The book of Ecclesiastes is full of wisdom, it shares that "A wise person chooses the right road; a fool takes the wrong one." (ECC 10:2). No one wants to be the fool. We are all wise in our own minds...until we are honest with ourselves. If we are lucky, we may have good friends, the kind of friends who tell us when we need an adjustment...when our thinking or actions are off course. Those kind of friends are hard to find in a world that coddles and placates...in a Nation that is consumed with self justification and steered with pride. We all think that we are on the right road.

Some how growing up I knew that I wasn't on the right road, but I thought I was on the only road that I could choose. I saw a "this is how I am supposed to do it" road, and a "I have no idea how to do that" road. I was walking where I was walking, but I really had no idea how to get to where I should be. The skewed way that I thought persuaded me to see only two options; "insecure but here", and "good but way over there". My concept of both were tainted, I did not see through the eyes of a Just and Holy God, I saw through the eyes of a fallen and broken girl.

I roamed many years in a wasteland of illusion and supposition. I woke and started each day confused and uneasy. I had no idea that there was any other way. You know how when you are a kid and you have no idea that your family is dysfunctional (for those of us whose families were), and you go for a sleep over for the first time and see a family that is not dysfunctional...how that feels...it's crazy, you think at first that there is something wrong with them because it is so foreign to you. There is no yelling, no fighting, no manipulation, no controlling...ugh, you see total unconditional love!...and you (of course this is me that I am talking about, but you can join me if the scenario fits) feel a stirring in your spirit, a longing in you heart, and suddenly your hope sinks.

My little world opened up and I saw that my "road" was like some huge hamster wheel...I walked and walked, getting no where. I shiver to recall the feelings of loneliness, sadness, and low self worth. How could it be  that a child from an upper middle class Caucasian family living in the suburbs and fully sheltered, clothed, and fed, could feel this kind of suffering and lack. Wasn't it little children in third world Nations that felt this way? Wasn't it the kids with no parents or with abuse at home that wanted to scream and run away because nothing felt like it mattered...because nothing "felt" like anything at all...because they were completely and hopelessly numb? I was cut off and alone, as if an orphan, in a nice well kept home filled with parents and siblings and pets...I was already wasting away and I was only a child.

My family went to church every Sunday. I have faint recollections of a scary man in a black robe standing way up high and speaking into a microphone. He had a deep and slumbery voice and his sermons were endlessly incoherent. I struggled to sit still both inside and out. Being there felt like punishment. This was religion at it's best...just a bunch of stuff done over and over and nothing or no one ever changed.

I quickly rebelled against church as I knew it. There was no recognizable life or love there. Years passed and I fumbled and stumbled along, some days not even sure why I was alive. I was always trying to be who I thought that I should be...a camelion, a stage performer whose masks were colorful and convincing. But inside, inside it was exhausting! I just kept walking, round and round the wheel continued to turn...nothing ever changed but the time and the date...life was hopeless and had no purpose but to try to get through it.

I see that this post is quickly becoming my testimony of sorts, and although that is not what I originally sat down to share....it is most definitely what is coming out. What I was wanting to articulate is that I was (and in many areas still am) a fool. In a different era I would be wearing a crazy colorful hat with three points and bells and tights and curly toed shoes. I would be sitting in the corner of the classroom with the big white "dunce" cap sitting snugly on my head. As hard as I alone will ever try, I will be a fool with out God. You see God IS wisdom... His ways are made of truth, love, justice, mercy, compassion, redemption, salvation...WISDOM!

"My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts, says the Lord. And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts." - Isaiah 55:11

You see I had never encountered the one true God (especially at church). I had never understood that I really WAS lost, that I actually DIDN'T know what I doing, that my life actually HAD no purpose with out Him.

We were made for relationship with God. We need Him to fill the broken empty place left by the fall in the Garden of Eden. Our hearts were constructed for Him to be sitting on their throne. Only He knows how to guide a life properly. I always assumed that there was something wrong with ME. I was right and wrong at the same time. What was wrong with me was that I was incomplete without Jesus. My life needed Him sitting in a position of authority. What was lacking was my perfect teacher, my awesome parent, my best friend. I was meant to be led through this chaotic fallen maze of a world until it was time to leave for a perfect place in eternity.

I don't know where you are in life. I can't tell who it is that reads these things, and that is probably better for all of us that I don't. What I want to ask you is this; are you at peace, really at peace? Are you exhausted trying to get somewhere while you walk in hamster-like circles? Does life make total sense to you? Are you just trying to stay afloat? Are you in over your head and just resigned to the fact that "this must be all there is to life"...then please, just for one minute, consider that there is another way.

"Is anyone thirsty? Come and drink - even if you have no money! Come, take your choice of wine or milk - it's all free! Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength? Why pay for food that does you no good. You will enjoy the finest food. Come to me with your ears wide open. Listen and you will find your life. I will make an everlasting covenant with you. I will give you all the unfailing love I promised to David. " - Isaiah 55:1-3

Come on...no one is watching...take a minute and talk to Jesus. Dare to hope that He is real and right there with you, and can come into your life (if you ask Him) and make it into something that feels right, that fits, that brings you joy and peace and lets you finally rest. I am telling you the truth because it isn't enough for just me to be at peace...I want you to have it too.