Thankful Thursday...Choices

I love Passover Week. I will admit, I am a history/archeology nerd. I love reading the footnotes in my bible, watching the shows on the History Channel, studying the rituals. I'm a bit of an apologetic, and I love to prove the truth and accuracy of God's Word, historically. I even chose for our ladies book club the new Josh McDowell book, The Case for the Real Jesus. They are, I suspect, just trying to be nice to me. But I'm loving it! I've read it twice so far.



Somehow, every year, during the week before Easter, my thoughts wander. You see, Easter is not just the celebration of Christ's Resurrection for me. On Easter, 1998, I rose from the dead, was freed from myself, and began a relationship with the Holy Creator of the Universe. Easter is my birthday! And this is one birthday I don't mind celebrating!

But I cannot help but wonder at all the choices that went into my salvation. First, God chose to place me in the family and time that He did. My parents tried for 2 1/2 years to conceive me. Then, He chose to have me go to DHS. Then He chose to place me in a French class with a cute white kid with a fro. Jerome & I chose to start dating. Jerome chose to love me, even though I thought his beliefs were ridiculous. Jerome chose to continue praying for me. My now mom-in-law, Rebecca, chose to allow him to continue the relationship, because she saw something higher. Mark chose to challenge Jerome in where the relationship was going, and to pray for me. Jerome chose to stick with me, to answer all my questions, to ease my fears. Jerome chose to invite me to church. The members of the church chose to welcome me, to love me regardless. And finally, I chose to trust. I chose to trust that words I read were true, the love I felt was real. And I chose Jesus.

We may think our choices don't matter, that we really do not affect eternity. But they do. Every choice, great or small, will affect the destiny of someone. And that someone could be someone like me.

This week, I am so thankful for those choices. Because those choices led me to the greatest relationship I could ever have. And, on Sunday, I get to celebrate 11 years of friendship with Jesus, who chose me.