The artist !!

Have you ever gotten the chance to walk amongst trees so tall that when you looked up at them you could have sworn that they were reaching straight for God's hand up in heaven. When you stopped to look around you heard the wind rustling the canopy overhead so much so that it sounded like running water was nearby. And while you were standing there in the middle of it all you realized that you couldn't hear a single noise outside of what God had breathed into the trees. Nothing around you and no distractions to take your mind elsewhere in the moment. Just blissful, mind clearing silence that filled your soul. I had the chance to do just that this past week at Hart Prairie in Arizona. I stopped in an opening in the middle of a grove of aspen trees and took this picture. No particularly important spot on the map but one that caught my eye enough to make me stop and enjoy God's awesome handiwork ! He is the master artist and creator of everything we know and it is almost impossible when standing in a place like this to fail to acknowledge that. The best thing about it is that His works are everywhere we go because He has had a hand in it all. All you have to do is take the time to look up and watch it all happen right in front of you !!

Saint Ralph

I watched a movie a little while back that really captured my thoughts after I had seen it. It wasn't a flashy film or one that even grabbed any awards at the Oscar's for great performances. It was more of a sleeper pick that caught my eye at the store and ended up being one of my favorite inspirational movies that I have seen. The movie was called Saint Ralph and the premise of the story surrounds a young boy (Ralph Walker) who lives alone at home because his mother is in a coma. He attends a very strict Catholic school and is at a loss for meaning in his life. He very much wants his mom to somehow come out of the coma because he has no other family that he can turn to. Anyways, he comes up with an idea that if somehow he can pray hard enough and successfully perform a miracle that God will grant him his wish of his mom waking up. So he becomes obsessed with an idea that if he can train , run in , and win the Boston Marathon (which would be the miracle) that God would grant him his wish. Of course, as soon as the kids at school and the priests find out about his endeavor they all mock him and tell him that he is crazy. The thing about Ralph that separates him from everyone else is that he believes in himself no matter what everyone else is telling him. In then end, he receives help from a priest that is inspired by Ralph's tenacity and he ends up qualifying for the Boston marathon.
Now watch this clip from the movie as it shows Ralph running in the race against the top competition in the world. Remember, he is only 14 and is running against the greatest racers of his time !!



Now you know how the race ends up but what you don't see is at the very end of the movie he thinks that he has failed in his mission to get his miracle. He starts to question if he has prayed hard enough, if he had enough faith, and if his motives were pure enough for God to grant him his wish. He visits his mom in the hospital and she has not woken up yet so he goes on thinking that he has failed . But what he doesn't see when he leaves after his visit with his mom is that she opens her eyes and smiles with him on her mind. Success!!

So many lessons in this movie can be translated into our daily lives that I thought I would share a few that came to mind as I watched this movie.

1) Step into the Arena !! How many of us win, lose, or draw are willing to put it all on the line for something that we believe in. To stick our necks out there and give 100% of everything we have knowing that all the odds are stacked against us in doing so. So many of us, including myself, avoid those challenges in our lives that seem overly difficult or impossible to overcome for fear of failure, ridicule, and even because of pride. I have promised myself in my life that I will never turn and run from my fears and that what defines me is not the outcome of my efforts but the heart I show in trying. I hope everyday that we all will choose one great mountain to set our sites on and say to ourselves, "I'm going there today ! "

2) "One man with courage makes a majority !!" It is a quote that I heard a while back that really seems to fit the theme of this movie perfectly. It applies to the type of situation that Ralph himself was in when trying to perform his miracle. When no one else believed in him and what he was doing he still did not waiver for one minute. It is more of a way of life that calls on a person to walk a different path from the crowd due to their deep seated beliefs. Not meant as an opportunity for a person to boast, to try to stand out, or to prove a point but rather inspire others because their passion causes them to move. When something so deeply stirs the waters of your soul that whether others believe similarly or not holds no weight in your decision to act. And really isn't that what ends up inspiring the people around us the most. When others see us hold fast to our beliefs and are willing to fight with everything we have inside for them they will be moved themselves into action.

3) Faith like a child !! As we grow past childhood and into our adult years we tend to become calloused towards the world and the things in it- even our faith. If you were to ask a child if they truly believed that their prayers to God would be answered as they prayed I bet you would have almost 100% of them answer you "Yes !" But as we go through life and experience disappointments, failures, and mistakes we tend to translate that over to our into our faith. Somehow we lose that sense of belief that God is greater than all of those experiences and that He Never fails us. No wonder God doesn't just jump up to answer our prayers because we tend to pray with the presumptuous thoughts that He may not answer me so I need to guard my heart. My prayer is that we can all be a little more like Ralph Walker in that we expect to be answered by our Savior because our intentions are pure enough and we are worth enough to Him.


So in the end Ralph Walker thinks that he has failed right after he loses the race by a split second. What he fails to initially see is the way that he inspired all those around him to believe in something bigger than themselves again. The kids at his school, the nurses at the hospital , and most importantly the priests that were over him were changed because of one act of courage. In the end the priest that was working with him the closest, who had lost his inspiration in life and most of his faith, was moved to believe again. Ralph Walker proved that what we do in this world does matter and that we can have a huge impact on those around us everyday. It is about the choice that we make every morning that we wake up to either live for ourselves or something greater. Because when we live for a greater cause those who see us moving will undoubtedly , at the very least, be moved in their hearts. The exact place where God wants us to move !!