Day Ten - April 10, 2020
Today the sun rose well before I awoke… We planned to get gas in the car for the first time in 5 weeks and take Nellie for a walk. And then Nanny called… she fell.
*****
We made it exactly four weeks without having to enter Nanny’s house. She has been a trooper - fending for herself and keeping her chin up. She has been living completely alone and doing her best to smile and remain positive. Because an accident in her early twenties left her with interstitial scarring in her lungs, we have done our best to fully isolate her. Anyone who knows our mom - knows this is “torture” for her. This morning my heart dropped when I got the call. Tonight, however, she is safely seated in her home in her comfortable chair, taking communion and motrin … and being brave. We are beyond grateful.
These strange days have a way of wearing us thin… revealing the deep places within us. I don’t know if it’s altogether a bad thing though - these opportunities for deep soul searching. I’m finding my path with a handful of honest, God-fearing women who push me to the very end of myself - so that I might find my Creator in all his majesty and glory. The Holy Spirit continues to be kind, gracious, fierce, and determined in revealing the HIDDEN places he seeks to develop within me.
Andrei and I walked the dog along a wooded path we rarely take. It reminded me of the poem Daniel and I studied last week...
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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.
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And so as we walked along the grassy path, in and amongst the woods, I silently poured my heart out to God. This season holds so much potential. We can take path A or path B but there is no promise that we will have another opportunity to revisit certain forks (opportunities) in the road. We step onto one path and somewhere ages and ages hence - we find that it has made all the difference.
I was reminded again to be careful with my choices. Careful with what I allow into my mind and heart. Not with rigidity or fear but with deep respect and gratefulness for the sacrifice made on my behalf - that I may live free from the bondage of sin.
To see the Cross and my Savior there - to see his hands stretched out for me…
He took my sin, my burden, my shame -
He offers a road less traveled by,
Rejection and scorn - he took on for me -
That I may live … live full and free.
How then can I not give him my all -
My life, my heart, my journey… my all.
Two roads diverged in the midst of pandemic -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.