“Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.”
―J.R.R. Tolkien

We plan our lives and take comfort in our security. In the end, however, destiny has a way of choosing our path.  J.R.R. Tolkien recognized that there would be some who would be assigned more difficult and dangerous undertakings.    Destiny does not choose the bravest or the strongest, but the one who is ordained for the task at hand.

We are given a life.  What we must decide is how we will use the time that has been gifted to us.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” 

“It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.” 

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring