"It's your choice."
The words clanged against the cold tile floor like a tin cup falling from unsuspecting hands.
My choice. Mine.
It has been difficult for me to make choices since I was a young child standing in the dime store with Mama who would be getting impatient as I wanted to maximize what little money I had been given. She would always give me the option of saving the money and going home which I would ignore as I weighed the pros and cons of each possible selection.
Once the purchase was made I would hesitate to eat it if it was candy, or play with it if it was a toy. I did not want the experience to end. I wanted to hold onto the choice as if it held more for me than the use for which it was intended. Subconsciously I must have been aware of how little control I had.
As I was growing up, my mother would often choose my clothes. She could only buy what was on sale. She managed a farm household according to the weather. If a hail storm hit the day before the cherries were shaken from the trees, that meant we would wear last year's coats and boots. If there was no hail storm, we could go shopping for coats at a mall forty miles away, stopping by our favorite shoe store along the way. I say our favorite because we were a family with long, flat feet and could not find shoes to fit us at most stores. As children we needed special inlays to compensate. The orthopedic shoes recommended were not in any way fashionable. They were never my choice.
We ate what we grew and raised on the farm. I did not know how expensive food was until I left college and was out on my own. I spent years as a vegetarian in part because I could not afford to buy meat. We never had to wonder if Mama would choose beef, chicken or pork for dinner. It would be beef, as that is what was mooing out in the barn. A large vegetable garden made up the rest of the meals. Our other crops: asparagus and cherries, were abundant in season. We drank milk that came from the dairy where our milk was sent to be pasteurized. We received Florida oranges and grapefruit in the winter from a truck driver who used the fruit to pay Daddy for plowing his driveway. Bartering with other farmers procured for us other fruit and vegetables we did not grow, and even a Christmas tree every year from a nearby tree farm.
The choice for higher education was a simple one. Though I was accepted by two other colleges, Michigan State University was the only place I ever wanted to go. Of course, I did not anticipate how difficult it would be to grow up six miles from a town of 2,000, and suddenly find myself sitting in the bay window of a dorm on a campus with a student body of 44,000. Years later I would wonder if it would have been wisdom to be a big fish in a small pond instead of a struggling student who always had to work and never slept. A farm girl, who often wanted to go sit in the woods somewhere or go to the Lake to sit in the bluffs by herself.
I would choose to study journalism because I figured if I majored in English the expectation would be for me to become a teacher. If I had wanted to become a teacher, I would have majored in education. I chose to go to Denver the day after I finished my studies because I did not want to go home. That choice had life-changing ramifications. I wanted out of the real world in just two years. The only school I could find that would give me a graduate assistantship was in West Virginia. I would choose to go there. I would then make all kinds of choices that would get me into interesting situations.
Choosing between a job offered to me at a newspaper in the mountains of Colorado or pursuing a relationship that could lead to marriage was one of the most difficult choices I have ever made. Would I ever work for a newspaper if I got married? Would I ever get married if I chose to work for that newspaper? I wanted both so much.
I chose motherhood long before we brought home our first child. The desire came over me in a surprising way since right before then I never really cared. I did not want to give up everything in order to care for a baby. And yet, time and again, I would choose what I thought was best for the child even if it meant staying home and then working part-time jobs I would have never chosen.
If it were up to me, I probably would not have chosen to have a fair complexion and red hair. Too much sunburn; too many nicknames (carrot-top, fire-head, rooster, red, ginger, freckle-face). I would not have chosen to be so near-sighted I can barely walk across the room without my glasses that I have worn since age 12, inheriting my vision from Daddy who has worn his glasses since age 4. I would not have chosen to have teeth like chalk that have all been filled, one crowned, and several root canals, inheriting teeth from Mama whose teeth are as bad off as mine. And I would never have chosen a chronic disease, hypothyroidism, inherited from both of my parents, which has been the bane of my existence over the past decade or so.
I would have chosen to be blonde and popular with my in-style clothing and flat tummy. I would have been able to be out in the sun at the beach tanning and with no glasses to worry about would dive into the water without a care and . . . a giant sea monster would swallow me whole! There is no perfect life! It is an illusion to think so. We cannot choose whatever we want. We are not in charge.
I gave up my so-called right to be in charge of my choices when I chose to follow a Supreme Being. Thank goodness! I recognize only too well that I do not always make good choices. I cannot predict the outcome of any of them. I am shortsighted every single time. I want to choose wisely so I choose to go to the One who has wisdom. I want to accept what I did not choose and turn to the One who has accepted me without qualification, loving me exactly as I have turned out to be.
It's my choice? No. It is the path I am following. A path on which I cannot see much beyond the next turn. I have no idea where it leads. I do not know what condition I will be in when I get there. I do not know where "there" is. I choose to trust that I am being guided. I choose to let the words that sounded like clanging become the background music for my next journey. That is my choice.
The words clanged against the cold tile floor like a tin cup falling from unsuspecting hands.
My choice. Mine.
It has been difficult for me to make choices since I was a young child standing in the dime store with Mama who would be getting impatient as I wanted to maximize what little money I had been given. She would always give me the option of saving the money and going home which I would ignore as I weighed the pros and cons of each possible selection.
Once the purchase was made I would hesitate to eat it if it was candy, or play with it if it was a toy. I did not want the experience to end. I wanted to hold onto the choice as if it held more for me than the use for which it was intended. Subconsciously I must have been aware of how little control I had.
As I was growing up, my mother would often choose my clothes. She could only buy what was on sale. She managed a farm household according to the weather. If a hail storm hit the day before the cherries were shaken from the trees, that meant we would wear last year's coats and boots. If there was no hail storm, we could go shopping for coats at a mall forty miles away, stopping by our favorite shoe store along the way. I say our favorite because we were a family with long, flat feet and could not find shoes to fit us at most stores. As children we needed special inlays to compensate. The orthopedic shoes recommended were not in any way fashionable. They were never my choice.
We ate what we grew and raised on the farm. I did not know how expensive food was until I left college and was out on my own. I spent years as a vegetarian in part because I could not afford to buy meat. We never had to wonder if Mama would choose beef, chicken or pork for dinner. It would be beef, as that is what was mooing out in the barn. A large vegetable garden made up the rest of the meals. Our other crops: asparagus and cherries, were abundant in season. We drank milk that came from the dairy where our milk was sent to be pasteurized. We received Florida oranges and grapefruit in the winter from a truck driver who used the fruit to pay Daddy for plowing his driveway. Bartering with other farmers procured for us other fruit and vegetables we did not grow, and even a Christmas tree every year from a nearby tree farm.
The choice for higher education was a simple one. Though I was accepted by two other colleges, Michigan State University was the only place I ever wanted to go. Of course, I did not anticipate how difficult it would be to grow up six miles from a town of 2,000, and suddenly find myself sitting in the bay window of a dorm on a campus with a student body of 44,000. Years later I would wonder if it would have been wisdom to be a big fish in a small pond instead of a struggling student who always had to work and never slept. A farm girl, who often wanted to go sit in the woods somewhere or go to the Lake to sit in the bluffs by herself.
I would choose to study journalism because I figured if I majored in English the expectation would be for me to become a teacher. If I had wanted to become a teacher, I would have majored in education. I chose to go to Denver the day after I finished my studies because I did not want to go home. That choice had life-changing ramifications. I wanted out of the real world in just two years. The only school I could find that would give me a graduate assistantship was in West Virginia. I would choose to go there. I would then make all kinds of choices that would get me into interesting situations.
Choosing between a job offered to me at a newspaper in the mountains of Colorado or pursuing a relationship that could lead to marriage was one of the most difficult choices I have ever made. Would I ever work for a newspaper if I got married? Would I ever get married if I chose to work for that newspaper? I wanted both so much.
I chose motherhood long before we brought home our first child. The desire came over me in a surprising way since right before then I never really cared. I did not want to give up everything in order to care for a baby. And yet, time and again, I would choose what I thought was best for the child even if it meant staying home and then working part-time jobs I would have never chosen.
If it were up to me, I probably would not have chosen to have a fair complexion and red hair. Too much sunburn; too many nicknames (carrot-top, fire-head, rooster, red, ginger, freckle-face). I would not have chosen to be so near-sighted I can barely walk across the room without my glasses that I have worn since age 12, inheriting my vision from Daddy who has worn his glasses since age 4. I would not have chosen to have teeth like chalk that have all been filled, one crowned, and several root canals, inheriting teeth from Mama whose teeth are as bad off as mine. And I would never have chosen a chronic disease, hypothyroidism, inherited from both of my parents, which has been the bane of my existence over the past decade or so.
I would have chosen to be blonde and popular with my in-style clothing and flat tummy. I would have been able to be out in the sun at the beach tanning and with no glasses to worry about would dive into the water without a care and . . . a giant sea monster would swallow me whole! There is no perfect life! It is an illusion to think so. We cannot choose whatever we want. We are not in charge.
I gave up my so-called right to be in charge of my choices when I chose to follow a Supreme Being. Thank goodness! I recognize only too well that I do not always make good choices. I cannot predict the outcome of any of them. I am shortsighted every single time. I want to choose wisely so I choose to go to the One who has wisdom. I want to accept what I did not choose and turn to the One who has accepted me without qualification, loving me exactly as I have turned out to be.
It's my choice? No. It is the path I am following. A path on which I cannot see much beyond the next turn. I have no idea where it leads. I do not know what condition I will be in when I get there. I do not know where "there" is. I choose to trust that I am being guided. I choose to let the words that sounded like clanging become the background music for my next journey. That is my choice.
