Article June 3, 1944 Issue

The Turn in the Road

MABEL REED HYZER

Starting on a holiday, long anticipated, a party drove merrily along toward a distant city where friends were eagerly awaiting them. For some hours the way ran straight, but presently they reached a mountainous part of the country and a sharp turn in the road. For the rest of the journey they followed curved roads, sometimes actually doubling back in the direction from which they had come.

One in the party to whom the road was unfamiliar became impatient because she kept thinking how much more quickly their destination could have been reached had it been possible to go by a straight road. But the driver knew that all was well, and at length persuaded the impatient one to be calm and to enjoy the beauty of the landscape: he pointed out how grateful one could be that intelligent engineers had constructed a safe road which served so many. At last destination and friends were reached, and even the one who had been impatient acknowledged a joyful journey.

All through history, men and women who have done great things for others have turned from their humanly planned course, some from choice, others from force of circumstances. In Bible times a Hebrew, tending flocks, turned aside to see the unusual occurrence of a bush burning without being consumed, and there he heard the voice of God demanding that he return to Egypt and deliver his people Israel. This was not at all Moses' choice or desire, but he obeyed. The good Samaritan in Jesus' parable interrupted his own journey to turn aside to help another. Jesus altered his course to go to the house of the ruler of the synagogue to raise the daughter from the bed of death.

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