Decisions Determine Destiny

"Decisions Determine Destiny", President Thomas S. Monson has been saying this for over 40 years. I found this article he wrote in the 1979 New Era https://www.lds.org/new-era/1979/11/decisions-determine-destiny?lang=eng . There is a reason he needs to be saying this for that long, it is true. Decisions do determine destiny. There are so many examples in the scriptures, history and in our own lives. A song "Centuries" by Fall Out Boy has what got me thinking about how decisions determine destiny. "Just one mistake is all it will take….you will remember me for centuries." The times that we live in now with the internet means that some news stories never go away. People remember them. Not that we need to hide away in the house and never get out (that's been on the news). We need to live our lives but we need to understand that decisions determine destiny. In President Monsons article I read this :

"To you comes a second question: “Whom shall I marry?” May I make personal application of this question? At a dance for the freshman class at the University of Utah, I was dancing with a girl from West High School when a young lady from East High School danced by with her partner. Her name was Frances Johnson; I didn’t know it at the time. I just took one look and decided that there was a young lady I wanted to meet. But she danced away, and I didn’t see her for three more months. Then one day, while waiting for the old streetcar at Thirteenth East and Second South Street in Salt Lake City, I looked and couldn’t believe my eyes. Here was the young lady whom I had seen dancing across the floor, and she was standing with another young lady and a young man whom I remembered from grade school days. Unfortunately, I couldn’t remember his name. I had a decision to make, and I thought to myself: “This decision requires courage. What should I do?” I found in my heart an appreciation of that phrase, “When the time for decision arrives, the time for preparation is past.”
I squared my shoulders and plunged toward my opportunity. I walked up to that young man and said, “Hello, my old friend from grade school days,” and then he said to me, “I can’t quite remember your name.” I told him my name, and he told me his name. Then he introduced me to the girl who later became my wife. That day I made a little note in my student directory to call on Frances Beverly Johnson, and I did. That decision was one of the most important decisions that I have ever made. Young people who are at that particular time in their lives have the responsibility to make similar decisions. They have the important responsibility to choose whom to marry—not only whom to date."

I know that for me when I made the choice of marriage it was a decision that at the time was right but in the one run ended up wrong. I can see how my decision determined my destiny. I know that at that time it's what needed to be. Just like I know right now I'm where I need to be. I need to be a single working single mother who keeps learning and growing in the gospel and in life. I keep trying as hard a I can to follow the Saviors example. I know my Heavenly Father loves me and has a plan for me. I want to be the woman that he expects me to be and to help others. I am a daughter of God, I will keep moving forward with him because decisions determine destiny.