From the book: ‘Thoughts. . . for one hundred days’ #33, Richard L. Evans shared:
No one ever lived their life exactly as they planned it. There are things that all of us want that we don’t get. There are plans that all of us make that never get beyond the hopes in our hearts. There are reverses that upset our fondest dreams. Unforeseen events are always in the offing.
Countless people who have had their careers carefully planned have seen them swept aside by a single sudden circumstance. Accidents, ill health, misfortune in money matters, the loss of loved ones, the faithlessness of friends, the tragedies of a troubled world, the missing of time and tide, and many other untoward events, can in a moment, take from any of us the plans and pleasures and purposes we have long pursued.
And when events take a turn we haven’t anticipated, and upset our plans and purposes, we sometimes give way to hopelessness or to fatalist fear or to bitter rebellion—rebellion against life, rebellion against our inability to control it according to our own ideas. And often we rail against facts that cannot be refuted, and bruise our heads and our hearts in fighting irrevocable realities. But when some looked-for accident, or some uninvited event does enter in, there is no peace or purpose in letting rebellion rankle within us.
There are many things in life beyond the present power of anyone to alter or to answer or to understand. In any case, rebellion isn’t the answer. But neither is hopeless resignation. Resignation may retreat too far. But somewhere between bitter rebellion and beaten resignation there is an effective fighting ground where one can make the most of whatever is; where we can still face each day and do with it whatever can be done. And when life rides roughly over our best laid plans, the way to personal peace, to faith and effectiveness, to accomplishment and reconciliation is to change what should be changed, if we can, and to make the most of whatever is, when we can’t for the moment change the facts we face. ~Richard L. Evans, Thoughts for One Hundred Days (Salt Lake City: Publishers Press, 1966) 80-81
