The Pathway to the Barn
Thy word is lamp unto my feet and a light to my path. Psalm 119:105
When I was a teenager I lived for a few years on a farm in Southern Missouri. Each of us had our own chores and mine was to milk the cow. It would have been far easier to run across the road to the milk barn when it was light out, but in order to be ready to leave for work on time, I needed to get out of my nice warm bed and get started by 4:45. If the moon was full, it wasn’t hard to see and I could easily pick my way up the familiar path. But on dark moonless mornings, though I knew the way by heart, I needed the beam from my flashlight to find where to place my feet for each step.
Now fifty years later, I am still getting up long before daybreak but the pathway of 2025 feels far darker than any of those walks to the barn. Our own family’s issues, the ever changing national health crisis along with my own personal struggles loom on the horizon feeling like the shadows of a massive mountain range. Fears and doubts, decisions and demands lie waiting to be confronted, decided and met full on. But there is hope because God has given us a promise that He will light the path. We may not see well enough to run ahead, but His word will show us the way to take the next step. Then, even more amazingly He adds the even greater promise that He will not only light our path but that e will walk with us on it ,step by step, all the way to the barn.
God bless you each of you and Happy New Year. May you find the next step that He has reserved for you in this year that lies ahead!
Peter Caligiuri has been writing poetry since he was a teen-ager. Some of his short poems and devotionals have appeared in various periodicals such Secret Place, Breakthrough Intercessor and The Upper Room. Peter holds a Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education/English from Western Connecticut State College as well as having attended Elim Bible College. https://christiandevotions.us/viewauthor/430
Here are some I’ll bet you also remember. Walking to the barn in Ohio fog so thick you could barely see in front of you.
But one very pleasant memory is walking to the barn in blinding snow, wind, with bitter cold as soon as I entered through the door peace quiet and calmness. Except for the noise of hungry livestock.
The Lord gives us daily peace some with prayer and supplication and some with praising his holy name all the day long.
We didn’t have much blinding snow in Southern Missouri, but plenty of icy mornings. Those mornings in the barn are precious memories of how God hss guided and given grace all along the way.