Portia Nelson was an American singer and actress well known in the 50's and 60's. She is also remembered for a little poem titled "There's a hole in my sidewalk: an autobiography in five short chapters". In chapter one, she walks down the street and falls into the hole. It isn't her fault. She is helpless and struggles to get out. In the next two chapters she walks down the same street, knowing the hole is there, and falls in again. In chapter four, she walks around the hole and in chapter five, she takes a different road.
The poem has been influential in the recovery movement, where addicts describe walking down the same road each day and falling into the same hole (even though they know it is there). It's a miserable feeling, being at the bottom of that familiar hole, so the final chapter of Nelson's poem is a hopeful invitation to change direction and choose a new road.
Are there ways that you and I are walking down the same road each day? It may a loss we are grieving (not our fault at all, but we nonetheless find ourselves in a hole), or an ongoing addiction, or even an unhelpful way of thinking about ourselves or our lives. The God who came to give us life invites us to choose a more hopeful road. Here's how the prophet Jeremiah expresses this invitation: "This is what the Lord says: 'Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.'" (Jer 6:16)