Phillips Brooks, the distinguished Congregational Preacher from Boston, said that he began keeping a diary when he was a 13 year old boy. He was one of 11 children, and what spurred him to keep that diary was that he was sitting at the dinner table one night with his parents and his mother expressed concern about how they were going to pay their bills and how they were going to live. In fact, she fully expected to go to the poor house. Phillips Brooks wrote in his diary that his father looked up from the dinner table and said to his wife, "My dear, I have trusted God for 40 years. He has never forsaken me. I'm not going to distrust Him now. Now, let us give thanks for what we have to eat today."