Choosing Wisely, Please Vote, Anniversary

I have maintained throughout my Christian life that the most difficult decisions are not the ones between right and wrong, but between better and best. It is fairly easy to choose properly if we consider one of the two choices we could make clearly leaning to a sinful outcome. We often know what is wrong and thankfully avoid, by God’s grace, choosing that wrong. 

What challenges us as believers is when, of the choices we are considering, none of them are clearly sinful in and of themselves. Choosing what to eat or drink, where to shop for our basic needs, what route to take when driving to a particular location. That sounds over simplified, but it is not. Depending on the circumstances or the timing, those decisions can be affected in either a positive or a negative way. So, we make as informed a decision as best we can. (And we can certainly pray for guidance in each of those choices.)

More subtle choices that have a profound effect on our lives are choosing the right friends to connect our lives to, or choosing a church to attend with our family, or the schooling we will provide for our children. These are important decisions where we need the guidance of the Holy Spirit to choose wisely. (Do we pray about those decisions or just let things evolve on their own hoping the Spirit is guiding us?)

Less in focus is choosing our elected officials. It may not seem connected to our lives in any direct way, but the choices we are about to make in the coming Texas primary are fundamental to the government we will have for several years to come. I bring this up because I have been trying to parse through the noise to help identify the candidates we will pick during this primary runoff. Mama, Grandma, and Grandpa are looking to me for that guidance. I appreciate their trust, and I certainly do not want to violate that trust. 

So, the choice comes down to taking what is available and known about each candidate and making the best choice, especially when there is not really a good choice among the candidates vying for the respective offices. Early voting begins today for the primary election here in Texas. I do not know how the general audience feels about early voting, but we will vote early because it is available to us, and it makes it convenient for us to get Grandma and Grandpa to get to the polls. 

They want to vote, so we make it as easy as possible for them to do so. When we are relegated to one day, in-person voting we will comply. With early voting, the polling station is almost always empty. Rarely have we encountered a crowd. We generally walk into the polling station, present our ID, get our ballot and the code needed to register our vote and go to the voting booth. That is important for Grandma. Anyway, if there is a primary in your area, please vote. Do the best you can to choose wisely, but please go vote. 

Along the same line of thought of choosing wisely, I am really struggling at the moment. In order for Mama and me to keep the farm, I must draw from our saving every month to make up the shortfall in income. I have tried several avenues of earning the required shortfall, but none have proven the right course of action. I have not chosen wisely in any of these attempts to bring in the extra income. Don’t get me wrong, Mama and I are not in danger of losing our farm, but I feel I have less than a year to make some kind of drastic adjustment to our lifestyle to stay financially solvent. Please pray with me about that.

Mama and I are both at the point where selling the farm would be an option. I am physically challenged to do the work by myself so having Grandpa and Norman to do a large portion of the upkeep has been a blessing, but that cannot continue too much longer. Plus, Mama and I would like to downsize and perhaps relocate to Florida, and I would love to provide that for her sooner rather than later. While we both have the health to enjoy such a life. I am finding myself longing for a simpler, less obligated life. I am longing to have Mama to myself for a while, if we can ever work that out. Such an endeavor will be a series of better versus best choices. Pray that Mama and I will be very sensitive to the Holy Spirit in each decision - whenever that time comes. God’s way always produces the best outcomes. Proverbs 10:22 “The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it.” That’s what I’m looking for.

Today is Grandma and Grandpa’s 64th Anniversary. Kudo’s to them.