Humor Me For A Minute

I just finished reading Brandon Sanderson's latest novel Way Of Kings.  It was a whopping 1001 pages.  Would I recommend it?  I'm not sure yet.  It's astonishingly brilliant, philosophical, mythological, religious, fiction.  Parts of it were tedious, violent, and just plain beyond my ability to understand.  Although I enjoyed the challenge.  It reminded me a lot of Crime and Punishment but with a lot more story wrapped around it.  If you're up for the challenge, I commend you. (Just to note: I've loved every single one of his other books but the others were simple compared to this).

There was a part I read last night that really struck a chord with me.  I want to share it.

Once upon a time there was a King who decided to travel across his country on foot, alone, and penniless to his Holy City on the other side.  It was a long journey, I'm imagining the equivalent of walking across the US or something.  When he finally arrived he was thin and haggard looking.  After being taken care of by his many attendants he sat down to dinner  and was asked the purpose of his excursion.  Couldn't he have just taken the simple, easy, and common route to the holy city? He said,

"For my answer I removed my sandals and proffered my callused feet.  They were comfortable upon the table beside my half-consumed tray of grapes.  At this point, the expressions of my companions proclaimed that they thought me daft, and so I explained by relating the stories of my trip.  One after another, like stacked sacks of tallew, stored for the winter season.  I would make flatbread of them soon, then stuff it between these pages.'

'Yes, I could have traveled quickly.  But all men have the same ultimate destination.  Whether we find our end in a hallowed sepulcher or a pauper's ditch, all save the Heralds themselves must dine with the Nightwatcher.'

'And so, does the destination matter?  Or is it the path we take?  I declare that no accomplishment has substance nearly as great as the road used to achieve it.  We are not creatures of destinations.  It is the journey that shapes us.  Our callused feet, our backs strong from carrying the weight of our travels, our eyes open with the fresh delight of experiences lived.'

So, it's possible that this hit me because my back is definitely feeling the weight of my travels right now but I really appreciated the insight that our struggles, the weights we carry, shape who we are.  Before this pregnancy I felt like I had reached a destination.  I was healthy, strong, and enjoying freedoms I had longed for for years.  Getting pregnant felt like a set back.  But this short story opened my eyes that maybe instead, this is a new journey.  One that is hard, physically, mentally, and spiritually.  And yet I can feel myself changing, finding new meaning in my life and finding more to my limits, along with increasing my own potential.  And it hit me that it's possible I will look back on this journey one day and delight in the experience, knowing that I reached for more, and also knowing that the journey was hard.  But I think this King was saying that sometimes it's better for the journey to be hard.  There's more to learn that way and more to become before our final destination.