Have you ever wondered how you arrived at where you are in your life? How significant people have become significant to you? Why do you work where you work or do what you do for a living? How things that you value came to be so important to you?  What has led you on the journey of your life?

A while ago I was visiting my brother in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and went for one of those wandering trips down a dirt road on the way to the Tahquamenon River. I was stopped by the sight of the tree which is pictured above. I happened to have my camera, took a picture, and for a while paused in wonder. What happened to that branch that made it circle around heading in the opposite direction? Did something big grow up next to it forcing the branch to find another path? Did something learn against it when it was young inviting it to grow in such a way?  The wind? A Storm? An inner urge? Who knows.

I had to wonder how many times in my own travels I had been headed in one direction and found myself going in another.

Family, friends, significant people, a book, a poem, a prayer, an insight from God? How do I feel about being open to the Spirit, allowing myself to put my life in God’s hands?

One of my favorite poems is by Robert Frost and is called “The Road Not Taken”. He reflects on his journey in the woods and a choice he needs to make. He ends the poem with these lines.

Two roads diverged in a wood and I
I took the one less traveled by,
and that has made all the difference.

A tree, a branch, two roads diverged. How brave am I to take the one less traveled by?  It may make all the difference.

-Netty Johnson, SSND