Valley Princess

Learning to Love: Day 21

I Never Knew

I never knew how narrow
That the road was meant to be.
The footpath is much broader
Than the margins I now see.
I never knew the ground covered,
How far this path extends.
When I began I didn't know
(And still don't) where it ends.
I didn't know how dark the road,
Behind, right here, would show.
It's growing blacker each moment
That light ahead will glow.
The narrower, the farther,
And the darker this path turns,
I'd wonder if I lost the way
Toward where my heart burns.
That glowing light ahead
Shines on my map and it illumes.
I am in the right place
Yet false is all my heart presumes,
Or ever did, or thought, I think, 
Begin to understand.
The solid soil on this path's part
Contrasts to shifting sand.

I now know I’ve not lost the way.
I’m closer than my yesterday.
I know I’m not lost now because
I see how lost I really was.

Day 21

I used to think I was a pretty good person, but I can plead nothing else now other than being a ragamuffin disciple, as Brennan Manning puts in his book, The Ragamuffin Gospel. He summarizes it so well; I will simply quote him. He defines the ragamuffin as

the bedraggled, beat-up and burnt-out…the sorely burdened who are still shifting the heavy suitcase from one hand to another…the wobbly and weak-kneed who know they don’t have it all together and are too proud to accept the hand-out of amazing grace…inconsistent, unsteady disciples whose cheese is falling off their cracker…poor, weak, sinful men and women with hereditary faults and limited talents…the bent and bruised who feel that their lives are a grave disappointment to God…smart people who know they are stupid and honest disciples who admit they are scalawags (15).

But it doesn’t stop there. Yes, this seems to be our perpetual, even ever-growing state if we are honest, but we needn’t despair because

[w]hat makes authentic disciples is…a capacity for faithfulness. buffeted by the fickle winds of failure, battered by our own unruly emotions, and bruised by rejection and ridicule, authentic disciples may have stumbled and frequently fallen, endured lapses and relapses, gotten handcuffed to the fleshpots and wandered into a far country. Yet, they kept coming back to Jesus (176). The mature Christians I have met along the way are those who have learned to live gracefully with their failure. Faithfulness requires the courage to risk everything on Jesus, the willingness to keep growing, and the readiness to risk failure throughout our lives (185).

Yes, I’m a ragamuffin. What about you?

If you enjoyed this material, please leave a like or comment on my blog, share, and you can purchase my book, Learning to Love: A Collection of Poetry and 40 Daily Devotions, on Amazon. Until next time, God bless.

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Valley Princess
Sara DuVall is a wife and homeschool mom. She lives in the Tennessee Valley of North Alabama with her husband and four children. Originally from the Florida Gulf Coast, she was raised in the church and worked for the church for some time. Sara has a MA in English literature and certificate in technical communication, having work experience in the field of technical communication and technical editing. Her BA is in cultural anthropology and English writing. Sara has been writing poetry since she was about 13 years old. Inspired by a poem written by her great-grandmother, Sara has studied and enjoyed the art of poetry ever since. She is a published short story author in Northwest Florida State College’s Blackwater Review (2006 and 2007). She is also an award-winning short story author at the University of West Florida (2009). She published her first book, Learning to Love: a Collection of Poetry and 40 Daily Devotions, in 2021. The daughter of a choir director and college music teacher with an MA in voice, Sara was regularly exposed to music from an early age. Although she is a far cry from the vocal qualifications of her mother, and although she is not nearly as proficient a pianist as she should be from her tutelage, Sara has maintained her musical background by expressing herself through acoustic and classical guitar and the Native American style flute, composing many of her own songs. Besides writing and music, one of Sara’s favorite work experiences was as assistant curator of the Heritage Museum of Northwest Florida where she got to accession people’s old stuff and guide tours about it. They just don’t make things like they used to.
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