Choices

When my family and I returned home from our Christmas travels, I started feeling a little under the weather. This feeling quickly turned into not feeling good at all. I spent the better part of a week reclining on the couch under several blankets and I still could not keep from shivering. I didn’t eat because I wasn’t hungry, watching movies or TV was not relaxing, reading a book was not relaxing. Nothing seemed to help take my mind off of my shivering, or my aches, or how bad my body hurt, etc…

While trying to find a more comfortable position on the couch I started playing with my cell phone. I have downloaded a lot of apps I rarely use, and since nothing else was helping to distract me from my pitiful condition, I thought I would look through these apps and see if I really needed all of these programs I had on my phone. One of the first apps I opened was one that helped count calories and track a person’s diet. I had downloaded the app because I really wanted to lose some weight; I just have a hard time making the choices to get the extra weight off. The more I played with this app the more I wanted to use it to keep up with what I put in my body. Since I had nothing better to do I began inputting the foods I was eating, and then I went back several days trying to remember everything I had eaten and input that into this program. I knew what I had been putting into my body but did not realize what exactly I was consuming. I did not realize my guilty little pleasure every morning (a 12 oz. can of Coke) was taking up a lot of the calories I was allotted per day. I did not realize how many calories I was blowing through with the little snacks I normally had at the office.

In less than a week my body shed 20 pounds. I would highly recommend not losing weight by being sick. But I now have several choices before me. I can go back to the way I was consuming food and quickly regain those 20 pounds, or I can begin to make changes in what I consume to keep the weight off and possibly get down to a healthier body size. I can choose to do what I have been doing or I can choose to make changes in my life to spend more time exercising to make my body healthier.

Twelve days into this New Year, most of us have choices before us, not just about how much we eat or don’t eat, or exercise or don’t exercise… We have choices before us to begin to change our lives and the lives of those around us. The choices we have are sort of like the choices of food we consume. If my New Year’s Resolution is to be a better spouse, am I going to “consume” choices that help me become a better spouse? What about a better friend? Or a better parent? Too often we view our choices independent of all other choices we make, but too often our choices are dependent on other choices we make. Each choice can help us become a healthier person, a better person, the person we have hoped we could become. There are no wasted choices, no choices that really don’t count. Poor choices can take away valuable time, energy, and resources that could be dedicated to moving us closer to our desired resolutions.

The choices we make today will impact our lives tomorrow. My hope is that we all make better choices, so that we become who God created us to be.