Choices

Every choice moves us closer to or farther away from something. Where are your choices taking your life? What do your behaviors demonstrate that you are saying yes or no to in life?~ Eric Allenbaugh

Every day when I drop my children off at school I say these exact words to them, "Make good choices, do something nice and know that I love you!"

Every day they say, "Yeah...okay, mom.  Love you, too!"

Oh how I pray that they are not just hearing my words to them but that they are actually listening to my words.  That they understand how important those words are to everyday life.

Believe me...it took a while for me to understand these words.  I haven't always made good choices and often-times I still make the wrong choice.  Most-often my choices were/are right...but for the wrong reasons.  I made/make choices to keep other people happy, even though it wasn't/isn't the right choice for me.  It wasn't until I neared the age of 40 that I finally started making significant choices for myself...choices that stepped away from doing what others expected of me and making the choices that were right for me, for my marriage, for my family and as a mom.  Choices that made me happy.  One particular choice wasn't easy, that's for sure.  But I needed to plant my feet firmly in faith, do what I knew was right and more importantly go where God wanted me to go.  That was nearly seven years and I haven't regretted it since.

In making good choices I have had to let go of certain areas and people in my life.  Sometimes this has been horribly difficult...but honestly...sometimes it's really easy.  It feels good to let go of things that I know cause me to second-guess myself and my values.

I'm sure there were many times in my life that the people closest to me could see that I was going to make a bad choice.  No matter what they said I was not changing my mind.  More often-than-not that bad choice taught me a valuable lesson.  Now that I'm a parent myself I can see how hard that process is to watch.  Fortunately we haven't hit anything significant with either of our kids...but I'm sure that time will come and when it does we will continue to let them know how much we love them, no matter what.

Right now I'm sitting back and quietly watching someone in my life make two significantly less-than-stellar choices.  I'm sure they will not change their mind, no matter what I say.  They, too, must come to the realization themselves and learn the valuable lesson that comes from bad choices.  Meanwhile, I will pray for this realization to hit quickly before it impacts those too innocent to know otherwise.

I'm continuing to learn that I must be cautious with my "yes" and "no" answers in life.  When I answer "yes" to bad choices, I'm saying "no" to God.  When I say "yes" to God...well...that really doesn't give bad choices much of chance now, does it?

Wishing you a peaceFULLYsimple day.
Jeanine