There was no spark of life in him. There was no flicker of joy in his heart. Life had become a mere existence. He didn’t want to hold on anymore.

He had lost track of the number of sleepless nights he had spent on his “mattress” – if you could call it that. The days spent in darkness and isolation had begun to run together long ago. Thoughts of escape no longer occupied his mind.

He had lost hope.

Jesse is the head shepherd. He is in the field outside Bethlehem with his dad and younger brothers. Tonight, Jesse’s twelve-year-old son, Malachi has finished his homework and joined his dad, grandpa and uncles in the family business.

It is the Hebrew month of Tebeth (our month of December). It is late in the evening. The sheep are relaxed. They have plenty of shepherds around to protect them from predators like wolves or lions or bears.

It is dark and quiet and calm.

Many of you know that I’m colorblind. My sisters think that I just never learned my colors.

When people learn I’m colorblind, the first reaction is to usually ask me, “What color is this? What color is that?”

Every once in a while, because I know they’re both intrigued and teasing, I’ll challenge them, “Do you ask a blind person, ‘What does this look like?’ or a deaf person, ‘What does this sound like?’”

I understand where they’re coming from. It’s hard for someone who sees colors to imagine what it’s like not being able to distinguish blue from purple or not see shades of yellow and green or have no clue what color periwinkle is.

Jesse is in his early thirties. He’s the head shepherd. He’s taken over from his father. He oversees the several hundred sheep that graze in the Bethlehem fields.

Jesse’s father, Amos used to be the head shepherd. But since he’s in his late fifties, he spends most of his time dealing with the Levites and priests in Jerusalem. Once in a while, though, Amos goes into the fields to be with his sons.

This is a family business. Jesse’s brothers are all shepherds. His eldest son, Malachi, is twelve. When Malachi is done with school, he comes out to the fields to learn how to shepherd along with his father, uncles, and grandfather.

Do you ever feel like a failure?

You work hard all day. You come home stressed. You don’t mean to, but you take that stress out on your family with your short temper.

You rush around all day long trying to go from one online meeting to the next, then helping your kids with their homework and then chasing them to their extracurricular activities. You’re too exhausted to prepare a healthy meal for your family. So, it’s chicken nuggets and fries again for dinner.

You know your friend is anxious. You appreciate that she needs more social support. You just can’t empathize with her like she needs you to.

You want to get together with your aging parents. You don’t know how much time you have left with them. They are lonely. But you’re concerned about getting them sick if you visit them.

Do you ever have days like this? Do you ever feel like this?

You don’t feel like you’re a good spouse, parent, friend or child. You feel like such a failure.

The father believed that his teenage son was getting spoiled and soft. When the boy asked to drive the family car to school on a sunny morning, dad decided enough was enough. “Son,” he scolded, “the school is only six blocks away. You don’t really have to take the car for that short a distance, do you? After all, why do you think the Lord gave you two feet?”

Without missing a beat, the teenager calmly replied, “One foot is to put on the brake, and the other foot is to put on the accelerator.”

That story makes me wonder why has the Lord given us the things we have?

The assignment for my 8th graders in Catechism class this week was to present to the class how they would talk to a married couple who were experiencing sever trauma in their lives. The students were to work in teams of two or three to minister to a couple who were having difficulty conceiving or who have lost a child through miscarriage or who had a child ripped out of their arms with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).

The students did a good job with a difficult subject. They reminded the parents who had lost a child through miscarriage that they need to grieve. I told them that too often parents suffer a miscarriage in silence. In my counseling with couples, I encourage them to let others know the death they’ve suffered. They lost a child. They’re parents lost a grandchild. If they have other children, they lost a sibling. Let others grieve with them, to comfort them with their presence and their prayers.

He was pretty excited. What young man wouldn’t be? It was the first time he would be taking the car out on the open road by himself. Sure, he had been out on the highway plenty of times before, but on those trips dad had always been with him. This time, things would be different. He was tired of waiting. That’s why he didn’t tell dad or ask for permission.

Although he thought he was ready and prepared for such an excursion, he wasn’t.

There is a very good chance that you weren’t happy with how the elections turned out this week. Somewhere along the way, at least one of the candidates you voted for did not make it.

I’m not afraid to admit that my candidate didn’t win. One of our state senators was running unopposed, so I wrote in a name. Jerry Marowsky, our 8th grade teacher. I asked Mr. Marowsky on Tuesday how his exit polling was going. I told him it was my fault. I started his campaign as I was driving to the polling place. Mr. Marowsky didn’t get enough votes. He didn’t win. Sadness and disappointment.

Years ago, I visited a couple who had worshiped with us the previous Sunday at our mission church near Ft. Knox, Kentucky. During my visit, I explained that all people are sinners. I told the couple that we can’t get to heaven by doing enough good works to make up for our bad works. We can’t compare ourselves to others, thinking they are worse sinners than us. We can’t hope that God is taking people to heaven based on our performance.

I explained that the soul who sins is the one who will die. All people will die, and all people are deserving of eternal death in hell.