I had breakfast this past week with a young teen friend who had to make a choice. She found herself at one of those forks in life — could have gone this direction or that direction. One direction was clearly going to require more effort. Why bother? She accepted the challenge in what she understood to be the better path.

This scenario likely sounds familiar to most of us. And it’s probably gone both ways. We’ve worked with choices we’ve made or we haven’t. Made the effort or not.

An experience in Alaska gave me a new way of looking at choices — especially ones that I know to be right, even when they are going to mean struggle.

It was late afternoon on the beach along Cook Inlet on the Kenai Peninsula. Our daughter’s family had been dip netting salmon in the Kasilof River near where it empties into the Inlet. Upriver the tender — a vessel which receives and transports commercial fish to be processed — waited for the fishing boats to arrive.

It was a warm sunny day with haze over the Inlet. While I hung out on the beach with the grands something slowly took shape far out on the water. As it moved closer, out of the haze came a fishing trawler making its way to the mouth of the Kasilof.

Soon another and another and another appeared — one behind the other, spread across the water, steadily churning toward the river. Bringing in the day’s catch to leave with the tender.

The sight brought an old song to mind, “When The Saints Go Marching In” — “Lord, I want to be in that number when the saints go marching in.” How a person can become moved to tears over fishing trawlers heading in for the day is beyond explanation!

It’s just that I felt a connection between the boats bringing in their catch — the day’s work — to meet the tender upriver and off load it — and the family of God coming home to Him one by one bringing our life’s “catch.” What will He be glad to receive? What will I have to give?

I don’t believe we come into this world with nothing and leave with nothing. The prayer of Moses in Scripture says, “So teach us to number our days, That we may present (bring in) to You a heart of wisdom.” I bring in to God what my choices and decisions have been. Whether they’ve helped others or hurt others.

I bring in how I’ve lived my life. And maybe sticking with a right choice — or acting on a kindness — or turning away from something alluring — or making a comeback from a place of deep struggle, maybe these are what God cares about. Perhaps He sees all the giving that hasn’t been easy. Hears the groaning that comes from fighting “the good fight.”

At the end of the day I have a “catch” to bring in. My life’s harvest. Only God knows its value. But I’d like to be able to say, “Fishing was good.”