choices

No Small Lives

| Marie Griffith

We’re six days into the New Year and that means the ads you see on your screens and hear on your radio are all about making changes. Improving our diets. Getting fit. Taking control of our finances. Organizing our homes. Changing this and changing that.

Marketers know that with the new year our desire for a new way or a better thing or at least a change in the way we look or feel is heightened. We want our lives to be different …..we want them to be better.

But if we pay close attention to that desire we realize it’s more than that. We want to know there’s a purpose to all of this. We want to know we’re making a difference. We want to know our lives matter.

And they do.

You’re 1 in 7,000,000,000 people on this planet but there’s One who knows your name. He created you (Psalm 139:13). He is the One who gives you breath (Genesis 2:7). And he knows the number of hairs on your head (Matthew 10:30).

Our lives matter and so do our choices. Who we are at home and at work and the gym. It matters. What we do in the grocery store or the bank and at the salon. It matters.

You don’t have to be an athlete, an entertainer, a politician or author. It’s those of us in our workplaces, at the schools, and in lines at the store checkouts that make the difference.

There are no small lives. “For in him, we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28)

And it’s the day to day living where it counts the most.

Living like it matters is when you choose to smile at the disgruntled guy in line at the express checkout and letting him go ahead of you since he only has 3 items compared to your 14.

It might be calling your parents when you’d rather sit and watch your favorite show. Or fixing a meal for your neighbor. It’s also when you don’t overcrowd your calendar so that you are available to your teenagers just in case they want to talk.

What you think is mundane may be someone’s most meaningful moment. No matter who and where you are, you can live like it matters.

That’s the most important change you can make in 2017.

Photo courtesy of nina lindgren

To Do

Quote | | Marie Griffith

My weekly “to do” list is as long as it was on Monday.  I’ve checked some items off but added others. I have ongoing projects at work and my plan to complete them hasn’t happened. The business letter I need to write is only half written.

At home the garage is still unpainted and the new garage door opener hasn’t been installed.  My closet is still a mess and some of the pretty plants I bought to put in my front flower garden are still in the pots I brought them home in.

I did other things.  Things that aren’t on the list.

I cooked homemade chicken noodle soup for my family and helped my oldest daughter with her Geography homework Monday night. I planned to be in bed early but had a nice conversation with my kids instead.

The next evening, my daughters and I did a 2 and 1/2 mile walk on the country roads around our home.  We talked with the neighbors when we returned.

I ran into a friend this week and visited with her.  Played in the yard with my youngest daughter and the dog and stayed up late one night talking with my husband.

And something I rarely do….I watched a favorite TV show.  It was splendid.

Sometimes our plans don’t happen when or how we want them to.  It’s frustrating.  This week I chose to be flexible instead of staying irritated about thwarted plans.  With three kids, full-time jobs, and all the other things we have going on…..I have to.

I will check those things off my “to do” list eventually.  I have more important things to do first.

What if the choices you thought were small, were actually the ones that mattered?

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “The Satisfaction of a List.”

A Love Letter

| Marie Griffith

I found a letter in between the pages of one of my Bibles.  I keep it as a reminder of where we were.

It’s a love letter.  Not the mushy kind inspired by infatuation.  No, the only similarity to a middle school love note is the notebook paper on which it’s written.  This love letter is not the kind filled with dreamy visions of the future.  It’s not loaded with good intentions or empty promises.  No fancy words were used, no love songs quoted.  This love letter was a simple expression of his feelings for me.  And a surprise one, too, because it had been at least ten years since the last one.

Hard times caused him to write it.  We were struggling.  Not connecting, not agreeing, whatever the reason, hard times came.  We weren’t doing so well with them.  We lost it with each other.  We said things we meant at the moment but wish we hadn’t.  Things like, “I can’t do this anymore” or “do what you have to do.”  Words that made us wonder if we even knew each other at all.  The kind of words that hurt deep down.  Then the silence would come and sometimes more anger.  Most of the time the silence brought revelation, understanding, conviction.  It definitely brought regret.  I came face to face with my foolishness, my pride, and that brought its own kind of pain.

He chose to break the silence with a love letter.  I remember the moment clearly.  He didn’t say a word when he handed me the folded piece of paper.  He left me alone to read.  I won’t share his words, those are mine. But I know they were written in a moment of pure love, the kind you feel so intensely that you think your heart will burst. The kind we express when we love our best.

We are still learning to love well.

I have a long way to go.  But I’m on the edge of becoming someone better, someone more free to love the way I’m supposed to.  God is transforming me with His perfect love and I’m still learning.

This learning process seems painfully slow at times.  But I’m not defeated when I mess up.

John Piper writes in his book When I Don’t Desire God, “To be sure, our all-too-slow growth in Christ-likeness matters.  It is the necessary evidence that our faith is real.  But, oh what a difference it makes to be assured, in the discouraging darkness of our own imperfections, that we have a perfect righteousness – namely Christ’s”

“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own”.  

Philippians 3:12  NLT

So I cherish this letter and all the other perfect moments we share.