Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - "The Turning Point"

"THE TURNING POINT"

At the beginning of "How It Works" are the words we are so familiar with, "We stood at the turning point." I can identify many such turning points in my life and they remind me of Robert Frost's poem - - of his "two roads".

ROBERT FROST: THE ROAD NOT TAKEN (1915)
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.
____________________________________________________________________

In each case, my choice of the road taken has "made all the difference". I used to believe that I made many wrong choices, but no longer think so. I believe my Higher Power, God, has had His hand on my life from the moment He breathed life into me. Despite heartaches, disappointments, frustrations, each choice I made brought me to where I am today and I dearly love my life today.

Is my life perfect? HECK NO! But it is a wonderful life.

Some of my roads taken:
I had been accepted into a Master's program in Clinical Psychology in my 20s and at the last minute I scrapped that plan to marry my first husband who I discovered almost 20 years later was an alcoholic. (Denial was my middle name.) I often
wonder what would have happened if I had followed the road to my counseling degree and become a clinical psychologist? I know I would have been good at it, but God has used my natural abilities in that area in AA, in Alanon, and with others He has brought into my life.

My marriage ended (I didn't believe in divorce) and I thought that the marriage had been a wrong road taken, but it wasn't at all - it produced my two children - gifts from a loving God. God blessed that road in His way. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Another road taken was my choice to use alcohol as my "final solution" to the "life problems" I had - my total inability to cope with life on life's terms. It worked great for a few years and then did an abrupt about-face and nearly killed me.
Another wrong road, right? NO, not a wrong road. It led me to the greatest happiness, freedom, and joy I could ever have imagined. And that road led me to AA and later to Alanon.

I have often been lost in the woods (whether I knew it or not) and the loving hand of my God has always been there in my choice of the road taken.

Thank God for that!