I went to lunch with Roxie yesterday. She’s one of those Southerners I told you about last week who’s so polite and says everything is GREAT when asked how she’s doing. But, Roxie is a friend who’s real. She does, though, belong to that group of women who can make it through a whole meal never disturbing their lipstick. How does that work? It fascinates me because no matter how hard I try, I can’t do it. It’s troubling to think about how much lipstick I have eaten over the years.

After we were seated, I opened the menu and proceeded to totally confuse myself. “Oh, maybe I’ll get the soup and a salad. No wait, soup and a sandwich. Oh, but I could have a sandwich and a salad.”

I settled on the soup and salad and was relieved to find out the salad came with a special dressing. Otherwise I would have had to choose from the list of 12 dressings servers recite in their sleep. Why are there so many choices?

I used to get heart palpations as I walked toward the Starbucks counter because I wanted to say my order correctly. For the longest time I just got black coffee because I was afraid I'd sound like I didn’t know what I was talking about. I have my favorite drink figured out now and won’t dare change because I’d have to face the pressure of making choices again. There are choices in everything down to toilet paper; soft or strong, regular roll or giant roll, single ply or double ply? Seriously, we’re talking about something that ends up in a sewer plant. I suppose we should count ourselves blessed because we have so many choices.

Even though we don’t have control over so many things that happen, we do have control of the choices we make. Not just toilet paper, coffee or lunch, but life choices. How we talk, how we treat people, what we give back. Living with the results of those choices, the good and the not so good, is just part of the package. How easily we turn to blame someone else for a decision we made that didn’t turn out well. We have the privilege of choice and with that privilege comes responsibility. As my once kindergarden teacher daughter-in-law says, “Let’s see if we can all make good choices today.”

“ ... preserve sound judgement and discernment, do not let them out of your sight ... " -Proverbs 3:21