There is a house in Lisbon, Ohio where my grandfather spent the last 60 years of his life. It's hard for me to imagine living in one house that long, but he did. There was a bathroom door upstairs, that had a small hole in the bottom right corner. A hole from a small foot that kicked it about 32 years ago. A small foot that belonged to a small boy with a big temper. My dad tried to replace the door, but my grandfather would have none of it. He wanted to keep that door to remind him of me, and to remind me when I was bigger, about a day when I had lost my temper.

Well, sure enough while he was still alive he showed that hole to my friends, my wife, my son, and just about all my family. The consequence of my losing my temper was a good natured teasing I was given for the next three decades. In our family it is the stuff of legend.

Happily, I confess I don't lose my temper often anymore. I certainly get mad once in a while but not to the loss of self control. I grew up after a time. Doors everywhere are probably breathing a sigh of relief. However, the consequence, though harmless, continues to this day.

There are often obvious consequences, and unobvious ones. When someone is suffering we want to tell them it's all right and that we understand, but perhaps we don't understand at all. I wish I could stress to young people how important it is to choose the right mate for life. There are just so many levels where you hurt from making a mistake. Today I am in pretty bad shape. I was too upset to write the bulletin until this very morning, and even today I am miserable from lack of sleep and a feeling of dismay and discouragement. It's as if my heart were a cold stone inside my body. I question my state of mind even as I write this. Perhaps it were better today I wrote no bulletin at all.

My son has entered that phase of teenage years where he has to stop being a child and start being a grownup. Like most kids I know, he resents having growing responsibility going on in his life. Unfortunately for him, because of a mistake I made in his life by marrying someone unfit to be a parent or a wife he now has a mom in Colorado and a dad/step mom here. So far I think we have done a good job raising him, he is pretty honest and a good kid overall, a very good kid. But when he is visiting in Colorado, he can do pretty much whatever he wants with almost no responsibility.

So what would you choose? Live here with rules, morality, and "nagging parents" or live a life of fun fun fun somewhere else? Apparently he had been talking loudly about wanting the latter. If you were me, would you feel betrayed? Anguish? Depression? Well, I do. I tried to prepare Dave, and myself, for this time in his life. I hope I can make it through it. All kids can be difficult. It's now way more difficult because of my bad choice.

But you know, Jesus came to this world. He made many friends, he prepared them for death, but still they were not worthy of him. Surely the son of God felt sad and hurt by those who ran off on him. Surely he felt hugh loss when those who he had come for first, the children of Israel, were the very ones who rejected him and hung him on a cross to die. Surely those who abused the office of priest, corrupting the good position that God had established, caused him great anguish. But he loved us. Shouldn't I love my son as well? And doesn't that mean I still have to keep doing what's right, even if I feel hurt and pain? Consequences take many, many forms.