In my life, I have seen some very successful marriages and some that badly failed. I’ve seen marriages where women didn’t want to give up their life goals after marriage so they held on to what they wanted and eventually left. Then I’ve seen the opposite, where a wife gave up everything to do what her husband wanted and lost part of herself in the process. I’ve seen women whose husbands “rode roughshod” over them or cheated on them, or simply treated them awfully for no fault of their own. I have seen wives who have been pushed down over and over get back up again.

One proverb I read early in life was titled, “For Want of a Nail.” It shows the difference a little thing can make. A little thing can make the difference between life and death!

Numerous stories, proverbs, and wise sayings teach that small things can bring serious consequences. There are various versions of the “For Want of a Nail” proverb, but a basic version is as follows:

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.

For want of a shoe the horse was lost.

For want of a horse the rider was lost.

According to Mexico’s Interior Ministry, “Nearly 30,000 people were killed last year, marking the worst year [for homicides] recorded in Mexico… But security analysts have cast doubt on the government figure, saying it’s likely much worse” (Deutsche Welle, January 21, 2018). The government figure is based on the number of murder cases opened by authorities, not on the actual number of murders.

“The Next War” is the title of a recent article in the Economist magazine (January 25, 2018) that examines the changing relationship between the United States, China, Russia, Europe and other nations, and how the U.S. seems to have overlooked or ignored those relationships. The article also notes how decades of neglected military research and development is placing the U.S.

Most people have not been inside a jail. It’s not a place that anyone in their right mind wants to be. Yet, jails are filling up and new ones can’t be built fast enough. Local, state, and federal penal systems are strained beyond capacity, and they struggle for increases in their budgets to meet the demands placed upon their institutions.