Crucial choice

by Rod Smith

There is brokenness that leads to re-building, improved character, renewed strength, refreshed creativity. 

I believe this capacity lives within us all.

I have seen this with my own eyes; men and women build beautiful lives after devastation, loss, betrayal and untold grief.  

There’s brokenness that leads to bitterness, regret, desire for revenge and retribution.

It, too, lives in us all. 

Stubbornness, coldness of heart, perhaps based in a desire for justification, provokes a tough journey.

I’ve seen men and women “go stubborn” and “go bitter” and be lead by the nose to destinations unbearable. 

Brokeness, some, not all, is inevitable, comes packaged with life, time, age, growth and misplaced or misunderstood levels of trust.

Some comes as a result of pride and selfishness — or the rather simple but trustworthy principle of reaping what we’ve sown. 

What will you do with yours? 

Your brokenness? 

What will I do with mine? 

Our response — and it need not be immediate for wisdom is seldom knee-jerk — is a crucial choice. 

It is not an easy choice, but choice is where it all begins – a little like Robert Frost’s “two roads diverged in a yellow wood.”

A choice to build and learn, a choice not to defend or attack, a choice to love in the face of rejection, a choice to give people what they ask for, a choice to engage, or not – perhaps the choice less travelled, will make the difference. 

Our home this morning

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