Tonight while typing a reading digest for a seminary class, I had my iPod shuffling through James Taylor songs. A little while ago “That Lonesome Road” came up and caught my attention as it supplied words for my heart right now.

Walk down that lonesome road all by yourself
Don’t turn your head back over your shoulder
And only stop to rest yourself when the silver moon
Is shining high above the trees

If I had stopped to listen once or twice
If I had closed my mouth and opened my eyes
If I had cooled my head and warmed my heart
I’d not be on this road tonight

Carry on
Never mind feeling sorry for yourself
It doesn’t save you from your troubled mind

Walk down that lonesome road all by yourself
Dont turn your head back over your shoulder
And only stop to rest yourself when the silver moon
Is shining high above the trees

This past weekend I hurt someone I dearly love by not being fully there when she needed me to be. While I thought I was being helpful enough, I didn’t “stop to listen once or twice” when she just needed to be heard. Too many times I had my mouth open and my eyes closed, so vocal about my wants and needs but blind to hers. Resentful over encroachments on “my time,” I let my heart cool and my head get hot.

That much is clear. No argument. But now I feel on that “lonesome road,” finding that feeling sorry for myself indeed does nothing to save me from my troubled mind. And I know the name of that road. Its name is Pride. I know I don’t want to live on the road–I want to come home. But Pride keeps me from finding the words, even more from saying them. I’ve been on this road so many, many times before. Always when I’ve turned around and humbled myself, there she has been waiting for me. Sometimes I wonder though if I will sometime set out on that road one too many times.

Lord of Grace, let my Pride be crucified on your cross, the cross that always shows the way home.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 6th, 2007 at 10:49 pm and is filed under Discipleship, Family & Friends, It`s All About Me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.