People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. A spiritual mentor came into my life several years ago, not long after I experienced dramatic turmoil in my life. She played a momentous role in my spiritual transformation and development and as is the nature of such things, accomplished the purpose for which she was sent and then moved on from my life.

Join Terry Lees on Silver Linings as he highlights how every journey changes us wherever we may go and how we need to make our own way as we live our own lives.

Listen to the episode below, or continue on to read the transcript.

Episode Transcript:

Margaret Ingall wrote a poem titled Every Journey Changes Us.

Every journey changes us,

No matter near or far,

Each step into unchartered lands,

Can alter who we are.

For as we travel so we start

To see our world anew,

We talk with strangers on our way,

We see a different view.

And so we learn to tolerate,

To understand, to grow,

For every journey changes us

wherever we may go.

People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Author Iyanla Vanzant profoundly highlights that “When someone is in your life for a reason, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed. They have come to assist you through a difficulty; to provide you with guidance and support; to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually. They may seem like a godsend, and they are. They are there for the reason you need them to be” [Acts of Faith].

A spiritual mentor came into my life several years ago, not long after I experienced dramatic turmoil in my life. She played a momentous role in my spiritual transformation and development and as is the nature of such things, accomplished the purpose for which she was sent and then moved on from my life.

And yet, several years later, seemingly out of the blue, I received an email from her, pointing me towards a podcast on St Paul – she remembered my fondness for his writings. That triggered a further exchange of emails. I responded with thanks for her thoughtful message and gave her a brief outline of my current journey. In turn, she responded expressing her happiness for my journey and offering a new, exciting insight. She shared a quote – ‘Create the path by walking it.’ This, she told me, was a saying she and her friend and companion lived by. It sounded to her I was doing the same and she suggested I google a poem by Antonio Machado, “Traveller, your footprints.” And so, I did!

Traveller, Your footprints

Are the only road, nothing else.

Traveller, there is no road;

You make your own path as you walk.

As you walk, you make your own road,

And when you look back

You see the path

You will never travel again.

Traveller, there is no road,

Only a ship’s wake on the sea.

What a delightful gift! Previously I believed I lived from a different insight and by a different quote, one that I wrote about in a newspaper column several weeks earlier. It was from American poet, Robert Frost: And I – I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference….

Now, with the observation and wisdom expressed by a beloved spiritual mentor, I see she is right – I am not following anyone else’s path, I am creating my own path by walking it! Her words: “I marvel at the way God leads us and we could never work out the path ourselves.” Yes, God most certainly does work in strange and mysterious ways.

Adventure on another person’s path may be useful for a time but often it is simply the easy thing to do. The question to ask is whether we are leaders and trailblazers or timid followers of the status quo? Do we create the path by walking it or are we followers of someone else who is determining our destiny for us?  We need to make our own way as we live our own lives. Don’t let your life be a walk along the path of someone who bears no resemblance nor has no understanding for what you want for your life.

Every journey does change us. The precedence of something usually sets the rule.  I strive to be someone who just goes and gets things done.

When the student is ready, the teacher will come. Teachers, or ‘earthly angels’ come into our lives for a reason. God introduced you to these people only to prepare you or show you something and then you are called to let go and create your path by walking it. Will you?

Look for the silver lining.

This is Terry Lees

[Music:  The Road Less Travelled – Graeme Connors]