One Moment

The last time I spent the night at my sister's house, her daughter asked if I would sleep in her room with her. As we lay in her bed that night in "the cave", as I call her room..a cozy closed in carport set apart from the rest of the house...she said something that started a long conversation that was so much of a foreshadowing that it is scary to think about. I don't remember her exact words, but she mentioned how one little moment can change the entire course of a person's life. I love talking to Kaylyn because she sees things so much deeper than most people her age. I think I see myself in her because she feels deeply and puts everything "out there" for others to see. If she feels it, then she says it. Because of this, our conversation was easy, yet deep. Before that visit to my sister's house was over, what Kaylyn and I had discussed two nights before came to light. One tiny moment cascaded into something that changed, not only the entire course of that visit, but the last three months of our lives. Not only that, but it pulled in other people with it. Everyone involved is okay now, but different....all because of one tiny moment.
It has led me to think even more on what Kaylyn and I discussed that night, almost as if speaking of it made it even more true. I think of the decisions that my mother made in her early life that led her to my dad. As quickly as a decision has to be made, any of them could have gone another way.
Sometimes it is the moments that we do not have control of that take hold of us the most. My mom didn't choose cancer, but that moment..standing in the kitchen with my sisters as our daddy told us that she had cancer...changed me forever. Everything I am is in some way a result of the loss of my mother. My life as I know it literally started that day standing in the kitchen...in that one tiny moment.
As each one of my children have been born, I have thought about the circumstances that brought them to me. Every time I look at Jeff and wonder how I could have ever deserved or been fortunate enough to have him, I think about the path that led to him. If my dad hadn't decided that I should work a couple of years before college, I would not have had the classes with Jeff when I did go. If I had chosen another major in college, I may have never even known him. I chose my major because of one time when Vicki mentioned that had she gone to college, she would have majored in Physical Therapy. I started out in Physical Therapy, then changed to Occupational Therapy after the first semester. What if Vicki had not said that one little sentence in that one little moment. Even as she said it she could not have known that it could have set the entire course of my life...just that moment when she casually stated that she might have majored in PT.
I know that God already knows the course of every person's life. He does not carve our paths out of the tangled web of life that we have to weave through, but he knows what decisions we will make...which forks we will take...which branches we will destroy to get through and which ones we will go around.
If I think of the big picture, every day of my life becomes so much more significant. Every word..every deed...every decision...every hug....every phone call....every moment becomes so much more important. Even as I was writing this, I received a phone call about a decision that Jeff and I need to make. It is as if God was preparing me, through this, to understand the significance of our decision. God does have control. He allows us to make our choices and choose our paths but offers small signs along the way for us to follow...like broken branches and trampled grass. I pray that I will watch for them because any one decision can change everything.....for the good or for the bad.