CHOICES

Sometimes we are turned inside out. We want to run kicking and screaming from the insanity of it all. We want to regain some kind of control. And sometimes there doesn't seem to be any way to do that.

It seems unreasonable, unbearable. We all have choices and sometimes the best choice is to not make a choice. Choices can injure us, unhinge us, they can move us forward, or they can stop us cold in our tracks and consume us.

As this year ends I am struck by the choices I have made this past year. Some of them caused me unthinkable pain and others unapproachable joy. Do they balance each other? Are they supposed to? I made friends, lost friends and love, and learned lessons, mostly the hard way. Will the new year be any different? Probably not. After all we are human and this is life.

Then a friend reminds me of the lives I have been blessed to touch - some known but most not. The series of Pockets of Peace ( www.pennysfromheavenfoundation.org ) books that I authored and that were distributed through my foundation to thousands of our soldiers who are struggling moment to moment to find hope, faith, inspiration, motivation, honesty, strength, love and courage so that we have the freedom to make choices.

Our lives come with a story attached. And our choices become memories - some good, some painful and some joyful. But they all stitch us together into who we are.

This next year we will love people, lose people, cry, laugh, dance and rage out as we face the daily practicalities of this life. We will once again reinvent ourselves and once again learn to forgive ourselves.

This is it. The rest will be but a memory.

Listen for that still small voice whispering, "You can do it."

Say the 'sappy' stuff, love with all your heart, cry, hold hands, laugh, hug, scream, yell, sing, dance, and pray.

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Live with purpose and passion and meaning and mission and with a little wild abandon. With no forgiveness withheld and no anger held within.

Tim Nichols and Craig Wiseman

~Live Like You Were Dying~