The Winding Way


This winding, wandering road. It’s a beautifully crooked one that I thought I began to walk down one day in a moment of lostness, or because of the fickleness of my own heart. Now I wonder if it is a road that I have been on all along and just never noticed or had the eyes to see.

The Lord who made this fickle heart, He is not a God who is angry at my wandering, feet, my feet that are muddy from the distracted playing under trees and in fields on the side of the road.  Instead, He rejoices as He walks with me down my wandering way.  He stops to play with me in a field of dandelions. His feet are muddy too. He lays down by the deserted highway to watch the stars come out on a cloudless night, so I don’t have to wonder alone at their majesty.

He is not standing at the end of the road waiting to chastise me when I reach Him. He has been with me all along and He has expected my meandering. He is not surprised by it because He made my little restless heart and rejoices in my seeking, even when my seeking is messy and might lead me in the wrong direction for a time. But is it really the wrong direction if He is still with me?

He knows that when I look under rocks for flowers that I won’t find them there, but He lets me look because it is part of my journey. He knows that I am trying to get it right, that I ache to be with Him. I think sometimes He may even wish to tell me that this wandering, winding road is an artful journey to Heaven, not a series of left and right turns, wrong and right turns.

“Am I going the wrong way?” I have asked Him too many times. He just smiles at the way that He made my heart. He doesn’t give an answer, not because He is withholding it from me, but because the road is curving again in a moment and He wants to watch my face to see how it changes, if my brow furrows or my face lights up.

I’m anxious about that one turn we took a while back and if it was the right one. He is waiting to see what I will think about the tree that He made on the right just for me, the one with the limbs that are just the right height for climbing, strong enough to hold a girl and her Savior while they pause on their journey. And so we climb and we sit together up high in the tallest of branches, and He patiently listens to my heart’s questions.

“Which way do we go? Am I doing this right?” And He smiles again. We can see the road winding along from our high branch in the tree. A curve, a curve again, a part of the road that is blocked with trees. I wonder what is ahead. “What will happen up there? I don’t understand.” Again, He smiles at how He has made my heart. He listens to it’s questions and He values them because of where they come from. He does not grow tired of them. He does not wish they would stop. He doesn't answer them either, at least not today.

We climb down and continue. A winding road, a journey home. A curving path, No lefts and rights, wrongs and rights. No pause too long or too short. No distraction too big or too small. Because He is with me. And so, all is well.

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