I'm on the road not taken...

The road well travelled is easy to spot.  It is worn and it is usually crowded with a lot of travellers, any one of whom I can follow.  I can recognize the road by its distinctive path and well defined boundaries.  The road well travelled is smooth, leveled out, free from overhanging branches that can draw back and slap you in the face.  It is a road were you know what to expect simply because others have travelled there before you.

    The road that I am on is very different.  Wild grasses grow on this road.  The way is unclear. There is no distinctive path to follow and no one to show me the way.  The end is not visible, let alone ten feet in front of me.

     I may notice a beautiful rose bush, yet get pricked by the thorns as I walk by.  The key is to remember the beautiful roses... not the thorns.  Drink in their aroma, behold their beauty for it is in that beauty that God speaks, “I am here, I am walking with you.”

     I was not put on this earth for me.  I was put here to glorify God.  My life is not my own.  I think I am finally coming to understand what that means.  A friend reminded me of this the other day.  I was having a particularly bad day, everything seemed overly complicated.  It probably would have been a normal day for an able bodied person, but with my disability, it made everything a lot more frustrating and time consuming.  I was so focused on what I was doing, what I couldn’t do anymore and what I would never be able to do again.  Me, me, me.  

Well, I have news for myself,  IT’S...NOT...ABOUT...ME!

Benjamin Franklin said, “Those things that hurt, instruct.”  I believe that in my hard, lonely and difficult times where I cannot take one step further... God speaks.  If I let Him.  He shows me that it’s only about Him and what He created me to be.  I just simply have to learn to do the most difficult thing in the world... I must learn to wait on His timing.  I must believe that at that exact perfect moment, and only He knows when it is, He will reveal to me His instructions.  And I need to be grateful that I am here, alive and breathing to sing His praises.  To love and to be loved.

Jesus said the greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul  and with all your mind.  And the second is like it:  Love your neighbor as yourself.”  (Matthew 22:37-39)  

Love is what it’s all about, loving others and loving Him.

     When I can love and thank my way through the bad times, the road less travelled becomes a bit more clear.