Sheila Atchley Designs

I ran across a poem today by Mary Oliver. It is entitled "The Journey", and oh how it resonated with me, but likely in a completely different way than the author intended when she wrote it. (That, by the way, is the essence of all good art...it is open to interpretation in a way that Scripture cannot be.)

Had I written this (which I did not) I would have entitled it, "My Grace Journey". This poem is very, very close to describing what I went through, a few years back, in persevering out of law and into applying the real, true Gospel to my everyday life.

And, I have to say, it continues to describe my journey - only now, unlike then, the bad advice comes more from my unrenewed mind than from people. But the net effect is the same: I have to obey God. I have to be a Jesus Freak. I have to be a New Covenant Warrior Woman.

There is such joy in this journey!

"The Journey"
by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Mary Oliver