Choice Is a Powerful Thing.

My Sunday school class is a great group of women at various ages and stages of life. Our lives are just busy enough to keep us from really digging into a book or some other long-term study, so this month we started considering a list of questions posed by a spiritual mentor in the church.

Her one question this week led us on all sorts of great "rabbit trails" for conversation. One piece of the conversation that has stuck with me was about choices.

One person said she had been in a setting where people were asking a fairly popular life-purpose question like "What would you do with your life if there were no roadblocks - money, etc.?" She was struck by how many people mentioned things that were fairly easy to do - take up a sport, for example. Now, sure, some sports can be expensive once you buy gear and find the time and a place to participate. But if you want to learn to play tennis or take up the piano, it isn't too much of a stretch to say you could find someone to teach you, work out the costs, maybe sacrifice here or there to make it happen at some point.

I think it some times comes down to choices. If I choose to do (a) then I am choosing NOT to do (b) or (c).

I have a couple young friends who are apply to graduate schools right now. Frankly, I am jealous. I would love to go back to school, maybe get a PhD or another Master's degree. And these ladies have some freedom in where they are applying to graduate school, and therefore have some flexibility on the program they are pursuing. They can really zero in on a program and a place that can help them get where they want to go.

When I went to graduate school (many, many years ago, it seems), I applied to one school - not because I didn't want to try other options, but mainly because I had already made a more significant choice. I was getting married. My husband was going to be in a particular community because of his work. So by choosing him, I also - by default - chose my graduate school.


Sure, I would like to go back to school. And I could do it tomorrow if I really wanted to. When I start to list the reasons I'm not pursuing that, they all boil down to the fact that I have chosen to put other things first.

Last year my "one word" was choose or choice. This was a powerful word for me because it was a reminder of how much control I have in some aspects of my life. It works in this grad school situation, too. I am not a victim of circumstances that are depriving me of this dream of going back to school. I am an active participant. I have made choices to put other things first at this time in my life. I get to choose, and there is contentment in that.

Choose Joy

Almost a year ago, I chose my word for 2011 and the word I picked was "choice." So often we feel trapped in circumstances and I wanted to remind myself that I could choose to change my circumstances - or at least choose how I was going to deal with them.


Last week I had a young student come into the library and announce to me that she wouldn't be smiling because she was just too sad. After a little conversation I found out her parents were going to be travelling and she was already missing them, before they had even left.


As class went on, I caught her starting to laugh at a book I was reading. When I pointed it out to her, she went back to frowning and didn't change her expression for the rest of the class.


Her reaction is developmentally reasonable, considering her age. But I realized that I could easily fall into the same pattern. I look back at 2011 and see all the sadness and trials and grief. Sometimes I feel like I should be more serious because of the serious sort of year it has been. But there have been plenty of joys and gifts this year, too. 


I get to choose what to focus on. So do you.


Choose joy this holiday season.

One Word

A couple weeks ago I posted about my "word of the year." The idea comes from Ali Edwards - you can go to her blog here and read about her word for 2011 and words from some of her readers. Here you can see the list of words people have submitted for 2011. My post for 2010 is here.

My word for this year - 2011 - is "choice" or "choose." It came to me in early December.

I was really struggling in a lot of ways with God and where to find God in difficult life circumstances. We had been singing in church that Sunday "God is able," and the only thing I could think was, "But is he willing?" How many people have prayed for solutions to life's difficulties and not seen them go they way they hoped?

I knew (and know) in my head that God is there through those struggles and in the alternate routes that life takes, but I was still stuck with that question and how to relate to God in that mindset.

I spent one afternoon in the pick up line at my son's school flipping through a small book of affirmations I made in April of 2009 - just looking for something. It is full of scriptures, altered to be statements of faith and, well, affirmation. This one - the last in the book - hung with me in the midst of my struggle: "I am surrounded and supported by a great cloud of witnesses so I can throw off everything that hinders me and the sin that entangles me. I choose to run with perseverance the race marked out for me. I fix my eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of my faith."  [Hebrews 11: 1&2]

Did you catch it? "I choose to run..." That one word changed everything for me in that moment. I can choose to be stuck or I can choose to keep walking forward, even with all of my questions. I get to choose my attitude. 

Not sure what my "project" will be to cement this word in my day to day life for 2011, but stay tuned. There will be something when inspiration strikes.


[Side note - here is a blog entry from someone else doing a word for the new year. And here is another entry at Ali's site where she posts a recording of someone reading the words - great! And another favorite blogger talks about her word here.]

Inspired by... Choice

One of the things I like about cross stitch is that it is pretty easy to pick up and put down. Once you have the pattern and the thread, you can do it almost anywhere, do it for hours, or not do it for weeks. It is right there waiting for you whenever you get back to it. Because of this, I have lots of choices of what to stitch. I have taken to stitching one pattern for a week and then putting it away to work on something else. This way, I don't get bored with the same thing over time. Each of these is a week's worth of work on a particular pattern. The one on the left has large sections in one color, which can get pretty old (although it is perfect to do while on the phone or watching tv). I can slug through the monotonous parts, though, because I know that next week I can work on something else. I can keep myself inspired to stitch by giving myself choices and options.