Choose Life. . .



Bill McKenna has said: "Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in one pretty and well- preserved piece,
but to skid across the line broadside, thoroughly used up, worn out, leaking oil, shouting GERONIMO!"

Moses said: "...therefore, choose life..." (Deuteronomy 30:19).

I choose life - with all its choices, challenges and changes!

How about you?


Wednesday, July 14, 2010

If Walls Could Talk...

The For-Sale sign is up. Now the waiting begins as various people troop through the house passing judgments on its desirability. How could anyone not find it irresistible?

Lots of history in these rooms.

Falling in love with the sprawling avocado tree, visible from the entry hall the first day we came through the front door...

Our first son's firsts: words, steps, birthday. I was out of flour on the day of his first birthday and improvised a cake made with Bisquick. A bit lop-sided, but the toddler seemed thrilled...

Our second son's birth, and all his firsts, including trying to swallow a cabinet doorknob, followed by a ride in a police car to the ER...

Oh, yes, the first haircuts...at home...we didn't take kids to salons in those days...

The choice to bring my husband's elderly mother into our home in her waning years...that extended to fourteen years, during the last eight of which she was semi-comatose and bedbound...

The years of school, church, Little League, golf, music, college...first son's marriage...a miracle grandson...

Saying goodbye to my husband of 43 years after two years of aneurysm problems...

Launching second son in a new career, new town...

Merging of households with first son's family...

The Thanksgiving dinner we cooked on hotplates and crockpots with the kitchen all sealed off during extensive remodel...

Marriage of second son...on the hottest day of August in Inland Empire California...

Watching the grandson go through all the same schools as his dad and uncle had...seeing him graduate in the same colors...same school logo...sending him off to university...

And those are just the minimum highlights...I'll think of a zillion more, but to adapt a quote from a far better book than mine: "If every one of [the events] were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written" (John 21:25).

Choices? Changes? Challenges? Yes to all three. But isn't that life? Bring'em on. I prefer to make them, take them, and live them as they come. After all, what other choice do I have?