The Road Less Traveled....

You know you are getting old and crazy when you get up at 5:30 am on Saturday just for some quiet time to blog.

I am turning 40 this year, in October. I have learned many things about life and myself in the past 40 years- but I have learned more about myself in the last 3 years than all the other 37 combined.

This is partly due to the nature of life itself and partly due to the nature of MY life the last 3 years.

A great friend of mine, Ang, the other half of the heart recipient, emailed me last week the day of her 40th birthday. She said she had been thinking a lot about the number 40.

She said that life is kind of like Moses and the Israelites- we wander around in the wilderness for the first 40 years and only a few of us make it bravely to the other side- to freedom and a better life- and only then through great faith and God's grace.

I have learned to feel comfortable in my own skin, in my own life. I have learned that it does not really matter what other people think. They are not your ultimate judge....

I have also learned that all people have struggles and trials, the difference is how we choose to handle them.

It took my moving out of a very, very comfortable place in my life and moving to a place of utter newness and chaos for me to see that with a strong spirit, a positive outlook and a willingness to change- God will take you through the chaos....to more chaos.

But you will grow stronger and wiser with each difficult, baby step.

During the last 3 years, many things have happened to my family and me that I do not understand- many that I do understand and know exactly what lesson I needed to learn.

For every day I spend in worry, I eventually see that all things happen for a reason

and generally that day I spent in worry was all in vain- because the outcome was better than I imagined-

or something so amazing that I could not have imagined it at all.

Because we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

Haven't I read that somewhere before??

Yes, I had read that many times but I do not think I actually, truly believed it whole heartedly until now.

I have faced many crossroads in my almost 40 years. Many times I took the easy way. But as one of my favorite poems allows, when I took the road less traveled, I learned the most valuable lessons and had the most fun.

I am at several crossroads in my life now- and I hope I choose the correct, less traveled route- although not easiest route- and I hope it makes all the difference.

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

That which does not kill us makes us stronger......Robert Frost knew that.

Now, after 39+ years, so do I.

Pretty deep for a Saturday.....