Life Changing

I am reading a new book called 'The Five People You Meet in Heaven' by Mitch Albom. So far it is a really interesting book. It is about a man who works for an amusement park as a mechanic. The book starts out with the last few minutes of this mans life and the beginning of his death, and follows him into the after life where he meets five different people that are tied to him in some way or another. The first person he meets is a blue man that he had only seen once in his life and felt that they were total strangers, but the blue man explains to him that they are tied in some way...you end up finding out that the blue man saved the old man's life when he was young, but the old man would have never known it. In one part the blue man says, "The human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed."
Lately I have been thinking about this concept. Not so much about how when someone dies it is cause death passed another person. But how he says " the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed." I was thinking about the choices that I have made in my life and how they have not only affected my own life, but marks life as well. Before I came back home from rexburg in 2008, I had met someone that I felt I cared strongly for. I felt the need to stay in rexburg to be with that person to see if I could be with them in the future. I had spoken to my mom about staying in rexburg during my fall break and working, but she encouraged me to come home so I could be with the family. I was disappointed in my decision, but I knew my family needed me. Had I decided to not go home, I would have never met mark less then a month later. We would have never become friends and we would have never been together. My decision altered his life, in finding his future wife.
Our bishop who is a seminary teacher was sharing a story about when his wife and him went to the temple to pray about a new career move. After much prayer, they felt prompted that he needed to teach at a different school. His choice allowed my brother in law and sister to move to tucson to teach at the old seminary where my bishop was teaching. My sister then convinced my parents to move to Tucson where they could start a new life. The decision of my parents to move from oregon, in the long run, allowed me to move to the place where I would meet my husband. It is interesting that my bishop, years ago, following the promptings of the spirit, allowed for me to find the man I will spend eternity with. We are all tied together. The choices that people make, can alter our futures. Though, sometimes these choices may upset or disapoint us, in some way, our futures will be altered.
So interesting! Makes me feel that I need to be a little more careful about the choices I make in my life, cause I never know whose life I may alter.