Tag Archives: choices

“Choose Your Hard”

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Someone recently posted the words, “Choose your hard”.

She was referring to those of trying to make healthy choices for ourselves.

Exercising, eating clean, and avoiding sugar.

Sometimes doing the right thing is difficult and we want to cave, but we know in the long run it is worth it.

She meant choose your hard in reference to health, but those words could be applied to many circumstances in life.

Are the choices we are making today, going to be beneficial to us in the future?

Are we doing the hard things, the right things, even when the world is tempting us to “Just do it!”?

It isn’t always easy. Honestly, most days aren’t easy at all.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

James 1:5

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.

CHOOSE

It is Five Minute Friday over at Lisa-Jo’s blog. Let’s write for five minutes flat. All on the same word: CHOOSE

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I make a myriad number of choices each day. Most of the time I don’t give my choices much thought. They are the mundane, the mechanical, the mish mash of the day to day. I mean who really cares if I make a casserole or tacos for dinner? Or whether I choose to use a new dryer sheet in the laundry?

But then there are the choices that do matter. The ones that make a difference, mold a life, mean something.

A hug, an encouraging word, helping someone, reaching out, showing forgiveness, holding my tongue, sacrificing my own time, weeping with others…. choosing to see others as Christ sees them. It isn’t easy and I mess up a lot….but, I choose to try.

Choose you this day…..

Whom will you serve?

My choices should always be in light of Who it is that I serve…….Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God. 

Because that choice changes everything else.

“Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.  And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”  Joshua 24:14-15  ESV

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We All Have Storms In Our Lives

We all have storms in our lives.

Sometimes they come, due to our own making

Other times, only because we live in a broken and fallen world…

As darkness envelops…

Jealousy. Anger. Bitterness. Arrogance. Pride.

An unforgiving heart.

The storm pounds on my soul.

Wanting only my own way…

As the storm grows… a heart hardens.

The rain pours…

But….in the midst of the storm….if I look up….an unobstructed view.

Much like the prodigal son of scripture, lost in my own life…my own problems…

I realize my need.

I run back to the Father. “Father, forgive me!”

After I’ve ventured out on my own and made a mess of things,

I return to the One who forgives. The One whose voice alone, can calm any storm.

18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20 So he got up and went to his father.    “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.  Luke 15:18-20 NIV

There is calm after the storm.

There is beauty in forgiveness.

For the forgiven,

as well as for the one that chooses to forgive.

Fragile colors as the anger of the storm subsides.

Quiet. Peaceful…

Awe.

Are you in the middle of a storm, right now?

Are you the forgiven?

Or do you need to be the one who forgives?

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How do you practice forgiveness?

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A New Chapter

Times Square Ball - New Year's Eve 2008

Image by Atomische • Tom Giebel via Flickr

The end of one year, the start of another. The possibilities, the choices, the opportunities.

In my life, I’ve been accused of thinking too much. I take  this declaration with a grain of salt. Too much thinking? How is that possible? What is the result of thinking too much?  Or not enough thinking? Or at all? I like to mull things over. Long after a conversation…I’m still going over the content of what was said.

I like to ponder what this new year will hold. I become contemplative during this time of year.

Each year brings new possibilities. Not because New Years Day is some sort of magic key, but because it is more like a door to the unknown. None of us really knows what will happen to us this year. We can have our plans, but many times life does not go as planned. Sometimes it careens off course. We end up on a road that we never intended to travel.

Sometimes things that seem “bad”, turn out to have lessons that are good for me. Other times I’ve made poor choices and I’ve suffered through the consequences of those choices. Sometimes it is a bitter pill to swallow. Yet, sometimes events happen that are completely out of my control. I could not have changed them even if I desperately wanted to. One just never knows how things will turn out.

We all hope for a good year, abet, even a great one! We all want joy in our lives. Moments that matter. The opportunity to make a positive difference. Fulfillment. Friendships. Love.

I can plan. I can make changes. I can try to be even more organized and productive. Ultimately, God is the one who chooses how this year will proceed. It is He that is sovereign. It is He that makes life interesting and worthwhile…and I can rest in that.

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What Inspires You?

In the 80’s, the group Chicago, sang “You’re The Inspiration“. Artists are inspired to create great masterpieces. Writers are inspired by relationships that give them the ability to put pen to paper. Singers can bring tears to our eyes through inspired words. Speakers can bring us to our feet. Parents are inspired to be good examples for their children. Soldiers are inspired, in the midst of fear for their own life, by love of country. Nature inspires us all.  So what inspires you?

1. The dictionary describes the inspired as: outstanding or brilliant in a way or to a degree suggestive of divine inspiration

2. The men that wrote the Bible…they were divinely inspired by God, Himself, to write the words that have survived centuries. God speaking to man, through His inspired Word.

3. The wounded warriors who come home and fight everyday, through surgery and therapy to get their lives back. Each day is a struggle, but they don’t give up.

4. The single parents who get up every day, acutely aware that they are their child’s rock. They face each morning with resolve, that they will do the very best that they can. That they will make it.

5. The dog who saves his owners from imminent death, by barking and pulling on them until they get up and escape their house that is on fire.

6. The father who ran marathons and participated in a triathlon for his disabled son. He was his son’s hands and feet. Crossing the finish line with his son, inspired everyone watching.

7. We are inspired by great literature, or the paintings of Michelangelo or Rembrandt.

8. Mozart or Bach can move us in ways few other things can.

9. The chronically ill patient who makes the decision to not just survive, but to live. Even if he/she ends up losing the battle, they inspire us by their dignity in the face of death.

10. So what inspires you? What makes you strive to be a better person? To overcome a trial? To jump a hurdle? To press on to the finish line?

 

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The Road Not Taken

Chopwell - Warmth of autumn

I’ve enjoyed poetry most of my life. I remember reading goofy poetry as a child, and as a teen collecting books of poetry from the more famous writers. I’ve kept my own poetry journals for as long as I can remember. I have always especially liked this poem by Robert Frost.  I just “get” his work. It makes sense to me.

” Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth ”      (Can’t you just picture yourself there? Standing in the woods….wondering which way you should go?)

This sums things up so well for me, in so many ways. For each of us, our choices, our decisions in life, lead us down a road. We have choices each day about what we are going to do. Decisions that seem so small and insignificant at the time can subtlety change our path, our course, the direction our lives take.

“…Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.”   (Yep. I get this. Don’t we think we could do something different later, but we are lazy and we don’t.)

Do you ever dream? Do you expand your borders? Do you wake up to the possibilities? You know it doesn’t really matter whether you are 4, 14, or 84….or anywhere in between. As long as you have breath, you can choose the road that you are traveling down. It seems like it would be easy, but the truth is (as I can well attest) sometimes the journey is just hard. It is also painful. The pack on my back, is heavy. It weighs me down. I wish I would have packed lighter, for this trip. Other days the road is easy…I might even skip down the road…I realize just how good I have it.

I choose the path less traveled. Some days my trip is tiresome and I’m desperate for new scenery. I plod ahead. One foot in front of the other. I wonder if I’ll ever see anything new or exciting. Then the day comes, I top the hill and I look out across the most beautiful sight my eyes could imagine. I hold this image in my heart, my view on that day makes the journey worthwhile. I remember that day, when I’m farther down the road. It keeps me going.

Life is interesting like that . Isn’t it that way for all of us?  The ups and the downs. The successes, the failures. The commitments, the regrets. I realize that my journey must encompass all these things. My road has to have bumps and dangers in it, as well as smooth, flat areas. It keeps the trip down the road much more interesting, and as the traveler, makes me much more strong and capable and empathetic.

“…two roads diverged in a wood, and I-,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”  (That really says it all, doesn’t it?)

As much as I enjoy Robert Frost…there is another man I enjoy more.  His name is Paul.   Paul’s life changed forever one day when he was on a road. The road to Damascus. That is the day Paul met Jesus—in person. After that day, on that road, Paul was never the same. How could he be? That day, he knew what it was to really live. He never looked back. His road was not easy. Threatened. Imprisoned. Beaten. And yet, while held as a prisoner in Rome, realizing his days were few, he wrote this to his friend, Timothy…….

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” 2 Timothy 4:7

AMEN.

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