Chalk up another one

I got another mouse last night. I think it was more like early this morning because when I picked up the trap to take the thing out (it was pretty big) it slumped over the edge. So it hadn't been there long enough to stiffen up, because the room it was in is pretty cold too. So, with the one in the office, and everyone else accounted for, that's about 6 on the year. Hopefully, the rest of the mouse population of Brazil has bedded down for the winter and won't be looking to relocate soon. Sure, it's a buyers market now, but that really shouldn't matter much to mice I wouldn't think.

Anyways, does anyone have a copy of Merry Christmas Charlie Brown? I need it for tonight. If not, I'll have to rent it. Not too exited about that but I'll survive. Speaking of surviving, I have to survive just one more day and Laura will be here! She's coming over tomorrow and will be here through Saturday morning. I didn't think that we would be able to spend any Christmas together at all, but she got it worked out with her family and jobs. For the first time really ever, I'll get to pamper her for a day. She ought to be pretty sold on me after the day is done!

So, another mouse slain, party tonight, girlfriend tomorrow...Life is good...(God is good!)

Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." Traditionally, this verse has been somewhat of a fair-weather friend of parents raising kids. It can be encouraging to those trying to raise their kids right and assuring when they misbehave. But what happens when those good kids turn out to be hellians when they get older? What then? I learned in Hebrew class last year that this verse has lost a bit of its original meaning over the years of translating. This way sounds good and has a lot of merrit, but when all the hard work of child rearing seems as if it was for nothing, it leaves a parent wondering if they did enough or made a mistake. The Hebrew reads something like "Train up a child in his way...". Think about it this way. What would training up a child in his way look like? It would look a lot like how many kids are being raised today: no discipline, getting their own way, they rule the house, never having to do without. When a child is raised according to his or her own agenda, they will act like that throughout their lives: lazy, always expecting everything on a silver platter, undisciplined, unruly, etc. So, this can be somewhat liberating to parents if they are raising their children correctly. A parents' first responsibility is to raise their kids and to raise them to do the right thing. That's holding up the parents' end of the deal. If that happens, and the child responds positively to this, the kids will be healthy adults. Even if the raising was good, if the child chooses to reject this, it is not ultimately the parents' fault that their child is a scoundrel. This doesn't make parenting any easier, because parents are still responsible to raise their kids to the best of their abilities, but I believe it will lighten the load of parents thinking they will be the ones to fail if their kids don't make the grade.

Tonight: a Big Deal Christmas!!! Good food, fellowship, gifts and games. Bring your White Elephant gift and wear your favorite Christmas gear! Celebrate Christ tonight, the real reason for the season (Yeah, that last part's cliche, but it's true!)

Later...