WHERE MY ROADS TAKE ME

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Summer crawled so slowly that year.  I came home from my Aunt's after a year of living with them.  It was a year away from home.  I had to sojourn on the homesickness road with the firm determination not to skip a school year.  I helped around my Aunt's printing business like sorting and collating printed forms for clients.  I delved my hands into bookbinding and putting ribbons on wedding invitations.  The latter part, I really enjoyed.

My mom had a hard time sending me to
High School that year.  There were no public High Schools in our island then and the only one available for free was a 15 minute boat ride and 20 minutes walk away.  We had pleaded with my Aunt, on my father's side, last summer to take me in, in exchange of my assistance in their business.  It meant a whole lot of sacrifices for me, having to leave the place of my birth and my friends behind.  I thought to myself, anyway it was only for a year.  Saving up on allowance was my firm resolve so that I could come home to the island from time to time.  It helped to lessen the heaviness in my heart.

Then, one thing turned out pretty good, while staying with them, a cousin my age became closer to me.  I got to sleep with her and we went on errands together.  She was also generous with vanity things she had that I could not afford for myself.  Practically we shared a lot including secrets.  We were at the age of crushes and trying on vogue things.  I was happy that she was so generous and we hit together like chocolate fudge on ice cream.

The school year went on a breeze and it was almost over, I still got myself on top three of our class and I was happy to be able to help with my cousin's home works while assisting in the shop.

It was funny that when the time came for me to go back home for the summer vacation, I had a little ache inside which pointed into the blossoming friendship I shared with my cousin.  We were born 5 days apart of the same year.  That could contribute largely for us to click immediately and bond.

Another school year is about to step in, and I wanted to graduate from my school together with my old classmates.  To be on the yearbook with them meant so much to me.  But, again, the idea still hang on the balance.  I know my mom will be hard up on our family budget.  So I just let go of it and let God.

Then one day, a distant kin came for a visit.  I learned that they were the family who became my Momma's foster home until the time she married my father.  Their mom, gone to heaven now, mentored my mom to become a seamstress, which also supplied the bread for our family and helped us thrive when Momma became a widow at a young age.  We grew up with our grandparents, who took care of us while our mom went to her shop to sew dresses for ladies.

Anyway, the son of my Mom's foster mother wanted to revive their dress shop.  He wanted this legacy of his mom to continue and the object of their visit became evident.  He was offering my mom the management of this prospective shop.  Upon hearing of my desire to finish my last year of high school, they used this to make my Momma agree.  I knew deep inside what she was trading away with.  It was her freedom to manage her own shop.  It was so important to my mom to be independent.  She had done so well so far.  But this time, she had me to consider, she agreed.  Whether the partnership prospered or not, would be another story to tell.

It was something to be happy about.  What with my wish heading towards its fruition.  Yet it had a sore sense attached to it.

Went, I did, to live in another home........ just for my desire to graduate from high school.  It was another year traded over to homesickness again.  I wonder what I will find and what I will learn out of this new road.  One thing is quite sure, the seashells in my pocket is growing.

There were roads too many, yet there was only one that held the greatest impact in my life.  It was the road of encounter, my road to Damascus, the road Jesus had chosen to overtake me on.

It was a road headed to disaster.  And Jesus knew the time was ripe for me.

On all the roads traveled on, this had the greatest life-changing result for me.

A time to get to know my Creator, my Savior and my King.

So folks, where I am now...... were connections of roads I took on my own, roads I decided to traverse independent of the purpose laid out for me, yet God inter-connected them to make a whole new me, and to put me on my way to His purpose.

How were your roads connected?  How did Jesus intersect with yours? 

Romans 8:28

New International Version (NIV)

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

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Anywhere my road takes me, I am confident that in His word, I would reach the destination He has prepared for me. 

Proverbs 22:3a

"A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences." (NLT)

Let God lay your path out and let His light shine upon it like a beacon at sea in darkness.

Psalm 119:105

“Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path”

If one day, you shall be, in a place other than home, please find LIKE things in your new place.  Find something familiar in this other road that will make you feel LIKE home...... like walking on the same fields of green grasses, like the same sound of birds chirping, like the same colors of the rainbow on a dewy day.  There, you will find, or it finds you.....home is in the heart.  Home is where God is.

This poem was found through searching (like how I love to find seashells in this google world).  It is like home......

Like

The fog that is like...   but more rare

The wind that is like...   but not so sharp

The sand that is like...    but turns to mud

The hills that are like...    but more peopled

The flowers that are like...    but bloom earlier

The beach that is like...    but more crowded

The summers that are like...    but darken quickly

The air that is like...    but not so sweet

Poet:  Elizabeth Burns

published in Painted, spoken, No. 8, 2005

Website:  http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poems/like

Note:  For emphasis, I added the dots after the beginning verses to let the hanging words occupy your thoughts.  They spell home to me, comparing the old hometown to the city.

Another Weekend Blessings

to you all! 

Hope to see again soon in this same spot next week.

I will be on a road where the line is off for the weekend.

Shalom!