Not The Road I would Choose

Today I was subbing in 4th grade. The students were just finishing a read aloud called Mary On Horseback by Rosemary Wells. "In 1923, there were no doctors or hospitals in the isolated mountains of Appalachia. Then Mary Breckinridge came. Trained as a nurse, she made the Appalachians her life's work-fording icy streams and climbing untracked mountains to bring medical help to those in need."

Mary Breckinridge married as a young woman and her husband died. She remarried and had two babies that both died and then her second husband died. She was in despair. But, out of that despair she decided to become a nurse and go to those who needed help. She wanted to save children since she knew the pain of losing her own.

As I'm reading the end of this story, I am barely holding my voice steady. Then when the book is finished, little Libby in the front row says, "You are like her aren't you, Mrs. Halvorsen? " Yeah, I said. I reminded those who maybe had forgotten about the little boy I lost to cholera and how I wanted to save the other children in the villages. I didn't do a very good job with my emotions this time. I ended class 5 minutes early.

This isn't the road I would choose for me, but it still feels right somehow.

So this is what it feels like to walk the wilderness
This is what it feels like to come undone
This is what it feels like to lose my confidence
Unsure of anything or anyone

So this is what it feels like to walk the desert sand
This is what it feels like to hear my name
To be scared to death ’cause I’m all alone
But feel love and peace just the same
This may not be the road I would choose for me
But it still feels right somehow
And I have never felt You as close to me as I do right now
So this is what it feels like to be led
So this is what it feels like to just fall apart
To be totally unglued
To find out that if I accept my brokenness
I get more of me, I get all of You
And this may not be the road I would choose for me
But it still feels right somehow
I have never felt You as close to me as I do right now
So this is what it feels like to be led
So this is what it feels like to just walk away
From everything I thought kept me safe
To depend just on You for every meal
And find that it’s better this way
Oh, it’s better this way
This may not be the road I would choose for me
But it still feels right somehow
And I have never felt You as close to me as I do right now
Like I do right now
This may not be the road I would choose for me
But it still feels right somehow
And I have never felt You as close to me as I do right now
So this is what it feels like to be led
This is what it feels like to be led
So this is what it feels like”

What it feels like – by FFH