Of Finding Your Own Path

"... but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise." 2 Cor. 10:12


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Now there's a verse which will set you free.

If you can get over the thing which says Everything Must Be a Certain Way and can think outside the box (rather than inside the same old stuffy box with everybody else), well, you might just get somewhere, maybe even happy.

I remember standing in my bedroom at age 15 and thinking, "You know? I just don't want to be like everyone else. I don't like what they like and I'm tired of pretending I do."

On that day, I began a freedom walk. A small beginning, yes, but a start, nonetheless.

Something funny? It took me 30 years to realize I am a college drop-out. Wild, huh? 

I went to a Christian college for one year, hated it, then I met Tom that summer and fell in love--and gasped with relief that I wouldn't have to return to school. Why did I hate college so much? The back-stabbing gossip of the girls in the dorm. That, and I could find no kindred spirits anywhere on campus, plus, I longed to return to my tiny mountain town I adored, a place where God was using me to encourage others.

Never, not for even 3 minutes have I regretted leaving college. 

College wasn't for me. No, freedom was for me: the freedom of a homemaker's life. (And see, right there is another sign of my different way of thinking--tons of wives view homemaking as a prison. I pity them for not seeing the opened-wide doors.)

Now, did Tom have to go to college to support my homemaking habit? Not exactly--when I met him, he'd not attended college. Years later he did take a short specialized course which helped him get the job in Nevada, which later helped secure his job here in New York. And then years after that he attended college for two associate degrees, but only because he chose to. 

College was something he wanted to do for himself.

What am I saying? Go to college if God is directing you! But skip it if you're considering it only because every other woman on the block has gone/is going and you're feeling left behind. Skip the guilt and the bad feelings of being sunk, helpless.

Instead? Choose individuality, creativity and carving out a unique life of your own--and live amazed.

In fact, any time people--or even your insecure self-- pressure you to do something, always step back, escape to silence and whisper about it first with God. Let Him explain things. 

And if He tells you to take a different, less traveled road, alone even, take it. For, it's on that road where you'll meet up with Joy and you'll discover your real self, also, the person God meant you to become. 

But only if you don't look back. Only if you do not waffle around in what-ifs or shoulda-woulda-coulda. Only if you walk boldly. Even alone.



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"There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.”
Henry David Thoreau

“A man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy and nothing can stop him.”
Alexander Solzenitsyn

Learning! I am constantly learning. Everywhere I go, every walk I take or every webpage or book I open--always--there is something before my eyes begging to be absorbed.

"A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." ... James 1:8


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