There are times when a person can’t help but feel some heartache.

On a personal level? My Peanut has been sick all week and clearly suffering. His head cold clearly came from his daddy. He had vaccinations on Monday which also spiked him a fever and really put him under the weather. He hasn’t been my happy-go-lucky kid all week, and I hate not being able to do anything about it.

On a community level? This week an FFA advisor and shop teacher, while driving a bus, was involved in an accident at a train crossing that killed both himself and a 17-year-old student, with virtually every other student on the bus injured. I didn’t know any of them personally, but my heart still aches for their families in Larimore. My nightmares are made of the very stuff a couple living near the accident experienced – wrapping injured kids in blankets and pulling them out of the wreckage of a school bus while waiting for first responders to arrive.

On a world level? Twelve people shot dead by Muslim terrorists over satirical cartoons. Cartoons are worth killing people over? Not only that, but the sons of bitches escaped. As of this morning, when I’m writing this, they’re apparently cornered in a hostage standoff outside Paris, and have made statements that they wish to die as martyrs. How many more will they kill?

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong, and mocks the song
of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

It doesn’t help that we’re in the middle of a deep freeze in the Midwest. Outdoor temperature (before windchill) barely even approaches zero, and we’ve had windchill warnings pretty much every day this week. Cold and gloom tends to sap the will and cheer.

Some days it’s a struggle to remember that things can be, and will be, better than they are right now.

Then pealed the bells, more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
The wrong shall fail,
The right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!”