Choices, Decisions and Prayers
(of answered and unanswered varieties)

I often find myself reflecting how a life unfolds. We spend alot of time contemplating the 'meaning of it all'. The meaning for us mortals lies in the way things play out according to our plans, wishes, desires and prayers. The end result...the 'how it plays out' part, will be attributed to a variety of causal effects...depending on our view of what makes the world spin. Some will call it God's will and His response to our prayers (a "yes or no"), others will view it as karma, destiny, kismet, accident, or even totally meaningless, or random happenstance.

We "pray about it", "put it in God's hands", "wait on God's signal", "petition God for his will", or we "take our hands off the wheel" and let God take us where He wants us to go by either directing our steps...or doing the stepping for us. Some of us will live virtuous lives, believing there is a reward for "doing it right". We look for signs that tell us we are moving in the right direction. We leave our mind open to all possibilities, lest we miss an opportunity we might have never considered. Or we close our field of focus and pick one thing (or person) to play the role of what we KNOW we need to make us happy. We try and try to have control of some sort, so that the story plays out the way we WANT it to...happily ever after...as we chase the elusive fairytale that our childlike heart still believes exists for us.

Now I am not trying to paint a dim picture here, because I do believe that whatever gets us there is how we allow ourselves to put one foot in front of the other through the hard times that lead us to the next happy season in our life ...those "kodak moments" when we say to ourself...."this is SO right..this is IT! Surely THIS is my purpose, my destiny, my prayer answered!" And then we embark on the path set before us knowing (THIS time...after so many failed other times) THIS one's going to be different, because THIS is what I have been searching for all my life!

Tell me...how many times has this played out in your life? Have all your happy beginnings...had happy endings?

Happiness comes in small portions sometimes and in subtle ways we might just miss, if we don't pay attention.

One of my favorite movies is "Under the Tuscan Sun". It's a story of a woman who has a prewritten plan for how her life will play out. She is a newly divorced American who happens to have a free trip to Tuscany fall into her lap when good friends can't make the trip and give her the ticket, knowing she needed something positive to do for herself. So she embarks on the trip and utlimately buys a broken down villa in Tuscany and decides to start an entirely new life in a strange country.

She finds herself wishing (praying) for a number of things...things that will surely make her happy if only her prayers are answered. She prays for a wedding in her garden, she prays for the sound of children's laughter in her home, she prays for a family to love and enjoy. But somehow it all seems to be eluding her. She has this picture in her mind. (Don't we all?) of exactly how it all should play out for her "happily ever after". The story's ending might be sad if you buy into things having to play out exactly as you want them to. Your happy ending would be her meeting the perfect man who will love her for all eternity, she has a beautiful wedding in her garden and she is the princess bride, that she would have a house full of laughing children, and all HER prayers would have been answered exactly the way she wanted.

But she doesn't find the perfect man, in fact she has no man in her life at all...at least until she stops trying to find him and make him who he needs to be to complete her self-composed dream for her life. Rather...everything she prayed for DOES come to pass, but it's her pregnant friend who arrives on her doorstep and decides to stay after the baby is born...that ultimately brings the sound of children in her home. And it's the young couple that she befriends who decide to get married in the beautiful setting of her garden, that enables that happy event to unfold. And it's the wonderful friends she has made who give her the sense of family she has never known.

We often get what we ask or pray for... We often don't get what we think we need. We often miss the subtle things that can take us in a different direction onto paths we could have taken. Are these missed opportunities? Or were these things never meant to be, or not yet ready to be experienced because we are not ready for them? Happiness is in the small stuff, the Kodak moments...a life filled with memories (some good, some not so good), a life filled with hopes and dreams.

Pay attention to it all... or you might miss the ladybug sitting on your shoulder.