Road Less Travelled

I was traveling back home and was desperate to get to the next gate. I stepped onto the escalator on the left without thinking, moving on autopilot the way you do when you are navigating a busy airport and your mind is already three steps ahead of your feet. It was only when I was already on it that I looked around and realized something that stopped me mid-thought. Nobody was with me.

Every single person behind me had gone to the escalator on the right, as if they all seemed to know something I did not. I looked ahead of me on my escalator. It was empty. I looked behind me. It was empty. I was the only one riding up on the left side while an entire crowd was on the right.

For a moment I thought, did I make a wrong turn? Should I have gone the other way? But the truth is that both escalators were going in the same direction. Both were moving. Both were going to get me exactly where I needed to go. I just happened to be the only one on mine.

I rode that escalator to the bottom to the train, alone, and arrived at the same place everyone else was headed. No delays. No detours. No consequences for having taken the path less crowded.

That moment stayed with me long after I left the airport because I know that feeling. Not just on escalators, but in life, in marriage, in motherhood and in the quiet, personal decisions of faith that nobody else can make for you. The feeling of looking around and realizing your path looks different from everyone else's, and wondering if different means wrong. It does not. It just means that it’s yours.

Can I ask you something?

Is there an area of your life right now where you have chosen a path that looks different from the people around you? Maybe it is the way you are choosing to love your husband when everyone around you says he does not deserve it. Maybe it is a parenting decision that does not line up with what is popular or trending. Maybe it is a step of faith that nobody in your circle seems to understand.

What if the emptiness around you is not a warning sign? What if it is simply the cost of walking the road that was made specifically for you?

Scripture Reflection

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." ~ Matthew 7:13-14 (NIV)

God has never promised that the right road would be the crowded one. He has simply promised that it leads somewhere worth going. The narrow path is not a punishment. It is a privilege reserved for the woman who is willing to trust His direction over the crowd's opinion.

Heart Truths

There is a quiet pressure that follows every woman who dares to do something differently. It does not always shout. Sometimes it just whispers, look around. Notice who is not with you. Are you sure about this?

Here is what that escalator taught me about the roads we walk as women:

Different is not the same as wrong. The escalator on the left was not broken. It was not going in the wrong direction. It was simply less crowded. When your marriage, your parenting, or your faith looks different from the people around you, that difference alone is not evidence that you have missed the mark. It may simply be evidence that God has given you a path that was tailored to your specific journey.

The crowd is not always the compass. We have been conditioned to find comfort in numbers. If everyone is doing it, it must be right. If nobody else is doing it, it must be wrong, but the women in Scripture who changed history were rarely following the crowd. They were following a voice that asked them to be brave enough to move when everyone else stood still.

Doing it alone does not mean doing it without help. I was the only one on that escalator, but the escalator was still carrying me. When God calls you to a road that feels lonely, He does not send you down it without support. He goes with you. He carries you. The aloneness is in the crowd, not in His presence.

Your path is not an accident. I stepped onto that escalator without overthinking it, and it still got me where I needed to go. Sometimes the roads we find ourselves on are not mistakes we stumbled into. They are paths God guided us toward before we even realized we were choosing.

Loving Well in Action

Walking your own road requires courage, especially when the people closest to you are on a different one. Here are three ways to practice it this week in your most important relationships:

1. Stop measuring your marriage or relationships against someone else's. Social media has a way of making everyone else's relationship look more peaceful, more romantic, and more put together than yours. This week, make a conscious decision to stop comparing and start appreciating the specific, beautiful, and complicated road that belongs to you.

2. Name one decision you have been avoiding because it felt too different. Is there something God has been nudging you toward in your home, your faith, or your relationships that you have been hesitating on because it does not look like what everyone else is doing? Write it down. Pray over it. Take one small step toward it this week.

3. Find one woman who is on a similar road and encourage her. Lonely roads are easier when someone reminds you that you are not the only one who has ever walked one. Reach out this week to a woman in your life who you know is doing something brave and different, and tell her you see her.

A LOVE NOTE

If you are married, this is a love note just for your husband:

I know our road has not always looked like what we imagined it would, and I know there are seasons where it has not looked like anyone else's either. I want you to know that I would choose this road again. I would choose the one that is ours, with all of its turns and detours and unexpected stretches, because it brought me here, with you. I am not looking for a different path. I am grateful for this one. I love you.

Your LoveNote Challenge

This week I want you to write a note to someone who is walking a road that looks a little different from everyone around them, and that someone might be you.

📧 It might be a note to your husband, telling him that you are grateful for the specific life you are building together, even when it does not look like anyone else's.

📧 It might be a note to a friend who is making a brave and unpopular decision that you quietly admire.

📧 It might be a note to yourself, giving your own heart permission to stop apologizing for the road God placed you on.

If you are looking for a beautiful and simple way to make note writing a consistent practice in your home and your marriage, visit www.dailylovenotekit.com. It was created to help you say what matters, consistently and with love.

Finish With Intention

You do not need the crowd to validate your path. You do not need everyone to understand your marriage, your choices, or the quiet convictions you carry. You do not need company to confirm that you are going in the right direction.

You just need to keep moving.

The road less travelled is still a road. It still has a destination. It still has a God who knows every step of it before you take it. You are not lost because you are alone on it. You are simply on yours.

Keep going. You are exactly where you are supposed to be.

P.S. Download your copy of Love Him Well: The Daily Love Note Kit. Available now at www.dailylovenotekit.com.