Destiny. A sense of destiny gripped me the first time I read Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken. Sitting in my hard desk in Mrs. Heinrich’s eighth grade English class, the poet’s articulate description drew me in, and the last line left me sobered. Would I have the courage to choose the less traveled road, especially if the decision held difficulty, loneliness, or adversity?
Eighth grade was not a good year for me. Challenged academically, marginalized socially, and confused spiritually, I floundered. In some strange way, this poem offered comfort.
Decades later, the work of Robert Frost’s poem still intrigues me. What if whispers in my ear. With a grateful heart, I celebrate The Road that has made all the difference.
The Road Not Taken
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.
Living With Eternal Intentionality™
What did Jesus mean when He spoke of two different roads in Matthew 7: 13-15?
Where do you look back and realize that you have taken the road less traveled?
