To Journey

We are all travelers on a journey.  There is this great path laid out before us and we can only see so much of what's ahead of us at any given time because we are never meant to know the whole story and see the whole way.  It wouldn't be an adventure if we knew what to expect.  We don't know where the bends come.  We don't know when the terrain will get rocky or steep and hard to climb.  We can't know when it will rain or shine down sun or when the wind will whip around us so hard that it will knock us on our feet.  And when we come to a fork in the road, we can choose go either way.

But the thing with forks in the road, is that when you decide to go down one way and you end up on this hard and difficult road to travel down, it's easy to think you should have taken the other route.  You become convinced that the other would have been easier or that you've made a mistake and picked the wrong side of that fork.

Journeys are never meant to be easy though.  If it were always easy, what fun would that be anyway?  What would we know of challenge, of strength, and of courage?  What would we know of adventure, and of thrill and excitement?

Really though, we travel down the roads we are supposed to.  It's never a mistake - at least I don't believe it is.  Wherever we find ourselves - a bad job, a disappointing relationship, reeling from a huge loss or death of a loved one - all of it is intended and meant for us.  At the end of the day, we get to decide how we are going to respond in these situations and how we will continue to live in spite of them.

For me, I believe that God is able and does use all things, whether they feel good or bad, for our good.  He may not cause bad things to happen, but He allows them.  My whole life, I've hated that.  It doesn't seem right or fair and it is there that those of us who have faith in Jesus struggle with telling an unbelieving world about because we can never explain WHY God allows horrific things to happen.  But, what I have found true for myself is that when we can surrender our need to understand the WHY, and just rest in the truth that He does all things for our good, that He is good and that He does everything to give us a hope and a future, you can begin to enjoy the journey a little bit more.

Even when the going gets tough and the road is full of thorns and weeds and the sun is beating down so hard you don't know how you will carry on, you can be assured that there is not only a reason for it, but something else is coming.  Seasons never last forever.  The road never stays the same.  The traveling part is always interesting, always changing.

The last few months have felt like that for me.  This road we've been on has felt like the hardest one ever and most of the time I've felt like I was sinking with all that I had to do and carry and feel.  Yet, we believed God led us here - to make the decision for Todd to take this new job in North Dakota, to uproot our lives and to leave everything behind.  And suddenly, it became very clear that as much as He led us to make this decision, He was asking us to leave it. 

He is on his way home from North Dakota as I write this - the last time we spoke, he was still in Kansas, anxious and ready to see me and the boys.  Ready to be home.  And we are so, so ready to have him here.

Life sure has changed quite a bit in the last few days.  We are no longer moving away.  We have experienced great disappointment and the death of a huge dream.  We have a whole new set of plans to make and figure out.  Yet, I feel as though I'm in for the biggest thrill of my life too. 

There is much to share, because much has happened in our hearts over the last few months.  What we thought was going to be a journey to the very far away and snowy place of North Dakota, ended up being a journey of our faith and of knowing God in a way that we could have never imagined instead. 

Pull up a chair this week.  There will be some, great, great story-telling.  And not by me - by the Greatest Author in the universe.  I just get to be part of what He has written....and is continuing to write.