I'm afraid to get on the scales.  In addition to all the Christmas cookies, Becky cooked a Prime Rib Roast on Christmas Eve with Yorkshire pudding and all the trimmings.  That was bad enough, but she makes pies from scratch--real crust.  And she made four of them.  Mince, lemon and two pecans.  I ate pie for breakfast for four days.  When I wasn't eating banana bread.   I'll think about the scales tomorrow.  I can't face it yet.

I had gone to Edmond because my arm is infected again.  Nobody seems to know why it keeps doing this every three months.  It's discouraging.  Six times in eighteen months.

The difference between discouragement and disappointment is that with disappointment, there is the hope that you can get a "do over" and things will turn out differently.  But discouragement is a type of "end of your rope" feeling.  You really don't know what to do.

The only thing that I can think of that is good about all that is that it gives all of us an opportunity to comfort other people who are discouraged.  We've been there and we do understand.

I bet God gets disappointed (and discouraged as well) with the world.  Some of the people on earth get a "do over" because of God's mercy.  It really makes you want to avoid doing the same wrong thing twice.  You may not get another "Mercy".  But with some people--those who consistently do wrong--he is totally discouraged.  They do the same wrong things over and over and have no intention of coming under His authority.  And He sees their hearts.  He knows their intentions.

When you love someone, you don't want to hurt them.  If you love God, you don't want to hurt him or embarrass him.  You want to please Him.  I don't understand those who profess to be His children and intentionally cause Him pain.  Our hours on earth are but a drop in the ocean of eternity.

Jesus said, Luke 9:23 "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me."  Luke was a physician and like a good doctor, he gave us the perfect and exact prescription for being a Christian.  The other Gospel writers left the word "daily" out.  We need a dose of denying ourselves and "Coming After (second)" every day.