This is my first post in almost a month. I apologize. There is no real excuse. I simply grew tired and began to feel that I no longer had anything useful to say. Not many people read my blog, and the few that do rarely profer encouragement.

The items dominating the news during my period of silence were the peace agreement between Israel and Hamas and the government shutdown here in the United States.

The peace deal for Gaza is a truly amazing accomplishment that may be attributed to the tireless efforts of Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Mario Rubio, and Donald Trump. Somehow, they used blandishments and gentle pressure to induce Arab nations to force Hamas to seek an end to conflict. I pray that the peace holds, but if it fails I believe that Hamas will find no support among its former allies and will be crushed.

Without President Trump’s leadership, the peace agreement would not have been achieved.

As for the government shutdown, I think it is an expression of the Democrat Party’s hatred for Trump. They think it will hurt him. But that’s not rational. The shutdown achieves nothing except a disruption of government services along with the infliction of pain on the nation’s most vulnerable citizens. I hope the American people place blame on the guilty party, Democrat Party leadership, and I pray this shutdown nonsense ends very soon.