Someone once said, the reason the earth was curved was so we couldn't see too far down the road. There are two reasons why we can't see too far down the road of life.

When I was eighteen, I worked in the accounting office of an eyeglass company located on Sherbourne Street in Toronto. When I was thirty-two, I found myself married to a man who worked in the office across the road from the eyeglass company.

What would have happened if one day when I was eighteen, while waiting for the bus to take me home, an angel met me at the stop and said, "When you're thirty-two you will be married to a man working in the office across the road. You'll have two beautiful young daughters who will complete your life."

Knowing what was coming, I probably would have stayed at the eyeglass company for a number of years watching and waiting to find the man I was to marry. I'd figure he'd show up eventually, maybe entering the building across the road. Standing on the corner, I figure he'd notice me as our fate was sealed, and the rest would be history.

Since I wasn't privy to that information, I moved on securing a job in the newsroom of the Toronto Star (Canada's largest newspaper). While there I met people who affirmed my sense of worth and added immeasurably to my experience in the field of writing and research.

From there I moved on to live and work in St. John's Newfoundland (Canada's most easterly province - the home of Annie Proulx's novel). While in St. John's, I met one of the best friends of my life and was introduced to her family, who all played a strengthening, filling, and healing factor in my life. All four members of the family became a root system that continues to nourish my life even today.

It was in St. John's that I married and gave birth to two daughters. After spending ten years on the east coast, my family and I moved to the Province of Ontario (back to where I started). My husband accepted a position through the services of a headhunter. It wasn't until a contract had been negotiated that he found out the main office was located directly across the street from the very same office I had worked in as a teen. And so, I ended up marrying a man who worked across the street from my place of employment.

If an angel had met me on the street corner years earlier and told me this end result, without laying out the plan, I might have taken matters into my own hands and missed certain blessings and opportunities.

But wait a minute, there is more to the story. What if the angel did lay out the plan? Consider this, what if the road didn't look so rosy? What if the angel said, you will marry a man working in the office across the road and will give birth to two beautiful daughters, but you will also travel through seventeen years of the most difficult time of your life. There will be times when you will feel you can't make it, because you'll marry an abusive husband, and not long after your husband begins work in that office across the street the two of you will separate and divorce. You'll become a single parent with no job. What if the angel had revealed that information to me?

Human nature instinctively moves toward good and avoids the negative. Our genetic code is programmed to avoid pain, and yet, some of the greatest lessons often come as we walk through pain. So, would I have walked the path if I knew what was coming?

Given the choice, if I had known the future, what would I do? The reason the earth is curved is so that we are not able to see too far down the road. Otherwise, we might take matters into our own hands. I think it's best to leave the future in God's hands and let Him reveal it to us a bit at a time, or give us understanding as we walk through it. I often say, that we walk forward in faith. It is with hindsight that we learn the true lessons of life.