When a Decision is a Quandary

“One doesn’t have to know everything about one’s destination when one begins a journey.” (Quote from The Song of Sourwood Mountain)

I shared about how I helped Mira come to life to share her story in The Song of Sourwood Mountain. Once she came to life for me, then in the very first sentence of the book I threw her into a decision making quandary. Here’s the sentence.

I’m sure you have faced situations that pushed you into the necessity to make a decision. You may have wavered first one way and then another. What would be best? What would happen if you said no or if you said yes. Maybe you didn’t have to make a difficult decision about getting married as this first sentence seems to be making Mira face. I hope when someone you loved popped the question or that perhaps  you asked that important question that was going to affect the rest of your life, that the only answer, the easy answer on your lips was yes. It wasn’t that way for Mira. She thought Gordon’s proposal was ludicrous, ridiculous, and her answer of yes impossible.

Even so, the proposal he’d made burrowed down inside her and couldn’t be completely dismissed. She had always dreamed of having a family. She thought fate had blocked that path forever. But deep inside the desire lived on even if she thought it impossible. And maybe it would have been except for how the Lord blocked some paths and opened some new paths to her. First there were her mother’s words threading through her memory as she held the small ceramic bluebird her mother had passed down to her with these words.

When I see a bluebird, I can’t help but think of the love with which the Lord surely formed that first bird. Through that love, the Lord gifted us with joy and hope whenever our eyes delight in its sight. May this little bird help you remember not only my love but the Lord’s as well. A bluebird of happiness.

And then the Lord put Miss Ophelia in Mira’s life to nudge her to see the possibilities opened up by Gordon’s ludicrous proposal. Here are some of the conversations between Mira and Miss Ophelia that a reader (Babbling Becky) highlighted from the story and shared with me after she posted a review.

 When Miss Ophelia suggested Gordon was a suitor, Mira was fast to deny that.

“He isn’t my young man, and I haven’t received a call to be a missionary.”

“Are you sure? I think that is why you ran away this morning. You are afraid of the call you are feeling. Fear has a way of paralyzing us, coloring our thoughts, making us want to believe we know more than God.” 

Later they talked again with Miss Ophelia sharing about her own past and a decision she lived to regret.

“Do you want me to live out your dream?” (Mira said)

“No.” Miss Ophelia shook her head. “I want you to live out your dream. One the Lord appears to be pushing you toward.”

Mira loved teaching and trying to help her students be ready to grasp whatever good might come their way. One verse she shared was Psalm 37:4. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of  your heart. (NKJ) Then she would challenge them to consider the desires of their hearts. At times they turned the question back on her, and she always had a ready answer. But now, in the story, that answer is being tested as deeper desires rise within her.

What were the desires of her heart? (The students would ask.) She had a ready answer. To teach them. To let her light shine. Sometimes she would quote the next verse to them. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass. That was her way of letting them know that the Lord would, as her mother always said, provide. He would plant the proper desires in their hearts and show them the way to reach those goals in life. Had she taught that and never truly believed it?

Had the Lord provided? That was the decision Mira had to make as she faced a different path than she had ever considered. This last conversation was between Mira and Gordon.

“Don’t we all have choices?” (Mira)

“We do, but sometimes until we walk the same paths as others, we can’t understand the choices they make.” (Gordon)

We do all have choices. At times those choices are easy. Sometimes they aren’t.

How do you make decisions that are difficult? Pray? Talk with a friend? Make a list of pros and cons?