There were so many reasons I could have turned down this experience but last summer when the choice to do a Global Health Learning Abroad experience popped on to my radar or the other choice was to sit in a classroom for three months to finish my last credit……  I said, YES!” to the adventure, (even though it SCARED ME TO DEATH) . 

There were plenty of excuses:

• It would cost more
• I would have to leave the country for a month
• I didn’t know ANYONE that was going on this trip
• I hadn’t traveled out of the US for years and years and years

………… and the list could go on………

But!  Like Robert Frost so poetically said, “I took the path less traveled and it has made all the difference.”   

Today as I continue to hear about the tragic fire that destroyed the iconic Notre Dame in Paris, I will be forever grateful that I faced my fear and did it anyway.  Paris was an optional part of my Learning Abroad experience. It was an extra week away from my family and it would increase the cost.  I was also challenged with missing the experience because my father passed away the day before we were to depart for France. I had a choice to continue on to this breathtaking city or go home.  I listened to my heart and it said, “Life is for the living!”

So I sit here in sweet gratitude of the memories I have of walking through the halls of Notre Dame last summer and recall her beauty that defies words.  

Lesson learned over and over…. Take the chance, find a way, truly LIVE your life, face your fear and do it anyway!!!