual love of an open sliding glass door, just to put something of a buffer between my ears and that horrid squawking sound! One morning, when I did have the door open to let the cool breeze in, I noticed that the squawking was moving around instead of staying in the mulberry tree.  She So Sweet and I went to investigate.  Finally we saw the noisy little culprit who had been disturbing our peace!!  It was a baby mockingbird who had yet to discover he could make more than one sound! We tiptoed out toward the baby bird and much to our surprise he didn't make any effort whatsoever to get away. Perched in a flowering shrub underneath the nest in the mulbe...

One of my favorite characters in the movie " Findin g Nemo" is a fish named Dori, who responds to every setback with a happy little tune, "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming." Maybe that is why I love this picture! It just makes me smile. Every time! What a happy hat! My Daddy used to have this funny hat with purple and green flowers on it that he called his "happy hat." We loved to tease him about it, which was great because he wore it often. As a high school teacher and coach of forty years, he taught a lot about attitude; he used to say to his students, "There are a lot of attitudes out there. Now go pick a good one!" He teases his grandkids, saying, "If you don't smile, we'll send you back." At least I think he's teasing. They all smile a lot! My husband shares with audiences he speaks to, "Attitude is a choice!" He says it with conviction and they believe him. I do too. He chooses a good attitude on ...

From a photographer's point of view, this is not a great picture, but for me, it is a message I need frequently. In April 2007 my husband's company and his job were among the first casualties of what many months later would become the current economic crisis. When we got the news, we were disappointed of course, but immediately started looking for the good in it, and we both had great faith that God was going to use this for our ultimate good. We really didn't worry because we fully believed that God was more than capable of giving my husband a new and better job. We just never imagined how long it would take. We never thought we would lose so much. We never thought God's provision would be so gradual. We never thought we would be in such a precarious position for so long. Before any of this happened, I had taken this picture and created a greeting card with it. Three years later, I feel like I frequently could benefit from sending it to myself! What I ...