But, really, a fresh start is good. Fitting, even. I've learned so much in the past few months about myself and my Savior that beginning anew seems right. Recently, a precious friend and fellow believer of mine gave me a gift. She enjoys painting, and her gift to me was a little sign. It had one, simple word painted across it - declare. This sweet friend told me that she felt the Lord had laid it on her heart that I was to be declaring - to stand firm in my faith and declare to others what I know to be true. I had been contemplating starting up my blog again, and this seemed to be the Lord's way of gently nudging me to use my love of writing to declare truth.
I'm not 100% sure what that will look like, but that's ok. Sometimes it will look like sharing what the Lord is doing in my life, other times it might look like posting about what I've been doing lately. Still other times it might look like addressing a current event or issue, or it might look like sharing some of my creative writing (when I have some to share!). Whatever the specifics might look like, I desire the underlying theme to always be that of glorifying God and declaring His truth.
I encourage you to consider how the Lord might have you declare in your life. What specific platforms or opportunities has He provided you with in which you can declare? He has given us all unique talents and abilities which means the ways we declare will be unique, too.
Finally, my blog title. The Road Less Traveled. Some of you will recognize it as a shameless reference to Robert Frost's poem entitled "The Road Not Taken." Regardless of other ways to interpret the text of this poem (which, characteristic to the beauty of literature, are many), one way I feel it can be interpreted involves the journey of a person in this life. We are all confronted with two roads we could travel - the world's and God's. The Bible tells us that the path of the believer is along the narrow path that few choose to walk - quite literally, "the road less traveled" (see Matthew 7:13-14). I have long loved this poem by Frost, particularly that last line. Frost says that taking the road less traveled "has made all the difference." And so it is, as a pilgrim of "the road less traveled" who knows that choosing this path certainly "made all the difference" in my life, that I chose to title my blog as I did. I'll leave you for now with Frost's timeless words to ponder...
The Road Not Taken
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.
