Give yourself a break. Don't be too hard on yourself.

For the mentally ill, the discipline of being compliant with your treatment plan gives to the strength to break the the chains if restraint.

I have become a firm believer in the freeing power of discipline but what does that word actually mean.

As with all words, there are two vastly different meanings that can be separated into one meaning being the good and one meaning being the bad.

This is not a form of dualism, or separation into two equally powerful but opposing camps.

I will start with an examination of what I mean when I say good and when I say bad.

God is good. We know that for a fact.

Satan is bad. We also know that for a fact.

However, and this is where the distinction from a dualistic system of thought comes in, namely that Satan, as is taught by the One True and Loving Church of Christ, has one redeeming factor about him.

That factor being that he was created by God himself.

Everything, and I mean everything created by God was and is and ever shall be good.

In baptism we have taken oaths to resist and reject the devil.

Fortunately as every grown up Christian realizes, no matter what their actual age, that defeating the devil is only possible through the most holy grace of God Himself, won by Christ during his passion, death and resurrection to eternal life.

What exactly is evil then?

Evil is imperfection which exists to some extent in EVERY human being that isn't already dead and in heaven.

I am not being coy here either. I am talking about real, physical death and the saints' resurrection to eternal life which comes afterward according to our Holy Faith.

Can I prove anything about the afterlife or heaven? Absolutely not. That is a tenet of our belief system.

No one, and I mean no one, this side of real, physical death, knows what the afterlife holds for us.

I digress though.

Good discipline follows from our being disciples of Christ.

We don't choose to be Christ's disciples. Christ chooses us.

Christ is the Good Shepherd and the Lamb of God.

He is our Friend.

He is our King.

Bad discipline is abuse, plain and simple.

Good discipline makes your dreams become a reality.

Bad discipline bears rotten fruit that is only good for the burning fires of eternal hell.

That is the only place where bad fruit can be rendered harmless and reintegrated into the physical and spiritual ecosystem if you will.

I am going to stop there.

You probably have more questions now than when I started this post.

I am a mere human. I freely admit that I am imperfect and that I don't have all the answers.

I leave the rest for you to figure out on your own.

I am just sharing my thoughts on the matter.

In the end my story will or won't be written in the Book of Life and I will either be a good guy or a bad guy.

A Saint or not.