Choices

I never knew gray could inspire so much until this morning.
Debo and I had left home earlier in the morning to buy some materials for her hair in the African store on Broadway Street in Chicago. We ended up getting more than we planned.

We were just about to leave the store when I saw him. Gray hair, wrinkled face, bent back. His shirt was torn on one of the sleeves. He stood by the door of the store obviously having no plan to enter. Something told me he’s been there for a long time. He’s seen many come in and go out of the store. I quickly put his age at a bit above or below seventy.

I couldn’t ignore him. He didn’t want to be ignored. He moved toward me and waved his hand. I saw his palm. It was scarred and rugged.

“Can you spare me some coins ’’

I looked at him and my heart broke.
I felt he should own the store and not beg by the door.
I could give him coins or notes and I did but I knew they weren’t enough so I pulled him to the side told him about Christ and led him to Him.
I wished he had done this some decades earlier.


I am now at home, starring at the computer but seeing him, typing away my heart’s outflow.

Gray, the closing of the day.
The setting of the sun.
Night time.

For me it is early in the day. The sun’s eyes are not yet bloodshot. It is still in the western skies. Night will take a while before its appearance.

I am not speaking of the day as in twenty four hours. Not as in rising up, going to work and coming back home. I am speaking of my lifetime.

I am in the morning. Not a strand of gray on my head. My back is not an angle bent. I can run miles away and back. I have taken few steps yet. I have few to retrace. I have more ahead. I still have time even though it ticks away at every heartbeat, every breath.

Night approaches.
I must decide now how night will be. I have a choice now.

Will it be a chilly night out in the cold with no place to sleep? Will it be pitch black with no light to see?
Will it be with a mortgage unpaid? Credit cards ‘maxed’ out?
A car I partly own? Creditors at my heels?
Children, who came, left and forgot?
A body cancer is eating up?
Will it be with sleepless nights of regrets? Of wrong steps, shortcuts and meanders that led nowhere?
Will I own the store or stand at the door hoping for a handout?
I must choose! I choose now!

I choose today to be aware that afternoon follows morning and night definitely comes after.

I will remind myself often that each day holds my future’s secret.
I will tell myself regularly that life is a piece of china. When broken, its fragments are moments. Each second counts.

I will keep it close to me that acts are pioneers. Words are explorers. Thoughts are navigators. They all journey ahead of me to find a territory in tomorrow. Each act I will meet again. Each thought and word I will reap again.

I will present my all to God knowing I am bought and owned. My car has no life of its own. It moves as I drive. I have no life of mine. I will move as He drives.

I look through the windows of my house, walk through the door, and I sit in my loveseat like king. I am His house. I will let him look through the windows of my eyes with compassion for the needy. He will walk through the door of my heart to touch the world. He will speak through the pulpit of mouth. He will sit and reign in my thoughts and motives.

My mind will not ponder on the forbidden. My body will not be a tool of the enemy but His means of touching the world.

Instead of drugs I will be disciplined. Instead of perversions I will be pure. Instead of crime I will climb steadily in wealth.

I will not sleep when its time to work but work sometimes when its time to sleep.

I will not spend tomorrow’s dollars today. I will delay my pleasure until it falls within my means in God. I will give now so I will not wear the beggars gab later.