I was sketching this fellow and as usual, asked him to smile. He said, “When I was 15, my grandmother told me, ‘You do not have an attractive smile.'”

“I went 20 years without smiling.”

I said, “What a mean old lady. What a cruel thing to do to a kid.”

Parents and grandchildren get this wrong sometimes.

They have been known to shrink the self-worth in a child, perhaps from a wrong-headed conviction that it was their calling to drive the child to achievement rather than to encourage him or her in that direction.

I’m thinking of my friend Kathy.

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“She hath done what she could” (Mark 14:8).

These days, my walking routine–long established but constantly taking different shapes–consists of two miles just before sunup.  That requires some real self-discipline on these muggy summer mornings in the sultry South.

On days when, like today, the temperature at 6 am was in the low 80s and the humidity the high 80s, I cut myself a little slack.  I anticipate being miserable out there, but know how critical exercise is for this 75-year-old body. So, even though I make myself get outside, I decide that “this morning I’m giving myself permission to make a good faith effort.”

I can cut the walk short if I choose.

In so doing, I’m making a statement to myself only that by being out here I’m still walking and still committed to taking care of this body.  It means I’m bringing my body under subjection, as Paul puts it.  And I’m being victorious.

It’s important not to lose the momentum of daily exercise if I would serve God for years to come (if He so wills).

The simple fact is anyone can make himself/herself walk when the temperature is 68 degrees and the humidity is 50 percent.  On those mornings, I could walk forever.  I think, “All year long, I live in anticipation of such days.”

But to walk at the hottest time of the year takes strength.  And discipline.

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