The imperfect choice

"How much of human life is lost in waiting" 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life has a tendency to surprise us, confound us, cripple us with indecision and leave us sitting in the woods of Worry trying to perceive the perfect pathway through the encroaching trees.

In two weeks (D.V) it will have been 11 years since I accepted the "Call" to leave my homeland and venture forth in response to obedience. Few people in May 2002 thought it wise or wonderful for me to move to Germany; fewer still thought I'd last long there, most expected me to return quickly, made wiser by a refreshed awareness and acceptance of my limitations. Yet 11 years later that journey has led me much further afield than Germany.

It is said that hindsight is 20/20 and we confirm our choices by looking back and seeing the proofs that determine whether we have made wise or foolish choices.

I'm so deeply pleased with who I am; who I am with, where I am, and what I am doing, that it is easy to assume I must have made the "perfect" choice 11 years ago.

"For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else." 

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

But there is no way to know what my choices in the past 11 years have lost, for both me and for those around me. There was a time that I sought repeated assurance that I was doing the "right" thing, in the "right" place, with the "right" people, at the "right" time. There was a time I believed deeply in there being the perfect way to journey through life and I was consumed with worry that perhaps I wasn't going the right way. 

Now, I'm becoming more comfortable with the idea that what I do and where I do it is less critical than I thought. If I can be happy with who I am; also happy with whom I share myself with, and finally feel reasonably confident that what I'm doing hasn't offended too deeply those I love and have committed myself to, then I'm willing to forego that old sense of certainty that it is the "perfect" will of both God and my fellow man. 

God isn't expecting me to be perfect, my wife isn't expecting me to be perfect, my bosses aren't expecting me to be perfect, my family and friends aren't expecting me to be perfect and finally, and only somewhat occasionally, I manage to claim a place beside these great ones, where I also briefly cease to expect perfection from myself. 

I like where I am, and have decided that having the assurance that it is the perfect place wouldn't add much to the pleasure of just being where I want to be, with people I want to be with, doing something I think has value for the world around me. 

God knows if all the choices I'm making right now are right or wrong. But I'm trusting that imperfect though I am, if I can just enjoy the journey as it unfolds, I may be one of those rarest of men. One who is content with his life as it is, even if that life was made with imperfect choices. 

What imperfect choices have you made recently? Or are all your choices perfect?