Category Archives: Inspiration

Choices

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A guest post! This time from our very own Mitton crew! The middle son had to do a speech for school and this poured out of the junior higher’s brain. I think it is quite profound, so thought I would share it…

We make decisions everyday; some big, some small, but decisions are always there and they always have an effect on the future. Choosing between Mcdonald’s or Tim Horton’s may seem like just an everyday task, but your decisions can change the course of your life, other people’s lives, and ultimately the world itself.

Your decisions affect you whether you realize it or not. Some decisions you make directly affect you, like getting married, accepting a job, or choosing to retire. These are called direct decisions. Direct decisions are choices that are made intentionally to change one’s present self. Some decisions however, affect you indirectly, meaning they were not intended to affect you but in the end you were affected. These types of decisions are often the ones that lead to you being affected in a negative way. For example, let’s say you decide to commit a murder. You, yourself will not be affected by the death of the individual you murdered. You will however, be affected by the punishment you receive for committing the crime. So you inadvertently negatively affected your life through a chain of events. Or, in simpler words, you made an indirect decision that had a negative outcome.

Photo credit Nathan Lemon

Not only do your choices affect you, they affect everyone around you. Choosing to promote someone, or stealing someone’s wallet, are obvious ways your decisions affect people, but did you know that the things you do alone in your house also affect other people on the other side of the city? For example, let’s say you’re at home and no one else is there, and you decide you’re not going to do the chore your parents told you to do. They’re not there so why does it matter, right? Your parents won’t be home till late that night and you probably won’t see them till the next morning. So you go to bed. Next morning comes and you’re getting ready for school when your mom walks in and starts yelling at you for not doing whatever it was you were supposed to do. You get all mad about it and now you’re almost late for school. You run to school and someone is standing right in the way of your locker. By now your fed up with everything that’s happened in your day so you yell at the kid for standing in your way, ultimately hurting his feelings and making the rest of his day miserable. Now, in this small story you can see just how much your decisions can affect people. The seemingly harmless choices made affected three different people: the mom, the dad and the other student.

Your decisions are powerful. So powerful, in fact, that they can even change the world itself.

Changing the world may seem like something only a few people have done — but the truth is, every single choice that any person on the face of the earth makes, changes the world in some way. We many not be able to see how the world has changed, and the world may not change until we are long gone, but I can promise you that the world will change. It may seem unrealistic to think that {something as small as} you sharpening your pencil will change the world — but all you have to do is look back at history to see how small decisions formed the way our world works today. Teddy Roosevelt was the 26th president of the United States. He could have died if he had not decided to put his speech in his pocket. In 1912, Roosevelt decided to put his 50 page speech, that he was preparing to present, in his chest pocket. Later that day, the folded speech saved his life from an assassin’s bullet.

D-day was the most costly, but important, victory for the allies in the Second World War. The allies may never have won however if Erwin Rommel (who was one of the best field marshals in the world) didn’t decide to surprise his wife with a vacation a few days before  D-day. Both of these choices may seem like improbable coincidences that will probably never happen again, but given the amount of choices we all make every day, I say something like this is bound to happen again.

So why does this matter, what do any of the things I just said to you in the last five minutes mean to you right now? It means you should make the right choice. Every choice you make — wherever you are — make the right choice, because your choice can change the world, it can change the people around you, but most importantly your choice can change you!! For better or for worse. It’s your choice.    

             SO? What do you say, my friends? Are you making the right choices? Be encouraged that God is there to help you make those choices. His plan is perfect… and it’s true, we have no idea how our choices may change the world! See you next week!

Lucy Maude Montgomery’s Anne

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My youngest received a boxed set of the Canadian classics: The Anne of Green Gables Series, for Christmas this year, and she just recently cracked it open. As the first book sat there on the couch, I smiled as I glanced through a few pages and read some of the infamous dialogue of the beloved “Anne”. Melodrama becomes the little orphaned girl who was supposed to be a boy helper. I was a big fan of the books when I was my daughter’s age, and was an even bigger fan of the 1985 Canadian television mini series starring Megan Follows.

Anne — with an “e” — is the delightful character created by Canadian author, Lucy Maude Montgomery. Her never ending chatter and imagination (and “horrid” red hair) won the hearts of many a young girl, and Montgomery’s novels became international best sellers. I’ve claimed her in this week’s muse, in honour of International Woman’s Day (recently celebrated back on March 8th). The research I discovered marks L.M. Montgomery as an even more interesting Victorian lady than I had once thought.

She was raised by her grandparents, and although her Anne books were very successful, she struggled with depression and angst. She seemed complicated… a spiritual woman who questioned her faith and the church, and was often angered at political agendas and the atrocities of war. Her journals and diaries contain her grief stricken outcries at things that she saw in the daily news, as well as in her own day to day duties. Her love life was confusing at best, and she although she seemed to follow the suit of marriage perfectly (as befitting the times and her strict Presbyterian upbringing) she did not seem happy in it. Her “fleshly” desires seemed to get the better of her and she longed for a bit more of the wild side.

Even her death seems somewhat of a mystery. The official books say she died of a blood clot in her heart, but there are rumours that her bouts of depression may have lead her to take her own life via a drug overdose. This complicated woman appears so far drawn from the character of Anne… the whimsical red-head that seemed so innocent despite her strong willed nature. But such is the escape of a good book, eh? Especially one that I am encouraging my youngest beloved to fall in love with ….

And so I muse about the complexity of this wonderful creation that God has given us as women. We are delicate and yet bold. We are strong and yet weak. We are certainly complex. I think of the short glimpses of the biblical women we see: Women like Mary, Esther, Ruth and the woman who wept at Jesus’s feet. The woman at the well, who questioned. Rahab who risked much to save others. These women lived in a time so unlike ours. They had no International Woman’s Day to celebrate their gender equality. They were the lowest of the low… and yet stood in honour in the eyes of their Saviour.

They were bold and courageous. Certainly, many were not perfect. In fact, most of them made some very poor life choices. But God used them mightily despite their gender — and despite their lot in life. He used them to move the events of time. To change history. To further His plans.

Perhaps, Lucy Maude Montgomery’s, Anne, is no real comparison to the biblical characters. Perhaps I have no business equating one story to another, but it did make me muse a bit about what makes women so special? Why does there seem to be a balance between fragility and boldness in the lives of women? Why do we fight to have gender rights when we already seem to have such a strong presence in this world already? Has Satan so deceived us (like he did Eve) with his smooth talking, leading us to believe that we are somehow less special to God and His plan for the world?

I really don’t have the answers. I’m just as complicated as the next chick. But for now, I will encourage my girls to delight in being daughters of the King, and to enjoy a good novel about a feisty little red-head, with a wild imagination, who gets into just a bit of mischief, and changes the lives of some people — simply by being who she was created to be.

Roller Coaster Ride

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I was chatting last week with a friend who was handed a pretty hard lot in life recently. Her seemingly blessed life was rocked with shock and abandon. The ripples were filtering down into many different parts of her life and she was becoming simply numb to it all. Our life journeys can be like that sometimes. And Jesus followers are not immune to this dark world, either. We have seasons of joy and seasons of pain, too. No where in the Bible does it say that just because we got God, we get a free ride. We get a ride, alright, but it’s often a roller coaster ride that sometimes we don’t want to take.

Photo Credit: Unsplash Jr. Korpa

Yet, the beauty of it is, Jesus makes the ride bearable. He brings the joy. The thrill of the hill that allows us to tolerate the down turns. As my friend and I chatted, we came to the conclusion that unless you experience the darkness, you don’t recognize how beautiful the light is. Only when you have been in the cold, dark, dampness, do you appreciate the warm glow of the fire. Your faith begins to grow stronger and purer because it stood the test of the dark.

Many of us question why bad things happen to “good” people. Why does God allow the innocence of a situation to be tainted by the darkness? No easy answers, I am afraid. But I am encouraged by the words of a worship song called Blessings by Laura Story. She wrote it in response to one of those dark moments in her own life. I encourage you to read about it and her story here. The song lyrics challenge us to look at those dark days in a new and different light. To wonder “What if our blessings really do come from raindrops?” Only God can see the end of the roller coaster’s track, because we’ve never been on this ride before. We can’t focus on the turn ahead because we are only looking at the bottom of the hill.

Photo Credit: Adi C.

mittonmusings.com is a lifestyle blog — with a twist of inspiration! We designed it that way to stand out from other lifestyle blogs, not because we have all the answers, but because we want to encourage others who are along for the ride. We’ve opened up our 30 days of Blessings challenge again, to do just that. Perhaps you need to feel the joy of the ride right now. Or could it be that you need to be that crazy friend who holds your buddy’s hand and buys you both a ticket for the “Loop de Loop” when neither of you have the courage? It’s not too late to join the challenge! Sign up here. Maybe it is time for us to keep our hands and feet inside at all times, and keep our seats in the upright position, secure all loose articles, and simply wait until we come to a complete stop before we exit left. Enjoy your ride, my friends!

Photo Credit: Unsplash Chris Slupski