I visited Aldridge Botanical Gardens in Birmingham early Saturday Morning.  As I stroll through this gorgeous piece of real estate I pass some shrubbery near a bird feeder.  I set my camera up on a tripod, attach a long cable so I can take pictures while hiding in the bushes and wait for the birds to come and dine.  The birds came and had a great breakfast of sunflower seeds and mixed nuts.  They would swoop in and pick through the seeds until they found one they liked.  Cautiously they munched, chewed and chomped their trail mix, then fly back to the safety of the trees towering overhead.  And somehow they found a way to smile while they pecked and nibbled at their food, it was a beautiful thing.

        As I stood in the shadows clicking and observing the birds I noticed other visitors coming to the brunch buffet.  A chubby little chipmunk was the first to show up.  He feasted on the seeds that fell to the ground as the birds picked through the seeds.  Next I noticed this lizard in the shrubs, basking in the sunlight and waiting to see what was on the breakfast menu.  I am sure to the other animals that beheld my stealthy photography tactics I looked like a stalker staking out their restaurant.

        I decide to give this hungry lizard a personal photo shoot.  So I leave the shelter of my hiding place and take a few steps toward the lizard for a close-up.  As I advance toward the lizard with cameras drawn and my finger on the trigger he takes a defensive posture.  He starts bobbing and weaving his head up and down and expanding the red flap under his throat.  I am sure his transformation was intended to make him look dangerous, but as I look at his display of courage it only made him appear more beautiful.  His problems became a pulpit from which he proclaimed his beauty.  When a problem came knocking he sent courage to answer the door dressed in his finest.

        Our problems serve as a mirror: they reveal to us the ugliness and the beauty within our own hearts.  Let us choose to face today’s problems head on.  Let us not pray to be sheltered from our dangers but to be fearless when facing them.  Courage makes life beautiful and fills it with many good and beneficial things.  We can choose to rise to the occasion and face our fears or we run from them.  Let the problems you face today become stepping stones which add color and beauty to your live when you face your fears with courage and faith.  Courage is a choice and a great beautifier.

Something to think about:

• There are millions of Americans who are clever and fearless . . . they are four years old.

• Better to face danger once than to be always in fear.

• The only way to conquer fear is to keep doing the right thing you fear to do.

• Courage is not the absence of fear; it is the mastery of it.

• We need not fear the future as long as we hold to the hand of him who knows the future.

• Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.

• Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.

• True courage is like a kite; a contrary wind raises it higher.

• The anvil fears no blows.

• The person who succeeds is not the one who holds back, fearing failure, nor the one who never fails . . . but rather the one who moves on in spite of fear and failure.

Thankful for my brave friends
Rickey Moore