"I have no idea where I am going." -Thomas Merton

I use to think it was strange that I did not know how to answer the questions that come up in life about what you want to do, or where you want to go. I don't think it is strange anymore. Everyday we are faced with new decisions and challenges. There have been seasons where I didn't know how I would wake up and even days I wasn't sure I wanted to. Fear of loss, sadness, tragedy, and the burden of being the bearer of bad news robbed me. I laid naked before the world. Seemingly stripped of all my worth I curled up into a fetal ball and waited for the dawn.

I rose one morning and ran for the hills and when my stride lessened and my side ached I stopped running. Along a road I had never traveled or could recall starting on, I found myself. Heart pounding cheeks salty from sweat and tears, I screamed. Pacing right and left, shaking hysterically, I suddenly collapsed. I strewn my limbs out across the road, cheek against the damp soil, I wept. I was lost. I had cried so much for those lives that were now gone and nothing I was doing or had done could have kept them here. It didn't matter. I didn't matter.

My heart steadied and my tears subsided. Gathering my arms up and pulling my legs together, I found myself bent over in a posture of some sort of bow. I will never forget the sighing, deep breath I took in that instance. It was life giving. Nothing that had happened, nothing that I had done, and nothing that I would do mattered. All I needed to know was that I was alive.

I walked the long eight miles back to my home. I swung in the hammock hanging in our front yard, and I slept. Hours later when I awoke, I knew something had changed. I died of a broken heart from the tragedy of death, but I chose to live again and remember my hearts desire. I do not know where I am going in this life, but I live for another.  I don't know what I will do forever, but I know that I want to please God. Somedays I don't even know what that means, but I know my desire to please him is what matters the most.


"MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know
nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my
perils alone."
-Thomas Merton