Up the Sunbeam

-- Thank you in advance for indulging me in a reprise from the archives--I needed this message for myself  and thought maybe someone else might be encouraged by it too! It's been a busy week. For you too, I bet. Life just seems to be that way, doesn't it? I think there are moments in every busy week where we know we have to keep going, but our want-to is running low and we need a second wind. We need a boost, something to perk us back up and keep us in the game! Wanna see my 1-second Pep Rally? Here it is: When I hit those moments where I face the choice to keep after it, or instead, to get distracted, fizzle out, get lazy, or just don't feel like doing what it takes to finish the race, this picture gives me the boost I need. IT FIRES ME UP!! It illustrates dedication so admirable that it motivates me to keep going when my flesh tries to pull me off course. It is the intensity I see in this picture that makes this my 1-second pep rally! When I look at it, I can still fee...

-- 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...

-- It's been a busy week. For you too, I bet. Life in 2009 just seems to be that way, doesn't it? I think there are moments in every busy week where we know we have to keep going, but our want-to is running low and we need a second wind. We need a boost, something to perk us back up and keep us in the game! Wanna see my 1-second Pep Rally? Here it is: When I hit those moments where I face the choice to keep after it, or instead, to get distracted, fizzle out, get lazy, or just don't feel like doing what it takes to finish the race, this picture gives me the boost I need. IT FIRES ME UP!! It illustrates dedication so admirable that it motivates me to keep going when my flesh tries to pull me off course. It is the intensity I see in this picture that makes this my 1-second pep rally! When I look at it, I can still feel the ground shake under those thundering hooves, I can still taste the dust churned up by the horse digging in to make that tight seco nd-ba...