Poet William Stafford once said that we are defined more by the detours (绕行路) in life than by the narrow road toward goals. I like this image. But it was quite by accident【小题1】 I discovered the deep meaning of his words.

For years we made the long drive【小题2】 our home in Seattle to my parents’ home in Boise in nine hours. We travelled the way most people do: the fastest, shortest, easiest road, especially when I was alone with four noisy, restless kids who hate confinement (限制) and have strong opinions about everything.

Road trips felt risky, so I would drive fast,【小题3】(stop) only when I had to. We would stick to the freeways and arrive tired.

But then Banner, our lamb, was born. He【小题4】(reject) by his mama days before our planned trip to Boise. I had two choices: leave Banner with my husband, or take him with me. My husband made the decision for me.

That is how I found myself on the road with four kids, a baby lamb and nothing but my everlasting optimism to see me through. We took the country roads out of necessity. We had to stop every hour, let Banner shake out his legs and feed him. The kids chased him and one another. They’d get back in the car breathless and energized,【小题5】(smell) fresh from the cold air.

We explored side roads, catching grasshoppers in waist-high grass.【小题6】 we simply looked out of the car window, at baby pigs following their mother, or fish leaping out of the water, it was better than the best ride down the freeway. Here was life. And new horizons. We eventually arrived at my parents’ doorstep astonishingly fresh and full of stories.

I grew brave with the trip back home and creative with my disciplining technique. On an empty section of road, everyone started quarrelling. I stopped the car, ordered all kids out and told them to meet me up ahead. I parked my car half a mile away and read my book in sweet silence.

Some road trips are by necessity fast and straight. But that trip with Banner opened our eyes to a world available to anyone adventurous enough【小题7】(wander) around and made me realize that a detour 【小题8】 uncover the best part of a journey-and the best part of yourself.

Everybody has to face bad days in their life. No one can escape from it. It is【小题1】 rule of life. Two things always combines together like joy and 【小题2】(sad), laugh and cry, health and illness, profit and loss, morning and night, and so on.

You know what is the 【小题3】(big) advantage of bad days? You come to know GOD. What is God? What he can do? He is so friendly, 【小题4】(understand), loving and moreover God is the Superman he can do anything in a second. Yes true he can do anything. He is the only light in darkness. God is so 【小题5】(mercy) he always forgives and never complaint whether you ignore him many times that is 【小题6】 according to me God is the only best and faithful friend who never cheats.

When bad days come a person first of all cannot understand what is going on, why me? But after sometimes he realizes his strength and start 【小题7】(do) every single thing to come out of it. And he comes out though that journey is very painful, when you once 【小题8】(cross) it you will find your journey very meaningful, you will feel like as your 【小题9】(birth). Since then, totally you 【小题10】(change) your thoughts, your perception, and you can understand life better. You get the meaning of your life. In short you start becoming wise.

In the 1950s, a family that owned a farm near Beulah, Michigan kept a bull chained to an elm (榆树). The bull paced 【小题1】 the tree, dragging the heavy iron chain, 【小题2】 led to a groove (槽) in the bark (树皮). The groove 【小题3】 (deep)over the years. However, for whatever reason, it just did not kill the tree.

After some years, the family took their bull away. They cut the chain, leaving the loop around the tree and one link 【小题4】 (hang) down.

Then one year, one of the most historically serious agricultural 【小题5】 (catastrophe) struck Michigan in the form of Dutch elm disease. All of the elms lining the road leading to the farm became withered and died due to the 【小题6】 (infect) disease, which made people panic as well. Everyone thought that the old elm would be the next. The farm owner considered going the safe thing: pulling it out and chopping it up into firewood before it died.

【小题7】 (amaze), the tree did not die. Nobody could understand why 【小题8】 was the only elm still standing in the county. It is said that 【小题9】 doesn’t kill you will make you 【小题10】 (strong). Or, as a plant pathologists (病理学家) put it, “Life breaks us all, but afterwards, many of us are strongest at the broken places.”