Two Paths

Life, it seems, is always a road with two parallel paths going the same direction.  One path:  the less desirable (pain, surprise, the unexpected, the heart-breaking).  One path:  the more desirable (joy in the simplest of things, new discovery, little moments that take your breath away).

This week, news of Chris' brother and his life-threatening health crisis resided on the less desirable path.  Updates from home, phone calls to sisters, lots of blanks to be filled in with details scattered the path.  And yet ... the other path held the more desirable.  Libby was so moved by the news of her Uncle, she felt she needed to give up her allowance (10 euro a  month) to give to her Daddy over the next 5 months in order to, in her 11-year-old mind, buy him a plane ticket home.

Two paths.

What I'm discovering, that as a child of God, both paths help me - draw me - move me - usher me into an understanding of more.  More of Him!

As an estranged brother lays in a hospital bed, suffering, I am moved to compassion and desire for him to know a Father who lays next to him ... desiring him to come to him ... and allow him to make everything all right.  The human tendency is to think too much wrong can't be "righted", too much water has been allowed to run under the bridge, too much bad has been committed ... it's just all too much.  From what I read about God and from what 46 years on planet earth has allowed me to experience, it's just the opposite.  The more the wrong, the water, the bad ... the more the love, the forgiveness, the opportunity for new.

"Satisfy us each morning with your unfailing love, so we may sing for joy to the end of our lives.  Give us gladness in proportion to our former misery!  Replace the evil years with good."  Psalm 90:14-15