CHOICES

A Happy Old Maid!

I must have been 6-years old when I decided my ambition in life was to become a happy old maid. I was going to be a career woman and will show the world that a woman’s life fulfillment did not consist merely in getting a husband and bearing children. Where my 6–year old brain got this idea escapes me.

As I grew up, went to high school and off to college, I thought I’d be a prize-winning writer (a Pulitzer will do) or a well-known defense lawyer, a lady Perry Mason, who will defend the wrongly accused defendants in court. I read and wrote with these goals in mind. (I used to read more in my younger years, and started writing as a young kid, getting my first essay published in a nationwide magazine when I was 14.)  In high school I was picking up causes in defense of classmates or friends who were too timid to speak for themselves before teachers. I was argumentative and always had to have the last word in any discussion. Needless to say, this gave me both a good and a dubious reputation.

Kawayan Camp, Murcia, Negros Occidental

But something happened in my junior year in college. I went to a Christian camp in Southern Philippines for a month. While there, we studied the book of Romans in the Bible’s New Testament, written by the Apostle Paul. Before the camp was over, I made a choice that caused a pivot in my life. This Jesus that I knew from my church experience as my Savior has to be more than that. I read and learned that He bought me at a very high cost. Having accepted Him as my Savior, I thought the whole of me then belonged to Him. The Apostle Paul (and I have no reason not to believe him) says, “You have been bought with a price. You are no longer your own.” If so, then I will live my life the way He would want me to.

Choices make up our lives. Each morning we wake up we actually make choices as to how we respond to things that come our way through the day. Most of the time, we do not have control over what comes our way, but we choose how we respond to it. Geraldine Jones, a character created by the 70’s late comedian Flip Wilson, made the line “The Devil made me do it” famous. We can always justify our poor choices by allowing other people or circumstances to control us. But the truth of the matter is no one can choose for us UNLESS we abdicate this authority to someone else. (Personally, I have stopped saying things like “He made me angry” realizing that no one can make me angry unless I give him control over my emotions.)

That summer of 1960 was the year I made the biggest choice I’ve ever made in my life, and thus impacting all of the other choices I make in my life. The dreams of becoming a famous writer or a crusading lawyer vanished, rather I have become willing to do the bidding of the One who died for me and purchased me with His own blood. And coming to think of it, it has been a wise move. If I were to make my own choices, I would make them based on limited information because I have a finite mind and don’t see all that need to be seen to make correct choices; whereas, the One I have trusted to make my choices has all that. It has been quite a journey, but now that I have more years behind me than I have before me, I am thankful I made that macrocosmic choice that has defined the many microcosmic choices that I have had to make through life. God has given me a life partner who has put up with me so well and has helped me become a better person. Through this partnership we have been blessed with children and grandchildren who have given us so much joy and enrichment. We have been led through experiences that I could never have imagined for us even in my wildest dreams. Some are awesome; some are hurtful and painful but all part of what make life interesting.  Choices, life is all about choices.