Detour 3

November 4, 2020 Contemplation, Learning from Others, Listening to God:, Prayer

Wandering the Labyrinth Together. for the Redbud Post.

Some long trails made me feel like I was making progress on the “walk” and others wound back on themselves, veering away from the center. If you’ve ever trekked a labyrinth in prayer (or walked a smaller version with your hands), you know that there is only one path but it is not a straight one. This ancient prayer tool is made of serpentine lines winding in and back out again, helping the pilgrim focus. There is no guessing if you are heading in the right direction, no worries about taking a wrong turn. You can just focus on the walk, focus on the presence of God with you.

As someone who loves to know the plan before I begin, not knowing what lies ahead makes me uncomfortable, even anxious. Somehow in that moment, not knowing where I am going or how long it would take me to get there made me feel free instead—free to trust that I would make it to the center when it was time and back out again safely. I didn’t have to worry about where I was going because I could trust that the maker of the labyrinth had laid it out correctly and the whole goal was to just walk.

As I’ve accepted that I am a good halfway through an ordinary span of life, I have become more profoundly affected by the twists and turns of life. Half of them behind me now, I can look back with insight on a life that has turned out where I supposed it should have, though not without much pain and many unexpected detours along the way. Nothing has turned out the way I imagined it would. But I have the benefit now of looking back and recognizing where God was at work.

My own way has wandered through countless forks and roadblocks. Early in my faith, I met the unexpected moments in life with trite answers and pretended it was enough. I swallowed more well-meaning “when God closes a door he opens a window” answers than I could stomach through the years and they began to rub me the wrong way.

Two distinct moments in my life, I can remember raging back against simple answers to life’s complex twists. Barely three months into my dreamed-of life in the Middle East, already rattled by culture-shock, the call that shredded my insides came. My husband entered the room, his face void of color. I don’t remember much except dropping to the shower floor and wrapping the towel around me to absorb the tears when he told me my father had experienced a “widow-maker,” a massive heart attack. That was 13 years ago this winter and my dad is still with us, but our dream of living overseas is not.

We launched out again, believing we were following God’s particular route laid out before us only to find ourselves again in the wilderness. A shockingly similar call came when we were living in Bangladesh. It was my mom’s voice again on the phone, telling me of my brother-in-law’s ruptured brain aneurysm. The same fears arose inside of me, the same feelings of obligation to my family and the need to be by their sides. The same anger—not at God, but at those who would pin the pain my family was going through on God.

The same words ripped through my throat in those startling incidents a decade apart: “My God did not do this!” When others gave me that, “there, there” look and told me it was all a part of God’s plan or that the Lord was testing our faithfulness, anger surged through me..

CONTINUE READING AT THE REDBUD POST

January 13, 2020 Listening to God:, The wilderness

The Winding Paths That Lead Us Home

It all seemed so clear…until it didn’t anymore. I had a vision and a plan and I believed it was all from God. As circumstances lined up, I became even more assured that it must be true.

I hear it all the time when something unexplainably good happens: “It was such a God thing.” It’s our way of saying, God ordained this; it must have been the will of the Lord. That’s why it all worked out, right?

But then, it doesn’t work out. Something that seemed so clear gets fuzzy. Dreams die. Plans change. Life smacks us around and derails what looked like a path set out for us. Wasn’t that God’s plan, too? Could our detours and our suffering be part of the perfect plan for us? We don’t like to claim that one.

I remember it like yesterday, a conversation that seemed innocent enough; not like one that would change my entire life. I had stopped by an old friend’s house to meet him for lunch. We had known each other since middle school and went to the same church as teenagers. We had reconnected in the past few weeks when we both moved back to our hometown after college. When his dad walked into the kitchen he reacted the way most people did upon hearing my plans. “What can we do to keep you from moving to India?” he said.

I raised my head with the confidence of someone following the way intended by God alone. “Nothing,” I insisted, “I am going.”

I had followed the breadcrumbs that led me to this place of kismet. I knew in my bones since college I would live in a foreign land but I wasn’t sure where. I chased that dream to seminary to get a stronger foundation under my feet before I launched out into the world.

I met a visiting lecturer who talked about his work in Northern India. He was supporting local artists who were seeing Hindus and Christians work together to create amazing art. I jumped at the opening to use my dance training and my faith together. When I started studying classical Indian dance, I became infatuated with all things Indian culture. I devoured the food, Bollywood movies, and the thumping bhangra beats.

I felt elegant in my sari the night of my first Bharata Natyam performance. My teacher said I took to the dance style so naturally I must have been a temple dancer in a past life. I found a job in which I could study dance in India and build relationships with college students in a big city. Clearly, this was a God thing.

Until…I fell quickly and madly in love with that old friend I said I was having a harmless lunch with. I weighed this perfect vision I had of what my life should look like with what also seemed like a perfect fit between the two of us. Wait, was I wrong? How could two paths be the right ones? Was India all my dream and not God’s?...

CONTINUE READING AT THE MUDROOM

June 6, 2016 Noticing (Everyday life)

We’ll Get There Eventually. For SheLoves Magazine.

A person plans his course, but the Lord directs his steps – Proverbs 16.9

Our little suburb is undergoing some serious growing pains lately. We have had an influx of new businesses and homes and that means a lot of delays in getting where you need to go. As roadwork has become a normal occurrence and traffic has increased, you have to leave earlier to get where you’re going than you used to. I’ve just become accustomed to expecting delays.

This week as I came to yet another halt near my home there were flashing signs warning of a detour, a road up ahead closed for the day. It wasn’t just a delay but a complete change of direction. The way ahead wasn’t clear anymore. If you wanted to get where you were headed, you had to follow the signs guiding you, trusting they would take you to your destination eventually.

The delays and diversions all around me have me thinking about how I am no stranger to changes of course in my life.

In college I changed my major three times as God continued to narrow down the dreams He had for me to pursue. Each new dream meant the death of an old one.

Expect delays up ahead.

I left relationships behind to follow what He was saying, moved away from home, pursued more school, and readied myself for the job overseas I thought was the fulfillment of my dream.
Then this handsome face from my past who had previously just been a friend reappeared.

Warning: Detour Ahead.

We started a life together and God gave us a new dream. Our roots as a family had barely begun to settle into the earth when we pulled them up and moved to the Middle East. We felt like we were thriving there, coasting ahead. Then, we started to see red lights ahead of us again.

Within six months we found ourselves back in our old apartment in the states. Family issues had arisen and we knew our place was back home for this season.

Road Closed.

I won’t lie and say each change of direction was easy, that all roads are equal. Some left me reeling, questioning if I’d heard God correctly. It took years before I understood why we had to give up our dreams after such a short time and return home.

When our course is abruptly redirected or stopped altogether, it can be jarring. But we aren’t left alone. If we will keep our eyes on the path ahead we will see that there are signs leading us on...