Choices

It is not our abilities that show what we truly are. It is our choices.

Quoting Dumbledore is new to me.    Until a couple months ago, I couldn’t have even told you who Dumbledore was. I just had a Harry Potter marathon with my kids. Actually, I’m still in the midst of it.   It won’t be over until we’ve seen them all!  Of course, I love Dumbledore and I love this quote.  

Sometimes in life, we stand at a crossroads.  We have to make a decision.  We are deciding our course, we are showing our character, we are becoming ourselves.  Sometimes it’s dramatic and a big choice and other times it’s in our everyday interactions.  Either way, our choices matter.

How do we know what choice to make?

I remember once someone told me, “When your values are clear, your decisions are easy.”  So, I guess we should think about our values.  What do we value?  It’s not often that you would sit down to think about what you value but let’s do that…think of 5 things you value.  Let’s not list people, the lists would be too long and let’s just assume we all value all people.

Some examples for me would be my faith, my marriage, my children, integrity, kindness, love. 

It’s interesting.  I’d like to ask the young people of this era what they value.  I wonder what their answers would look like.  I think we spend a lot of time encouraging kids to accomplish things and to work on their abilities and we don’t always sit with them and encourage them to make good choices.  We talk about what they are good at (their abilities) and how many camps they are going to and who they are hanging around with but do we talk with them about their choices?  Do they know that ultimately they will not be defined by if they were on traveling basketball or not?  Do they know that they will be defined by their choices?  Are they prepared?

The other day I was teaching fourth graders about the Holy Spirit.  This is not an easy concept to teach.  I asked for a volunteer to tell me about the Holy Spirit and this adorable girl told me that it is “God inside of us, helping us and guiding us.”  Amen!

We talked about how you can’t see the Holy Spirit but you can feel it.  We talked about consulting God through prayer and scripture and quiet stillness.  We talked about looking at our lives and our choices through the lens of faith. 

My hope is that we can hear that voice of God inside of us…that we can be aware enough to access that divine guidance. 

Who knows when we will have to make a decision that will change the course of our lives?  

Who knows which decisions will matter the most?