Many of the life's lessons are learned the hard way.

Sometimes we're stubborn or prideful and are the center of our own storm.      But much of the time life is a learning curve that has few real shortcuts.

Case in point – I have a small collection of O guage trains (mostly Lionel and Marx).  Did you know Lionel trains are worth more if they have the original boxes?  I didn't.  After I put my Lionel pieces on my display tracks I threw most of the boxes away.  I know what you are thinking – like the Geico commercial “everybody knows that”.  I later found that pre-war II Lionel boxes (no trains, just the box) were going for hundreds of dollars.  I found even my newer items were worth $10-15 more if the original box was included.

Which leads us to my main thought today:  you can only be where you are.  Meaning we can listen to the counsel of others and save ourselves a ton of grief, but much of what we learn in life is by experience.

What's primary is that we actually learn!

Blessings!

Pastor Mark