For the past week or so, I have been at a crossroads. Not a big deal to some but if its something that is going to alter your life (academically, spiritually, morally, etc.) then its a big deal... to you and your significant others around you. For me, its those and then some...

For the past couple of months, my parents have been talking to me about transferring from my school. I've been attending Atlanta Christian College for about a year and a half and really I liked it. I liked the classes, the people, the teachers, etc... but of course parents aren't thinking about that. They are thinking about your well-being. Because its located in a pretty rough area of Atlanta, my parents insisted that I looked into transferring. I really couldn't believe it but I also couldn't argue... they were right but not just about that. It's a pretty rough and sometimes dangerous area at times (my car got stolen my first year here... long story...) As I sat and thought and evaluated my time and my life here, I suddenly thought about my spiritual life/walk since I walked off the mission field and started here. That's when I realized something I hadn't... I had become stagnant and not just that but I realized that my spiritual life probably wasn't going to get better. I went from getting up at 5am and have hours of devotional time with God, walking away with huge chucks and nuggets of revelations, new-found knowledge and renewed love for him and it not phase me one bit... now it takes everything in me to roll out of bed and squeeze in an hour and hardly walk away with anything from him! Even though I attended chapels and went to D-Groups and looked around me to see who I could go to for spiritual guidance... I was lost! There was no one here to help me, a 25 year old full time student who was needing help and guidance from those who had come before her but there were none!! My spiritual life was in danger... My parents insisted I go someplace safer, some place with better connections, some place with a better spiritual community/life, etc. They suggested Toccoa Falls...

Well naturally, to appease my parents I looked into it. As I did, I found some awesome things about the school (1,000 acre campus, majors and minors that I could never get at my school, etc). As I sat and thought about it some more, I started weighing the pros and cons of transferring. Yes I would be giving up my friends and such but I would be gaining alot in the process. I really didn't know what to do.. I felt this allegiance to the school and the people at ACC and I didn't want to upset them or hurt them. But its not their academic life and more so their desires that are being considered, its mine! I wanted to do what was right, not just in my and others' hearts and minds but more so what was right in God's eyes and heart.

I prayed for clarity, I prayed that nothing foolish or unnecessary be the main reason on whether to stay or go. For almost a week I did and then finally... some clarity came my way. Today here at the school, a man by the name of LeRoy Lawson spoke in our Chapel service. He had spoken earlier in the week and I thought he was a pretty good speaker but nothing else. Then he started into his topic for today... the fork in the road. Naturally my ears perked up and I was ready to hear this. I knew God was going use him for me at least I hoped. And he did...

Dr. Lawson used Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken to help explain things a little better... take a read for yourself...

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.

~Robert Frost, 1915

As I listened I thought, 'Okay God... so then which road should I take?' Then Dr. Lawson interrupted my thoughts and said, "Not every fork in the road is one that gives good roads and bad ones. They can give better and best ones, they can give worse and worst ones... but its up to you to make that choice." That's when it clicked for me... this whole time I was looking at as a good or bad choice instead of a better and best road. As I did, a revelation came to me: why take a road, that though it be broad and easy to walk and have many destinations and possibilities at its end, when another is being offered, one that is a bit more narrow and probably a little harder to walk but it has one destination at its end, the one you desire and knew you were created to reach? Then Dr. Lawson brought up Jesus analogy of the forked road in Matthew 7: "For wide is the gate and broad is the road... many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road... a few find it."

My mind was made up, I got my clarity that I was looking for. I felt a peace after the message I hadn't felt in a while. I was going to take the first step... I ask right now that you pray for me as I begin the process of applying to Toccoa Falls and if this really is what God wants me to do, he'd open the doors and clear the way for me. Hopefully, this is the road that God wants me on... but its as Dr. Lawson said, "Just like there will always be forks in your roads and you are going to have to choose, you will have a time later on in life in which you wonder and/or wish you had taken the other road..." I feel like I'm taking the best out of the two... hopefully, this is so...

~Jeanne;)