"Life is what you make it." Sound familiar? Every since I was a small child, I learned that we all have to make choices. We can choose to be happy. We can choose to seek and find the good in all we do and with the people we come into contact with. We can choose our partner in life.
It was a long time ago, but I think...correct me if I am wrong and you know the answer, but my Uncle Roger gave me a VHS of Mary Poppins. It just so happens, that it my most favorite movie of all time. Mary Poppins taught me a lot, and solidified things I innately believed. First, is that you can find good in every situation. Even in the most traumatic situations, at some point, you find some positive spin on it. She demonstrates this ideology when she is encouraging the children to clean the nursery.
"In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the job and SNAP! The job's a game. And every task you undertake, becomes a piece of cake." - Marry Poppins
A friend of mine has spent years being angry at her father about choices he has made, despite his efforts to make amends. As is usually the case, she is exactly like her father. When she asked for my honest feedback and opinion on the matter and I had to ask if she truly wanted it. She reaffirmed her desire for an honest response to her question. Even now, a few years after that conversation, I don't think she has accepted that she is her father's daughter. It makes me feel sad for her, because she is missing out on so much. No one is perfect, and holding a grudge against your parents helps no one. I thought about her when I was thinking about "life is what you make it." Because, we can choose to hold onto anger and hurt, or we can choose to forgive and live life to its fullest. We can choose to be the victim, or we can choose to be a survivor that was once victimized but not dwell on the things that were and are out of our control.
We've all had moments when we felt life was out of our control. It's natural. It's human. How we choose to come out of that whirlwind moment of mortality is up to us. In the grand eternal perspective of our time spent here on earth it is but a moment. Like those moments when you can relive an entire decade in your mind, or situation can play out so quickly in a moment in your mind, so is life on earth.
Today, I choose to love. I choose to care about who I am as a person, how God sees me as a person, and how I serve Him. Today, there is a belief in my heart and mind that as I choose to increase my capacity for love, tender words when appropriate, making better decisions with whom and how I spend my time, and my daily effort to be honest and fair in my dealings with my fellow man, that through that effort, my life and the life of those I come into contact with will be enriched. Not only theirs and mine, but my future family will be blessed from my efforts because I will be better for engaging in such an effort.
Choose to live, by choosing to love. Choose to love, by choosing to serve. Charity, never, ever faileth.
Allow me to rewrite Mary Poppins' advice by saying "You find the challenge and SNAP! The challenge is a game. Choose to play, it's the only way to win."
