a rock on a path

It's pretty blatant when you have toddlers or young children in your life because you begin to refer to events in stories or cartoons far too often. (Though that often was the case in college too, lol) Anyway, there is this cartoon on the Learning Channel called Peep and the Big Wide World. Now I know that it is written to teach lessons to young children but there is one story that really stands out to me.

Quack (he's a duck) is on his way to see his friend Peep. As he's walking up a hill along a path he runs into a big rock. Quack gets angry and starts telling the rock to get out of his way. He's at what appears to be an impasse. Now Peep comes walking down the hill, walks around the rock and is surprised to find Quack just standing there. Peep asks him why he doesn't just walk around the rock and Quack is adamant that he has the right of way and the rock should move for him.

This is a pretty amazing picture of how we often approach our lives. Life is moving along when something unexpected happens. It could be something at work, in our relationships, school, health... But we find ourselves unable to move past what has happened. From where we are sitting there is simply no option, no way past. But from the outside there are lots of options. We are simply blind to them because we are so focused on what is before us. When our focus becomes so narrowed that all we can see is our hurt or our troubles we lose sight of our very lives. Life throws all sorts of curve balls our way, some because of others, some because of our own choices. Either way those events are not the sole definers of who we are. Our life doesn't stop because of them unless we let it. I can't tell you how mny times I've seen people who let there entire lives be defined by hurt and troubles. They refuse to see the other possiblilities for living life. They exist without hope because they refuse to see hope. They exist without peace because they refuse to see the path that will lead them there. And so some of us walk around the rock and keep going, while others stay there waiting for it to move. Waiting... waiting... waiting.