“We are pressed on every side by troubles, but not crushed and broken. We are perplexed because we don’t know why things happen as they do, but we don’t give up and quit. ⁹ We are hunted down, but God never abandons us. We get knocked down, but we get up again and keep going” 1 Corinthians 4:8-9, TLB).

              I remember my first yo-yo. It was a vintage red Duncan Butterfly. I would spend hours practicing with my friends. I wasn’t very good but I did learn a few tricks, such as Rock the Cradle, Walk the Dog, and Around the World.

“Don’t long for “the good old days,” for you don’t know whether they were any better than these!” (Ecclesiastes 7:10, TLB).

            Several years ago, I had a conversation with an elderly member of my congregation. I asked, “Do  you miss the good, old days? I’m talking days without the hustle and hurry of life. Days when neighbors knew and cared about one another. Days when life was simpler.”

“As we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18, ESV).

              I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. I opened the curtain, and daylight was nowhere to be found. I asked Alexa to play a song. She obliged with the following dirge: