Not everyone has wild adventures worthy of a cable television reality show. But that does not mean life is not an adventure. There are days my homeschool classroom is worthy of a Discovery Channel camera crew filming a documentary about mothers who eat their young. Life is the adventure you choose to make it into. That is what makes it exciting. Every single day, we get to decide what music will be played when the credits on this show called “life” roll by. Will it be a slow, sad song? Or an upbeat, happy one? 

I used to believe that because I was not able to pick all of the circumstances life handed to me, then they were second rate circumstances. (Because, certainly, I could do a better job than God assigning circumstances to myself and those around me.) But now I realize, I do get a choice; I get to decide how to respond to the life I have. I get to decide if I would like to embrace a chaotic life – filled to the brim with doctor appointments, healthcare workers in my home, and enough boxes of medical supplies that we could build a fort large enough to house an entire elementary school – or if I want to stall out and wallow in the life I ended up with. 

I am no green thumb, but I love to get fresh flowers. The best is when my husband and sons bring me flowers out of the clear blue sky. Now, I know the flowers will wither and die. That is the end game for a beautiful bouquet of flowers every time. However, I still love to receive them. I cut the stems, just so, under running water, add the plant food that is rubber banded to them stem, and fill a beautiful vase with beauty, knowing full well, these won’t last forever so I better treasure them while I have them. When I am given flowers, I just love them and care for them and enjoy them. I don’t analyze each flower and mourn prematurely for the day in the future when they will wilt and I’ll have to toss them out. Rather, I smell their fragrance, stare at their colors, and even use them as a visual during that day’s homeschool science lesson. 

The point is this, whether or not I had been able to select every circumstance of my life, or if I had been able to find the best of all the flowers available and put together the “Queen of Botany” bouquet, unless I choose to embrace it, it will vanish before I have had time to enjoy it. Every day is actually a gift that we have been given. God has chosen each of us and placed us in this moment, in this space for a reason. But He’s also gifted us the choice to decide what we do with our circumstances. Are you going to embrace life? Put the plant food in the vase and fill it up and enjoy? Or are you going to leave the flowers laying on the counter and refuse them water out of protest that they weren’t the exact shade of aubergine that you typically prefer?