Come join us!
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.
