Hey, Baby Boy... I hope you're having a great day in Virginia

Ethan, today I thought I'd tell you about something that took me 50+ years to learn. It's actually a pretty simple concept that will make your life more pleasant with less stress. All day long everyday you will be faced with dozens of decisions. Some are silly little mundane decisions like "grape jelly or red raspberry jam?" On occasion you'll be faced with life threatening decisions like Navy SEALS do in battle. Neither of these are the kind of decisions that I am referring to. I'm talking about decisions involving people and situations in your life and how you respond to them.
Let me give you an example that happened to a friend of mine last week. Aaron is a young man who has been helping me build my house. He's a big help because he's young and wiry and doesn't mind getting up on my roof to fix things. He's kind of like a squirrel when it comes to running up and down a ladder.Aaron had a terrible tooth ache so I drove him to a community dental clinic in a nearby town. He went inside and paid his $5 to see the county dentist. He came back out to the car in a short time fussing and fuming. The dentist - for some reason that Aaron didn't think was a good one - wouldn't pull his tooth to relieve his pain. He was mad as a hornet and continued to rant and rave about the dentist being an incompetent, lazy bureaucrat. He really worked himself into a tizzy.I knew his tooth was still hurting really bad so I wanted to be careful how and what I said to him. I told him that I was sorry that he didn't get any relief during his dental visit but now that it was over he had a decision to make: he could either continue to rant and rave about the dentist which would accomplish nothing or he could forget about the disappointing experience and concentrate on trying to come up with some other way to get relief. I told him that being upset didn't help or change anything and, in fact, would just continue to ruin his afternoon and raise his "blood pressure." I told him if he would actively make the decision to forget about his dental visit, he'd be able to think more clearly and be able to come up with a workable solution to getting his tooth taken care of.
This simple concept can also be considered in Spiritual terms. I know your Mommy and Daddy are teaching you this but it is true that "God loves you and wants the best for you." If an inopportune red light is going to make you late for an appointment - once again - you have a decision to make: am I going to get all stressed out and upset because I'm going to be late or am I going to recognize that for some reason God allowed the light to be red and His ordained delay is for my own good. It could be that waiting a few extra seconds at the light is just enough time for you to avoid a serious accident... or it may create the opportunity for you to have a God-arranged meeting with some special new friend later in the day. Try to flow in the Spirit, Ethan... even red lights are a God-thing.
I love you, beautiful boy,
Granddaddy
PS. Call me sometime: 931-598-9160