Life’s choices
Have you watched your fill of holiday movies this season? Everyone has their favorites. Mine include The Sound of Music, though I’m still not sure why this is considered a Christmas movie — does it have anything to do with the holidays? Doesn’t it take place over the summer? National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is another classic. But my very favorite is The Family Man. If you’ve never seen it, I highly recommend you do.
What I fear more than anything else is that I will reach the end of my life with a mountain of regrets. Everyone has something they wish they had done differently. I’m not really talking about the little things; I’m referring to life-changing decisions. I worry my bad decisions will outweigh the goods ones, so much so that my life’s triumphs will be unnoticed in the face of blaring defeat.
The Family Man looks at one decision and shows a man how different his life would be had he taken the other path. I wonder what my life would be if I had chosen differently. If I hadn’t married Rick … if we had no children … if we had moved to Boston insted of New York … if … if … if …
I think about me before these decisions. I was a hippy artist in high school and a globe-trotting humanitarian in college. I was assertive, confident, even cocky. I was involved in everything. I was an actress and a player. It seems a lifetime ago in someone else’s backyard. Have I left who I am behind? Is that who I am or is who I am now the real me? Have I made the right choices?
Everytime I start thinking this way, a song from church echos in the back of my mind. It slowly crescendos until its words are all I hear. “My Savior loves. My Savior lives. My Savior’s always there for me. My God He was. My God He is. My God He’s always gonna be!”
The same God I served in Bosnia and Switzerland and Indiana and Philadelphia is the same God I serve now. He is living and loving and always by my side.
In the movie, Tea Leoni’s character talks about these what if’s. She wonders what her life would be like if she hadn’t married her husband … “and then I realize I’ve just erased all the things in my life I’m sure about.” I love that line.
Life would definitely be different. But it doesn’t matter because the same God I served then I serve now and He is the one in control. He knows I need what I’m sure about. He knows our best purposes and will ensure we fulfill them.
Posted on December 20, 2007, in Christmas, doubt, fear, purpose. Bookmark the permalink. 5 Comments.
Great post, Tanya.
And the movie is excellent, too. My husband and I have always enjoyed it, but last night we watched it again – for the first time since having our daughter. And even though the movie moved us before, this time it took on much greater meaning.
You know, Tanya, my husband discussed this issue this morning, the issue of decisions and regrets. He said something I think is really good: “This life really isn’t THAT important.” The point is, when it all boils down, I think too many of us are afflicted with wanting to “earn” what is good, but what is good is God, period. So it is the state of our heart that matters, not every little decision (this includes what we consider the big ones) that determines our value to God and man. How we “bounce,” so to speak. I don’t know if this helps, it’s hard to put into the right words in a comment! ; ) But you got me interested in seeing “The Family Man,” that’s for sure!
Cami: If my heart is aimed correctly, won’t my decisions reflect that? I understand your point (I think), but I see the two being intertwined. Obedience stems from the heart, as does sin. So where the heart is, the actions will follow.
Exactly. You got my point. If our hearts are right, we don’t have to dwell on our decisions. It isn’t important to dwell on them. To use an intense example…my best friend, Krystal, and her husband were killed in a car accident the year after my daughter died. Krystal’s dad had died three years before this. As I talked with Krystal’s mom, we shared our grief, she said that when her husband died she had toyed with regrets about decisions she made during that time…but then she thought, “God was with me as I made the decisions I made, and He knew what I would decide, so He was in it all; it isn’t right for me to regret, to doubt Him.” This has always really spoken to me.
I’ve always liked what Oswald Chambers said, too: “Jesus never concerned Himself with mistakes, He always left mistakes to correct themselves.”
Honestly, our own desire for higher good, coupled with the accusations of the enemy of our souls, causes us to doubt ourselves, when really, it always comes down to His working in our hearts, our growth in the knowledge of His character–no matter who we turn out to be in this life, or what we do. When we all stand before God one day, I don’t think it’s going to be every little thing we did that represents us, but the testimony of His Spirit through our hearts; what HE did.
I know how I shared it before seemed confusing…I hope this is a bit clearer. Thanks for giving me a chance to try! : )
Hi, Tanya,
Enjoyed your Post, Hope you and your family enjoyed Christmas..
All of those movies you have mentioned I have seen in fact I was Given the Sound of Music as a gift for Christmas and can you believe we sat and watched Christmas Vacation just last night..and Family man well it is such a good movie..
Blessings to you