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...

-- I had this teeny tiny dream. I wanted to create a line of rodeo-themed greeting cards. That SOUNDED so simple, but I had no idea that I would have more than two years of delays and dashed hopes in my pursuit of getting that teeny tiny dream to become cards-in-my-hand and on the market. The first pictures I took were at a rodeo run by a big rodeo association.  I wanted to do things right and get the appropriate permissions necessary. When I spoke with the PR director, she was very interested and asked me to send her some samples.  She LOVED my work! She loved the pictures so much she wanted to not only get me permission to make my line of greeting cards, she wanted to use them in the souvenir programs that would go out to all their rodeos in North America the following rodeo season, AND give me a byline, AND list my website! Victory lap, right?!! Wrong. Since I was not a licensed photographer with her association, the powers that governed such things would not ...

-- 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...

"What I'm about to tell you is true. Anyone who will not receive God's kingdom like a little child will never enter it. Luke 8:17 (NIrV) She was only 7 or 8, riding in one of the youngest divisions in the junior rodeo. She was clearly on a very well-trained and experienced horse and her confidence in him was unmarred by fear or apprehension or pressure of any kind. This beautiful little girl rode in every event for girls of her age group, and the entire day she rode with her feet out of the stirrups and a smile that never left her face. She was the picture of pure joy! Everything seemed to exhilarate and delight her. You could see that she rode every race to win, but it was the doing of it that she loved--winning could only be icing on the cake for her. She loved the wind in her hair, the sun on her face and the horse beneath her that gave her wings to fly. Ever since that day, when I think of the "joy of the Lord," this is the picture that comes to mind. No...