As a child, I would get Atari 2600 games and Legos for Christmas. My two sisters would get things like Barbies and clothes. My dad would get tools. He would get quarts of oil for his tractors, crescent wrenches, screwdrivers and hammers. I always thought, “Wow! That’s so boring!”

Growing up, my cousins and I would give our Christmas lists to our Grandma. We each put different toys and games on our list. But then our moms must have added underwear to all our lists. There aren’t any kids who actually ask for underwear.

As David relaxed in his beautiful, brand new palace, something struck him as being terribly wrong. It didn’t seem right that he was resting comfortably in a palace fit for a king while the ark of the covenant of the King of heaven and earth was stuck in the tabernacle.

There was no spark of life in him. There was no flicker of joy in his heart. Life had become a mere existence. He didn’t want to hold on anymore.

He had lost track of the number of sleepless nights he had spent on his “mattress” – if you could call it that. The days spent in darkness and isolation had begun to run together long ago. Thoughts of escape no longer occupied his mind.

Many of you know that I’m colorblind. My sisters think that I just never learned my colors.

When people learn I’m colorblind, the first reaction is to usually ask me, “What color is this? What color is that?”

Do you ever feel like a failure?

You work hard all day. You come home stressed. You don’t mean to, but you take that stress out on your family with your short temper.

The assignment for my 8th graders in Catechism class this week was to present to the class how they would talk to a married couple who were experiencing sever trauma in their lives. The students were to work in teams of two or three to minister to a couple who were having difficulty conceiving or who have lost a child through miscarriage or who had a child ripped out of their arms with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).

He was pretty excited. What young man wouldn’t be? It was the first time he would be taking the car out on the open road by himself. Sure, he had been out on the highway plenty of times before, but on those trips dad had always been with him. This time, things would be different. He was tired of waiting. That’s why he didn’t tell dad or ask for permission.

There is a very good chance that you weren’t happy with how the elections turned out this week. Somewhere along the way, at least one of the candidates you voted for did not make it.