It's Always Darkest Before the Fridge Door Opens: Enjoying the Fruits of Middle Age by Phil Callaway, Martha O. Bolton

I scored the overtime goal of the championship game! Quite a feat. Except that I scored it into my own net. I was publicly humiliated, to say the least. In fact, I don’t remember much about the next eight or ten years of my life. But I do remember what happened when I got home after the game. My father sat with me, and he grinned. Then he snickered. Then he laughed with me. And best of all he told me he loved me in spite of my very public mistake.
    I (Martha) have shared this story before, but it bears repeating. Once while in one of those super shoe stores, I decided to try on a pair of boots. I looked around for a place to sit down, but all the stools were taken. Behind me, however, was a row of large boxes that obviously dozens of shoes were shipped in. I figured I would just turn around and take a seat on one of those.
    My plan would have worked had the boxes had anything in them, but because they were empty, when I sat down, I sank all the way to the floor. My legs were now sticking up out of the box like a couple of chopsticks in a Chinese takeout meal. It was a tight fit and I couldn’t budge. So I had to rock the box side to side to get it to fall over so I could crawl out! Since this store was at the mall, there’s no telling how many people were watching from the window. 1
    The embarrassing moments of life are good reminders that it’s good to be humbled. Humility. It’s the one thing few of us ask God for, but it’s so necessary in life. Humility keeps us from judging others too harshly. It also reminds us that we have a Father who smiles and sometimes even laughs with us in the midst of our dumbest mistakes. Why? Because he has an eternal perspective, and because he knows we’re not perfect. And if we’re wise, we’ll learn from those mistakes.
    We’re sure that Wisconsin couple has learned and by now must have found a regular cooking timer instead of their Smith & Wessons. And we’re sure that truck driver probably checks his bumper for small cars every time he stops now.
    And now when Martha tries on shoes, she makes sure the seat where she sits isn’t a trapdoor. As for Phil’s new hockey career? Well, whenever he plays now, the sign his team has hung above the opposing net that says ‘‘THIS ONE!’’ has sure helped a lot!
    Finish each day and be done with it.
You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
    1 If you were there and had been wondering all these years who the chopstick lady was, now you know.

High Hopes
    Blessed is he who expects nothing
for he shall never be disappointed.
Alexander Pope
    We’re sure this has happened to you. You’re craving that last piece of chocolate cream pie. You saw it in the refrigerator just this morning and have been putting off eating it until now. After all, you couldn’t very well have it for breakfast. Chocolate cream pie isn’t a breakfast food, at least not in the same way that pizza is. You didn’t even have it for lunch, because that’s the meal you’ve been trying to cut back on and just have a health drink. But now it’s dinnertime. You had only a salad, passing up the mashed potatoes and dinner rolls just so you could indulge in this one pleasure—the last piece of chocolate cream pie! You have been surprisingly disciplined, passing when the pie first made its go-around. You’ve been good. But now there’s only one piece left and you’ve staked your claim on it. You didn’t shove a flag into the whipped cream or anything like that to claim it. But you have made it known to the entire family that the last piece of pie is yours.
    You’ve excused yourself from the table and walked to the refrigerator, fork in hand. You’re not even going to dirty another plate. You’ll just eat it right out of the pie tin. You open the fridge door and