My One Word: Choose

I put an old cd in my car yesterday. It was a mix that I made over a year ago. I didn’t know what was on the cd – for some reason I never labeled it. But as it started to play, I just smiled. Isn’t it funny how music can take you back to a specific moment in time?

This week I went to the grocery store. It was just a quick trip for one item. But as I checked out, I looked over to my left and noticed a man waiting in line. He was in a wheelchair. It was obvious that he was a paraplegic. His legs were atrophic. But his upper body was so strong. I imagined him being a football player in his younger days – or maybe he was born like this. Either way, I couldn’t pull my eyes away. I wasn’t sure why, though.

So there I was driving to the YMCA and listening to a song that sounded like this:
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Whatever's in front of me
Help me to sing hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Whatever's in front of me
I'll choose to sing hallelujah

And immediately my thoughts went back to the man at the grocery store a few days before. I thought – I wonder if he sang hallelujah. And then my mind meandered through the pages of my memory – to days that aren’t so pretty. To days that have been challenging. And I shook my head in disappointment. So many times I don’t sing hallelujah. I don’t even say thank you. I just get so so frustrated – or disheartened – or faith shaken – rattled – upset – sad. Name the adjective and I’ve felt it and expressed it. Some of you say ‘Awwwee, it’s ok. You’re human.’ You’re right. I am. But I’m a human Christian and I’m called to rise above humanity – to rise above the world – and let the holy spirit utter words of praise when I can’t. And when I can’t utter or pray or call out to God – the last thing that I need to do is reach for words that not only don’t glorify God but hurt him.

I pulled into the parking spot at the Y. I finished listening to my song and started praying. Choose. You want me to Choose, God? Is that right?

I got a towel from the dressing room and headed towards the gym. I climbed on an elliptical machine, chose my workout mode, put on my headphones and started pedaling my way through the workout. And still, I was complaining in my head. …my legs are so out of shape, my tummy doesn’t feel toned like it used to, wow my endurance is still weak…and then again my spirit felt: Choose. So I wiped the slate of words flowing through my mind and focused on the song in my headphones and found myself enjoying the burn in my legs. I moved over to machines to exercise my legs more – I wanted to shock them back to life.

And then, I was shocked back to life.

Choose.

I walked over to the free weights to work on my arms. And sitting there in his wheelchair pumping iron with the rest of us was the same man that I saw at the grocery store the other night. He is so strong. His arms bulge muscles. His chest is thick with power. His stomach looks like a blow to his abs wouldn’t phase him for a second. His neck says he’s been working out for years. I so desperately wanted to ask him, “Did you sing hallelujah? Did you? Do you?”

Quietly I went about my workout, choosing. I chose to do one more rep each time I wanted to give up. I chose to smile at strangers. I made choices while thinking. Try it. I bet you don’t realize how many choices you make in a day without really thinking about it.

As I finished up my workout and started leaving the gym, I glanced goodbye at my friend in the wheelchair. He was at a station created especially for those in wheelchairs. It was a hand driven cycle machine and man was he tearing it up! I admired him – and then I wondered if he even knew the clarity he’d offered me.

At our church we talk about new year’s resolutions. But we never make them. Instead we pick a word, one word, and we marinate on it all year long. Last year my word was Wait. It seemed like every time I turned around, God was revealing to me himself in new ways with that word.

I have struggled, this year, in trying to decide on a word. I thought I had one picked out, but it wasn’t turning up in my day-to-day life. Until this past Sunday. At church I was still asking God what my word was and I can’t recall the moment that he revealed it to me. But suddenly the chalkboard in my mind drew up the word Choose. So I asked God to confirm choose.

And then I had a conversation with my husband – it didn’t go so well. Immediately I realized that I’d chosen the wrong words. I had to humble and ask for forgiveness. The rest of the day I constantly was thinking about what my choices were – what would I eat next. What would I do with the baby next. Would I do laundry or dishes, cook dinner or think about tomorrow’s lunch, take a shower or put away clothes, shave my legs or paint my toenails, read the bible or watch tv, talk to my husband or seek silence for a few minutes, reflect on the day or think about tomorrow…

I don’t know his name. I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again or have courage enough to introduce myself to him, but the man in the wheelchair changed me. He may not have chosen it on the day he was born or the day that he became paralyzed, but at some point he chose. He had to have. He illuminated peace. Somewhere in his life God changed him and my friend chose: he sang hallelujah.

He praised God for his life and he chose to live. For the glory of God, this man lives.

So did Christ. And he chose to lay down his life for mine. For yours. He chose. He was, he is, God and he could have chosen another way. He is perfect. He could have done something more simple. But God came in the form of man, a beautiful, gentle, sinless, glorious, tender, wise man who allowed himself to be nailed to a cross and take on the sins of the world – of everyone – so that we might live.

And all he asks…ALL he asks is that daily I choose to live for him. I choose to pick up my sorry excuses and find new words, new ways, new love, new examples, new promises, new mornings, new nights, new visions, new dreams…so that my life is reformed, refined and sanctified so that I might fully live so that my life will fully glorify His.

How else will anyone know the love of Christ if they don’t see it through his brothers and sisters? How else will anyone feel the touch of the savior if Christians aren’t the lamps for the holy one?

I pray that in the face of good or bad that God will give me the courage to sing hallelujah and that in the midst of every regular day, I will learn to practice self control and become more diligent in choosing to live so that my friends and family can look at me like I looked at the man at the Y.

So today I’m choosing to choose.