The Other Path

Robert Frost authored one of my favorite poems, a poem I love to share with my students about the road less traveled. Even though as first graders, they didn't understand every bit of it, or maybe even a lot of it, they knew it was beautiful and lovely because of how much I loved it and by the way I would tear up at the last line.

Because I had been on the road well-traveled for the first 23 years of my life. And that road would have led to absolute destruction. I have no doubt of that. And even though the Lord brought me onto the road less traveled, I sometimes find myself wondering about what would have been on that other path.

I know what I had walked on that path before it diverged. Anxiety. Paranoia. Lack of confidence, self-worth. A driving, insatiable need for acceptance. And the willingness to do almost anything to have it.

What would that path have held had it not diverged? Had I left the comfort of college and home without Christ? Sometimes I'm not sure I want to know. But I imagine I'd be miserable. Used. Never satisfied. Empty. Forever 21. Failure to launch, just pretending I had. Still Wiccan? Or would I have moved onto something new to get attention or stand against the conformity of blah blah blah.

But the path that Christ leads me on? Simple. Not easy, by any means, but centered and resilient. That insatiable need? Not completely gone, yet full. But the overlying peace. The peace that no matter what, Christ waits in heaven for me. That even death has no power to take that promise or separate me from my inheritance.

I don't know how those that don't have it get through each day, in all honesty. I'd be afraid of everything. And I don't want that for a single human being.

That road? That divergence in it? It's available to take. Everyday, there's an off-ramp from the well-worn path of weariness. Let Jesus pull you onto the path less taken. It will make all the difference.