A novel concept

barrelmakersdaughter.com ♦ September 5, 2012 ♦ 1 Comment

People often refer to a life path.  But most of the paths I have seen out in the real world are fairly well defined, cleared of hindrances, marked with directions, and easy to find.  I do not find life to be like that at all.  It’s not so much a path through life as it is a zigzagging, partially to totally obscured, boulder-laden obstacle course. This seems to be a far more accurate description of one’s journey through life.

I’m not implying that’s a bad thing: far from it.  It’s those challenges, those sudden changes of course that test our mettle and teach us who we can and cannot trust.  They reveal how much stronger we are than we could have ever imagined.  Those trials and tribulations are how we grow and spread our wings to accomplish feats far greater than those we dreamed for ourselves at earlier points in life.  Challenges propel us forward.

I love to read.  Not until you reach the end of a novel do you understand and see how all the pieces fit together; how everything that came before led to the end of the story.  We are each a novel in progress. Some chapters will turn out to be longer than we would have liked, and some chapters shorter than desired.  I’d venture to say that for most of us, where we are right now in our life story is not precisely where we pictured we would be. Those so-called life paths don’t really work that way. Only at the end of our journeys, when all the twists and turns of life have played themselves out, will we be able to see where the path was for each of us.  My hope for every person is that when the final page is written, we each find the following:  While the life path may not have been what we planned, it was, in fact, even better.