What Is Not In Our Hands

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Linking with Imaginary Gardens for The Tuesday Platform

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Oh, my friend, it's not what they take away from you that counts. It's what you do with what you have left. ~Hubert Humphrey

I have held many things in this life.  Some worthy of keeping some worthy of letting go.  The trouble is, I have not always recognized the choice and its importance in the midst of holding on.  

There is a memory I still hold of a fallen baby sparrow that fell out of its nest.  I was merely 6 years old and was fascinated by this frail feathered creature.  I wanted to take care of it and keep it for my own, but like so many lessons I would learn in my life, it was just not mine to keep.

That particular day, we were planning an outing to the Zoo.  Outings were a rare occurrence at our household growing up.  I am not sure if it was just because my mother did not have a driver's license or was slightly agoraphobic like our grandmother, but none the less we stayed home most of the time.

I do not recall every detail, but I remember finding the little bird on the ground and having a special cardboard box to place him in.  When the time came for my father to take me and my brother to the Zoo, I was given a choice.  Did I want to go to the Zoo or did I want to stay home with my mom and the precious little birdie?  Maybe most children would have chosen the Zoo, but not me, I wanted to take care of this wonderful little bird.

Unfortunately, after my father left for the Zoo, I found that staying with the bird was not all I thought it would be.  Sure that the bird would give me some strange disease, my mother made the decision that I could no longer touch it.  So the thrill of staying home with it soon lost its luster.

Looking back on the memory I realize that it probably was not a wise idea for my parents to give me such a choice to begin with.  The bird would have been there when I got back home, and that was the only time I can recall that my father ever took us to the zoo.

Some choices are tricky.  We think we have control over the situation or the outcome, but sometimes simply making the choice at all turns out to be a lesson in just how much we do not have control over the outcome.  Life is full of uncertainty; surprises at every turn. We do not have the luxury of knowing what may surprise us around the next curve, but we do have the freedom and opportunity to learn from the choices we have made in the past. To gain peace over what we can control and what we cannot.  What I have learned is this: we cannot control all that comes our way, like a bird falling from its nest, but we can control how we deal with the outcome, or accept what God truly has placed within our hands.