The Cost of Choice

Someone asked me why I loved to write. So many words ran through my mind, but one stood out. CHOICE.

I feel a need to write about the cost of choice, to show readers strategies that lead to success or failure. 

Life choices are complicated and serious. I’m not talking about picking your favorite flavor of ice cream. I’m talking about decisions that change, transform, and destroy. 

As a writer, I paint word pictures conjuring up good and bad characters and then throw them into a myriad of life scenarios. I allow their lives to touch one another in positive and negative ways. Once their lives are entwined, what erupts is not always pretty. Evil challenges good. One person makes an irreversible decision that often whiplashes onto other characters. Sometimes the weak become strong and the strong become weak. Other times the weak sink in despair and the strong get fiercer and more determined.  

As an author, this is where my role is pivotal.

The characters begin to ponder their choices. They look at how to maneuver through and around them. Once a choice is made it is hard to withdraw it without cost or stabilize it without regret and remorse. Choice shapes the course of one’s history, setting up internal conflict, igniting dry brush into forest fires or bursting a dry meadow into lush green.

I want readers to visualize the importance and cost of their choices. 

Why am I so passionate about this? Because I’ve made some poor choices. I see others do the same thing without stopping to think about the repercussions.

“Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.” ~Natalie Goldberg

So, I write and speak about what disturbs me.

Having worked as a Court Appointed Special Advocate for abused, abandoned, and neglected children and later working with their abused mothers, I am passionate about the topic of choice. So passionate I write about real-life characters (names changed to protect the innocent) whose lives are messed up because of poor choices, and the people that come alongside them to encourage better life choices and options for difficult situations.

God has had me on a journey, facing my own demons and ministering to those whose demons have cut deep into their joy. Cries of Innocence, Cries of Grace, and Cries of Mercy (2018) demonstrate how people can rise above abuse, disappointment, and brokenness.

 I have an awesome, but sometimes daunting responsibility as an author. When I write I am given the opportunity to touch the mind, heart, and soul of the reader. 

“The printed word only has the potential for meaning, implication, response, and result. The reader is the one who must activate that potential and breathe life into words. How else could the quiet printed text become an active interplay of ideas and feelings. Reading makes things happen as we imagine what the characters are doing, and how they are going to navigate through situations and critical choices.

Reading prepares us for the unexpected. It helps us share in a common humanity, encourages us to see other’s views, and depicts a myriad of life’s experiences for us to contemplate. Reading can make us see a new world or the same world in a new way.” ~Angela Beach Silverthorne, SUNY Graduate paper The Power of Reading

Choice waits in the palm of a hand, never suspecting the muscle tension as one finger after another closes over it, obscuring the promise of security or calamity. That’s why good choices are so critical.

All it takes is one word, one action, one deed to change everything.

In the process of writing and reading, we learn strategies for making wise choices. Never underestimate the power of the written word. 

Here are three strategies I use when faced with a choice:

1.     Stop. Don’t make a hasty decision. The world will not fall apart if you wait. Psalm 27:14

 “Be strong and let your heart take courage; yes, wait for the Lord.”

2. Pray. Don’t feel pressure to make a rash decision. Psalm 62: 5 “My soul, wait in silence for God only.”

3. Write out the options. Choose wisely. Pray over your decision. Colossians 3:15 “Let the peace that Christ gives control your thinking . . . to have peace.”

Never underestimate the cost of choice. Make wise choices. Pray. Seek God’s will.

God bless you,

Angela

Responsibility In Making Choices

Billy Graham speaks to my heart. In his devotional, Day By Day, Graham wrote about the power of choice. It seems the norm in our culture is to constantly point fingers and blame others for all their problems and everyone else’s. Sometimes I want to go into a rage over this, but that would only add to the problem. So here’s Billy Graham’s call to begin understanding that we are all part of the problem in what we do, don’t do, or say. I do believe God wants us to proclaim the liberty of owning up to your actions and stop putting blame on others. The end product of taking ownership would be liberty . . . the freeing of captives bound by the name-and-blame-it game.

Hope you enjoy Mr. Graham’s devotional.

Blessings,

Angela

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Viktor Frankl in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, describes the reactions of two brothers with the same heredity, the same environment, in the same concentration camp under the Nazis. One became a saint and the other a swine. Frankl tells us the reason why. He said, “Each man has within him the power to choose how he will react to any given situation.” God has given us the power of choice. Some people today do not wish to accept the responsibility for their actions. They blame society. They blame the environment. They blame the schools. They blame the circumstances. We can’t blame it all on somebody else. We must accept the blame ourselves for our part. Society is made up of individuals. If we have social injustice, we’re the ones who are wrong; we’re part of it. Let’s accept our responsibility to do something about it.

Prayer For The Day: With you help, living Lord, I want to make the right decisions so that I may touch society with Your healing love.