Destination Tomorrow
By Laura Mills
For the last two weeks I’ve followed via blog the journey of friends who, like my husband and me last year, traveled to China to adopt their daughter. Their journey is indeed monumental…not only have they traveled halfway across the world to a place they’ve never been before, but also the trip marks the end of their nearly seven-year wait to adopt from China as well as the beginning of their brand-new family’s life together. As I write this, I’m thinking about where they might be right now and what they might be doing…and just like when I made my own journey to China last year, the emotions almost take my breath away.
Not every life involves a trip halfway around the world, nor does every life experience such profound events in such rapid succession. But every life, no matter the circumstances, does require epic travels. Just being born, for one thing, is a journey of the most amazing kind! Then there’s our slide through childhood, our climb through adolescence, and our tentative first steps into adulthood…with all kinds of mini-journeys, each with its own beginning and end, along the way. And consider all the traveling we do as adults—we search for places to live, we fall in love, we explore careers and hunt for jobs, each sometimes many times over. We climb ladders and jump through hoops; we raise families; time and time again we risk our hearts and our sanity for the sake of happiness, our own or someone else’s. We sail through certain trials and sink under others. We seek fulfillment. And here and there along the way, we often just wander.
Think about where you are right now and what you’re doing. Then think about all the traveling you’ve done to arrive at this fleeting moment. The emotion might just take your breath away, too….
Peace to your journey, wherever it takes you.