What would I say to Brenda?

This morning when I logged on to Facebook I found that my friend, Brenda, had added this image as her profile picture. After I read it, I started thinking about what I'd say to Brenda if I thought she was willing to hear it...

I'd like to tell her that God loves her enough to give her the choice to believe whatever she chooses. And that we should all thank Jesus, our Lord and Savior, for His willingness to preserve that ability to choose because there was another who wanted to deny all choice and force us back to Heavenly Father's presence.

I'd like Brenda to understand that choice is a key principle to our existence. And that good and evil have to coexist in order for there to be choice. If you've never known evil, how do you even recognize what is good? This idea is so universal that it's a "law" of physics... For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

I wish Brenda knew that God doesn't choose evil for us, we quite readily choose it for ourselves. And we do it despite His ever present invitation to choose good... to choose light... to choose Him. He doesn't force us to do, say, think or choose anything. We choose whether to live according to the precepts the world or to accept His plan leading to life everlasting. Christ "stands at the door and knocks;" he doesn't come at it with a battering ram. Have you ever noticed that illustrations of this scripture from Revelations 3:20 show a door with no knob? He waits on someone on the other side to choose to open it to Him.

How she doesn't know all of this, I'm not sure. Brenda is intelligent, capable, curious, passionate and kind. After I think about it more and carefully choose my words, I think I'll say all of this to her. Even if she won't hear it now, I don't want to be in the position of someday having her come to me and say "You knew. Why didn't you tell me?"