February 28, 2024
Choices.
So much of how we live, what
we experience in our lives—so much of our very life itself—hinges on the
choices we have made in the past and will make in the future.
There is much that happens to
us and around us over which we have no control. That is no different for us
here in this ultramodern year of 2024 than it was in Medieval times.
We cannot control the weather,
or the actions of other people. We can’t control fate, really. You could walk
out your front door tomorrow, and an airplane could fall on you. You could do
everything right in your life, and still end up coming to harm and a
way-too-early end. Yes, there is so very much that happens to us that we simply
cannot control.
But that does not make us
victims.
Because we do have an ace up
our sleeves: we do have free will. We can control how we respond to what happens
to us. That’s a concept that I know I’ve shared many times in these essays of
mine: a well-known and oft quoted maxim states that life is 5 percent what
happens to me and 95 percent how I deal with it.
It’s really all about our choices.
We, none of us, know how or
when we’ll exit this life, either. Oh, some of us may have a pretty good idea
as time goes on, especially if we’ve developed heart disease, diabetes, or any
one of a number of other health conditions. But until we get to that part of
our life’s path, we don’t really know how we’ll end up.
Except.
Except we can make a choice that
finds us making the most of whatever we have, wherever we are, and whoever
surrounds us. We can exercise control over our minds and our attitudes. We can
make it our tenet to be content in whichever state we find ourselves. We can
make the choice in our hearts that we will face each day saying, “good morning,
God,” and not “good God it’s morning.”
That is what we can do, and I
can tell you this, without reservation, because it’s my own personal
experience: If we choose to live with an attitude of gratitude and to make the
most of each and every day, if we tell ourselves that today is a wonderful day
often enough, and I’m doing great, thanks for asking, often enough—then we will
not only know that as true, we will feel that as true to the very depths
of our souls.
Many of you may recall that in
2013, my sister passed away. In the aftermath of her death, I promised her
widower that I would see to it he would be laid to rest with her. And a few weeks
later when he asked me to, I told him that yes, I would serve as his power of
attorney should the need ever arise.
It was a promise I gave
freely, and I can admit to you here and now that I didn’t really believe, at
the time, that it was one that would require my attention. And yet, in 2018, it
did. And so, of course, I took on that responsibility because for me, a promise
is a promise. And while there may have been a time or two over the past nearly
six years when I did so not quite as good-naturedly as I could have, I never
once considered relinquishing the obligation, or deserting that promise.
This past Monday, my
brother-in-law was finally reunited with his beloved wife, my sister. We will
all say our final goodbyes to him on Monday.
I don’t tell you this personal
information to gain your sympathy, though I do appreciate all of you who
immediately feel moved to express it. I tell you this because if I had one
do-over in this life, it would be this: to have learned at an earlier age what
I know now about everything I’ve expressed in this essay—about choices and our
power to live in a state of gratitude—and to have been able to share it, to preach
it, and to make disciples of my siblings and their spouses of this very “everything”
tenet. And yes, I know it likely would have made no difference as to how the
following years played out. Because, well, choices.
After my sister’s funeral, our
brother, who was aware that I’d spent a lot of time over the previous many
years doing things for her and her husband whenever she would call, shook his
head and said, “I don’t know, after everything, how you could have done all that.”
I told him to ask me again later, and I would tell him. But he never asked, of
course, and I never brought it up—mainly because he knew the answer to that
question, but for whatever reason he chose not to hear it.
That answer I will share with
you, and it really was something he understood from our many conversations over
the years but didn’t choose to acknowledge—at least not to me. And that answer
is this.
All that I was able to do with
and for my sister—and now, her widower—wasn’t me at all. It was the power of God’s
grace through me.
Love,
Morgan
https://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
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