©Sofía Álvarez Jurado
In 2004, the country group Rascal Flatts released their song Bless the Broken Road. Seventeen years later, I discovered this beautiful ballad, and its lyrics brought me almost immediately to tears. While those who know me might think that this is a common occurrence (after all, I am an easy cryer), these hopeful lyrics found me when I was going through a hard time and needed comfort and support.
Through the song, Gary LeVox’s beautiful voice tells the tale of his search for love and how he understands that he needed to go through every obstacle and heartbreak before finding the right person (It’is an older and softer version of Ariana Grande’s “Thank You Next”, if you will.) My favorite verse reads like this:
… Every long lost dream led me to where you are
Others who broke my heart, they were like Northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you
As someone who left her home to study abroad and does not necessarily have plans to go back, I often wonder whether the decisions I have made to leave my family behind and the comfort they bring are the correct ones. While I wish I could share the lovely moments of family intimacy like celebrating birthdays, befriending my brother’s girlfriend, and getting involved in my city’s life, I know that my dreams and ambitions for the future cannot be fulfilled if I stayed in my town.
I was standing at the crossroads between these two assumptions when I started listening to this song on repeat, realizing that it’s easy to lose faith when grieving for things you can’t stand not to lose.
What this song reminded me of, is the fact that, ultimately, everything will be okay. While I am not one to float through life supported by the mantra “everything happens for a reason”, I have learnt to have faith and believe in myself and the people around me. Everything will be okay, not because of some invisible force, but because we will do everything we can to make it so.
So I decided to take a leap of faith, move to yet another new city, and spend more years away from my family, convinced that I would not regret pursuing my dreams. Things are not always easy, yet I am able to appreciate how much I have grown and evolved since then.
Sometimes with hard decisions come beautiful manifestations of change in life, hand in hand with a feeling of grief for things lost. In those moments, I have learned to have faith in myself, knowing that I will get through difficult situations. And when I feel that faith shaking, I decide to believe in the loved ones that surround me, knowing that their faith in me paves the broken road.