When the Lord decides to withhold something from you, he usually substitutes something better but not necessarily grander.  I was in a car with a friend today when we decided to go to Taco Bell.  I just wanted  a chicken burrito and he also ordered a nacho grande, for himself “but hold the fried  beans; you hear, no fried beans.”

When I opened my burrito, I soon found out they had withheld my fried beans from the burrito too, but then I tasted something crunchy.  At first I thought it was an impurity like plaster, but then I realized it was crispy bacon.  I had never had a burrito like that, and it was good.

We are in the hands of a kind Father, and much of what we explain as coincidence could also be an other-worldly source.

Nowhere has Christian publishing found the market it has in the USA.  In new countries, such as Afghanistan, they are unrecognized and persecuted, the country showing a primitive hostility to the modern world.  Africa seems to have a better outlook, which cues some promise.

Belief in a kindly, heavenly father, which started with the Jews, to be completed by the Messiah and his followers, seems to have rounded, or tempered, our civilization.  As the Appalachian philosopher says, civilization has become more livable.

It makes me feel I know what I’m talking about when I say the “Our Father.”

Claire wished Tom would say, “Claire, you’re the only one.’’  But what Tom said was, “Claire, you’re one among many.”  How can you build a relationship on that?

But then there’s the king of paradox. (Remember what I said about light, about particles and waves?)  Yes, God can love all of humanity and love you like his special creation.  Personally.  Remember, He’s the king of paradox, an apparent contradiction.

We are each the only one with God.  That’s one reason I stick with God.  I can build a relationship on that.

Some psychiatrists think going mad is healthy for the human brain, and use as an example the renowned psychiatrist Carl G. Jung, who went mad roughly during the period 1917-1921.  A present-day psychiatrist says it made him the “wise old man of Zürich.”

We have a Father in Heaven who sends us all kinds of challenges, and madness may well be one of them.  We see doctors and pray, but in the end, we make it through anyway.  You wonder why I believe in prayer?

I have come this way through years of trial (Jung has nothing on me) and wish all my friends happy outcomes for their problems.  Yes, they are in my prayers.

Don’t deride me when I say I’ll pray for you.  Prayer is all I have to give you, because my assets have all been spent, mostly on charities.  Of course, my sons’ educations were once my charities.

But prayer, to God, from an almost penniless adherent, is precious, and He hears them.  Better yet, is that prayer, than a gift of stocks.  Better yet, than the gold in Zanzibar, or some yet undiscovered cache.  No one’s come back yet to complain about heaven.

Don’t take that away from me, my belief.  It has paid off here and now.