Reflections

I played kickback with Josh Masopust in the gym tonight. It felt so good to kick the soccer ball around again and I was suddenly filled with regret that I never played during college, not even one year. I could have been on the team freshman year, but I chose to focus on work and school instead-- I just didn't have time.

I wish I had made time. But then I think about how different my life would have been. Spending most of my time at practice and games, travelling, making close friends with the other girls-- my life would be completely different right now, my senior year. Who knows what would have happened had I just made a different choice on one simple decision.

This got me really thinking about my choices. How often do I miss out on things because of choices? Not that I necessarily make wrong choices, but that if another good choice could have led me down a path that could open up doors to other things-- and I missed it because I chose something else.

Then I think, "Well, God's got everything worked out." But how often does He let us mess up our own lives? This is something I really struggle with. At camp, they tell us God is in absolute control of everything and that anything that happens was specifically chosen by God to happen. I wrestle with that a lot, because I don't understand that God would create us with the ultimate plan for us to fail. It doesn't make sense to me. I do believe that he controls things when He wants to. He hardened Pharoah's heart, and didn't let the Israelites leave Egypt right away. Why? To test them? To strengthen them? If God had left Pharoah to make the choice, would he have just let them go? To what extent does God harden my heart to things or people?

Sometimes these things are so confusing....