{"id":9718,"date":"2026-04-13T22:45:34","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T02:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/?p=9718"},"modified":"2026-04-13T22:45:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T02:45:34","slug":"on-the-wandering-path","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/?p=9718","title":{"rendered":"On the Wandering Path"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Bessey4.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Bessey4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-9719\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Bessey4.jpg 800w, https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Bessey4-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Bessey4-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Bessey4-640x480.jpg 640w, https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Bessey4-400x300.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Not all who wander are lost,&#8221; writes J.R.R. Tolkien.  You&#8217;re not lost, you&#8217;re right where you belong on this wandering path.  It might be disorienting, there may be danger, but you&#8217;re not lost.  You&#8217;re on the right journey.  It&#8217;s just a different path than you were expecting when you were handed a brand of faith and told to cultivate and protect it at all costs.  You&#8217;re becoming someone who is more loving, someone who is healing, who is more acquainted with the fragility and belovedness of us all.  The deliverance that&#8217;s waiting on the other side of the wilderness isn&#8217;t a tidier, nicer version of you with new and better answers: your deliverance was always going to be more Love.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212; Sarah Bessey, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\/Nonfiction\/field_notes_for_the_wilderness.html\">Field Notes for the Wilderness<\/a><\/em>, p. 43<\/p>\n<p>Photo:  Bluebell Trail, Bull Run Regional Park, Virginia, April 3, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Not all who wander are lost,&#8221; writes J.R.R. Tolkien. You&#8217;re not lost, you&#8217;re right where you belong on this wandering path. It might be disorienting, there may be danger, but you&#8217;re not lost. You&#8217;re on the right journey. It&#8217;s just a different path than you were expecting when you were handed a brand of faith [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,35,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grace","category-growth","category-healing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9720,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9718\/revisions\/9720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}