We make choices everyday in our life. some good and some bad. Hopefully we will make more good choices than bad ones. I have been thinking about some people I have known over the last few years who have made choices that have had an affect on my life. These people made their choices thinking of themselves and not considering the other people whose lives they would also affect. Always remember that the choices you make aren't just going to affect you they will also affect those who are around you, those you have had contact with. It's been so sad for me to stand back and watch people throw away the things and people God has put in their life because they wanted to do things their own way or they wanted to "make their own mistakes." Why would you want to go out on your own and make mistakes with no one around who can really help? I mean we're all going to make mistakes, so I would rather make a mistake and have someone around who loved me and could really help me.
Every time someone makes a choice there are two outcomes: hurt or happiness. There really isn't any middle when choices are made. In just the past year I have watched three people that I was very close to make the choice to turn away from God. It hurt, but it made me love God more and want to stay close and to pray that God doesn't let me go and give in to my own way. The first person turned away from God because she wanted to be married and she didn't want to bring him around and get the holy Ghost. Another person left because he is very easily influenced and in his words he wanted to "make his own mistakes". Finally, the last person, my sister, left because she didn't want to listen to my parents and she wanted to move in with some guy. In every one of these situations they weren't established in the Lord. They never really dug in to learn about God. In all three of these cases I was hurt by the choices that each person made, but I feel like they have made me stronger. I think about these situations and everyone who was hurt and it makes me never want to hurt any of my family, those who care about me and love me and who have invested time in me to make me a stronger, better person.
When I was 10 years old I was hurt by someone who I looked up to, someone that I cared about so much. Even at 10 it hurt me to know the choice she was making, but God turned it all around. Ten years later, when I was almost 20 she came back. The very first meeting she was in her husband received the holy Ghost, it was SO sweet. It took me a month or before I could fully be happy because I still felt some of that hurt. God brought it around so that I could tell her how I had felt 10 years before. In no time God fixed it all with us. This is one of the times when a choice brings happiness and that night is a memory that is ingrained in my memory.
You know God has never let me forget the way I felt when I was 10 years old and I am so thankful for that. I remember in college I would be lying in my bed trying to fall asleep and I would pray not to ever hurt anyone, especially the kids that looked up to me, like I had been hurt.
