Sunday, 20 February 2005 - The road less traveled

Dear God:

Today, I am thankful for the road less traveled.

My decisions may not support popular opinion, but they've made my life unpredictable, challenging and totally mine. As a high school student, I fell in love with Robert Frost's poem, The Road Not Taken, and embraced its message as a theme for my life. During the past 50 years, I've taken many roads heading east, west, north, or south - each one leading to the exact place I was suppose to be for that moment or day or year.

I remember the roads not taken - the "what ifs" and "could haves" of my life. At the end of the day, however, I know that those paths were meant for some else. By choosing them, I would have strayed from my God-given destiny. Instead, I celebrate all the roads I've walked and marvel at how they've brought me to this very point in time. I anticipate my next adventure and hope it leads me to Paris or the French countryside.

I know my days are numbered. Now, as I embrace the autumn of my life, I realize the importance of each new twist and turn in the road. Every runner knows how the race intensifies as the end approaches. The last 100 yards are the longest and most agonizing. Yet, you run harder, sprinting down the straight-away towards the finish line and uncertain victory.

Until I breathe my last breath, I will heartily agree with the traveler in Frost's poem as she explains her dilemma, ultimate choice and conclusion about the whole affair: Two roads diverged in the woods and I, I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.

For this blessing, I am grateful.

Amen.

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

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.