You Always Have a Choice

Last Saturday I was witness to a miracle. In June 2008, my son married a beautiful, wonderful young woman. I can freely admit that I would not have chosen her as wife to my son - boy, am I glad that choice was not mine to make! She is perfect for him - and he knew it.

Back to the miracle. She is, after two miscarriages, now in her second trimester with my first grandchild. There is a company that conducts an ultrasound exam which family members are invited to attend. Huddled in a darkened room with the in-laws, my wife and I got to see this new life for the first time.

Now the miracle that I witnessed was not one of modern medicine and ultrasonic imagery. It was one of choice. As many parents (and grandparents) do, they wanted to determine the gender of the baby. However, the baby was very active; moving kicking and tumbling one direction and another, and the technician was struggling to get that revealing pose.

Jokingly, my daughter-in-law said, "It doesn't want you to see!" And that's when I realized the miracle. This child, unborn as it is, was making choices. It can be argued that those choices were reactions to the pressure of the ultrasound device pressed against the womb, but the direction and frequency of movement were not directed by the technician - they were decided by the baby.

All of us, even before we were born, have been given the gift of choice. What a wonderful thing this is. We can choose for ourselves how to think and how to respond. When faced with difficulty and hardship, the one thing that remains is our ability to choose.

I recognize that there are psychological and physiological conditions that warp and distort one's freedom of choice. But even then, it is apparent that these suffering souls still make choices for themselves.

So what does this mean to me? It means that I can, as penned by William Ernest Henley, be the master of my fate; the captain of my soul. I cannot choose everything that happens to me - that would involve taking the ability of choice away from others - which cannot be done. I can always choose, however, how to respond to what happens to me.

I love knowing that I can choose how to respond to life's inevitable tragedies. I did not choose to have an accident on a motor scooter that left me hospitalized for 3 1/2 weeks and bound to a wheelchair for months afterward. I did not choose to have my father die from a brain tumor.

I did not choose my daughter-in-law.

I can, and did choose how to respond to these events, and it is in that moment of choice that I share common ground with the infinite - God, if you will.