Irrevocable

Last week a friend of mine was in a minor fender bender. He's fine - just sore and embarrassed. You see, he rear-ended someone today because he was trying to look at an email on his cell phone. I'm just glad no one was hurt more.

It got me thinking about the irreversible decisions we make in life. Most decisions don't fall into this category. "Should I wear this shirt or that?" probably won't affect your future. But other decisions do.

Some are obvious big decisions:

"Should I go to this college or that?", "Should I marry this person?" or even: "Should I go out with this person?"

But some don't seem too big on the surface:

"Should I go to so-and-so's house tonight?", "Should I try to pull out now, or wait a little longer?"

For my friend, "I can glance at this email" turned into "My car is totaled and I got a ticket" in a split second.

I remember when I totaled my parent's car. I just looked at it and thought, "There's no going back. No sweeping it under the rug. No apology will repair it. It's just gone."

Other times the only action involved in an irrevocable decision is saying something. There are no take-backs in real life. And even though we can usually get forgiveness for something we shouldn't have said, we can't always expect the person to FORGET what we said. Some times a decision to say something can "total" our lives or the lives of those around us.

I guess this is just a reminder to us all (including myself) to be intentional in what we say and what we do. Let's happen to life, instead of life happening to us.