Monday I took a little road trip to see my daughter who lives a couple of hours away. My plan was to stop along the way and pick up some of that wonderful new grilled chicken from KFC and take my daughter Felicia and her son Hayden up on the Skyline Drive for a picnic. To my astonishment there were no KFC signs on the highway telling me… take this exit for KFC. Finally I decided to stop at one of the exits and just check. Maybe KFC doesn’t advertise on the highway. Unhappily, there were no KFC’s on the particular exit that I took so I ended up stopping at the grocery store and buying one of those wonderful rotisserie chickens instead and we still had a wonderful picnic.
As I was driving though, the thought came to me that life is just like this road trip. We are driving along the highway of life and someone before us has paved the road for us so that we could have a pleasant ride and someone has thought to put up signposts to tell us what lies off of the exits that are available. It is our choice to take or not take the exits along the way. Also there are other travelers in life riding alongside of us and some pass us because we are going too slow and some we may pass by because we think they are going too slow. But everyone is traveling along at the pace that is best for them. Some travelers may just be taking a ride and some may have a particular purpose or destination in mind. Most of us are not mindful enough of our fellow travelers. Some of us, like I did, noticed the wonderful beauty of the landscape around me and the wonderful sunshine and puffy clouds dotting the sky. Some of us are too wrapped up in the journey itself or the anticipation of what lies ahead of us on the road or at our intended destination to pay attention to the beauty around us.
As I drove, I just thanked the trees for giving us oxygen and providing us with beauty, and I thanked the person or group of persons who decided to make a highway in the first place so I would not have to travel on a dirt road. And I thanked the person or group of persons who thought up the idea of making signs to indicate what was off of each exit so that we could know our choices, and then I thanked the person or group of persons who actually made the signs and put them in place. It occurs to me that we all have a job in life. Maybe our job is to pick up the trash that lies on the side of the road. Maybe we cannot see that we have an important job, because we are making someone’s journey more pleasant or more safe. All we see is the trash. We are unhappy that we have to pick it up and we are thinking… if some people would not be so inconsiderate as to throw trash out of their cars maybe I wouldn’t have to do this. But the positive side of the trash is that it gives someone a job to pick it up. So no matter what your job or how thankless you think it is, it is an important job. It matters to someone.
As you travel your highway of life, or maybe to you it is a dirt road and you are walking, but as you travel, look around you. There are so many other travellers that have gone before you and have made your journey so much easier than they had it. There are people and angels and guides who provide you with signposts to indicate what the outcome might be if you take a particular exit or go down a particular path. Don’t be oblivious to the signs around you. It may be that your computer goes down and it is just a sign that now would be a good time to do something else. Or the phone rings just as you were about to make a gripe or complaint of some kind and your words are stopped before you can say them. Thank the angels and guides for the sign that maybe you should say something different or do something different in that moment in time. Maybe if you take an exit looking for something that wasn’t indicated on the sign you will find something better that you weren’t necessarily looking for.
Love and light to my fellow travelers……
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