Choices

How many choices do we make in a day? How about a week? Life is a constant progression of choices, big or small, instinctive or thoughtful they come one after another. I know in Psalm 139 the writer presents the reality that no matter where I go the Lord is there and that he knows me completely. At the same time I know that I have the greatest gift of all in my free will. I have choices and they are really mine.

This week has been a reflective time. Marsha and I would have been married 46 years on this past Sunday. I didn't have anything going for me when Marsha and I got married. I had been sent home from college to grow up. I had a dead end job. I had no direction for my life. I had been asked to go to Florida by my old girlfriend and made the choice to stay with Marsha. She was my opposite in many ways. She had a plan for her life and was serious about her school work. She was intelligent with opinions about interesting things, quite different from others I had dated. I sometimes wonder what life would have been like if I had made a different choice. Perhaps God would have caught my attention on a different path, but I'm not sure. Perhaps I would have completed college without Marsha to push me with her desire for us to share a professional life, but I'm not sure. What I do know is that my choice to marry Marsha brought stability and direction to a rudderless ship. I can't imagine where the winds would have taken me without her, but a shipwreck is the only image that comes to mind. I can think of lots of choices in my life that had huge effects, but none compare with the blessings I received from choosing Marsha.