First and foremost we send our hearts, our love, and for those of us who can, our donations, to the souls whose lives have been forever altered by hurricane Katrina. There but for the grace of God go we.

Although I live all the way across the United States from the disaster in New Orleans, I have seen the horrific picture on the news and felt the suffering of so many soul. However, it didn’t become so completely “real” to me until I had a gentleman came to my home this week to repair my alarm system. As fate would have it, he was from New Orleans and had several family members back there, still unaccounted for. This man, far from being grief stricken and ridden with worry was so confident in God’s goodness, that he was simply waiting for their call. As we talked further I began to realize I was in the presence of an extraordinary soul – angels come in all different forms. He told me he had been “downsized” from jobs several times. He was resourceful and always got new ones but one day he had awakened to the fact that he loved photography and he loved his dog, a pug named Vinny that naturally liked to climb boulders and pose. A thought hit him. He began to take pictures of Vinny the Pug, made screen savers with them, sold them to corporations with customized pictures, and started an advertising and promotions business. He’s now working on t-shirt deals, high end boutique purses, stuffed toys, etc. Vinny the pug has been in climbing magazines and even received an invitation to be on the Jay Leno show! Here was this man, with every reason to be worried about his family, devastated about their loss, and bummed out about his own hard knocks, telling me how he was creating inspiration, a new career, and a way to keep his family employed after they surfaced from the disaster, and even plans for helping teach children to persevere in hard times, and to help animal charities as well.

It reminded me that we all have an incredible capability to be miserable or to focus on what is good in the human spirit, to feel victimized or to focus on what we love. This man, by focusing on what he loves is creating an incredible avenues for abundance, joy, inspiration, etc. not only for himself, but his family, and truly every person’s life he touches. In his own way he is saving his family from the disaster. Angels do indeed come in all forms.

And if you want to check out Vinny the climbing Pug, here’s his website:
http://vinnythepug.photosite.com/

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