Beauty In The Detours

I was driving home from the city one day and turned off the highway one exit too soon. Groan and rats in a poke! I soon found myself zooming out into the countryside. Rather than heading nearer to home, where my tired self was longing to be lounging on the deck that warm day, I was going farther away.

Traffic roared confidently past, as my mind decided whether I should turn back or just keep going, since many roads around here eventually lead to Rome home. I kept going.

Rather than become agitated at the detour in my plans...let's just say I remembered I had a choice about it... and so I embraced the unexpected turn of events, allowed my eyes to feast on green, grassy fields of hay, and enjoy rustic farm yards crowned with some interesting old barns, all the while wending my way home a new way.

Making a wrong turn that day was mildly inconvenient. Nothing serious, just a change in direction.  But as I drove I thought about detours and side trips in our lives that we never meant to go on and how we wish we could get off that bumpy, unpaved trail, and start again. In God's world, I don't think our detours and side trips (aka mistakes) upset him as much as they do us. Our road trips of life are only mistakes dead ends when we make a decision to give up, put the car in park, and refuse to travel further.

Even if we find ourselves totally lost, the beauty of knowing Someone who is good at reading our 'road maps' and knows the way Home means we can relax a little. We can see it as an adventure. Yes, it may be uncomfortable, scary even, but if we can find the beauty, maybe one day we'll find ourselves grateful for the experience and cherish the lessons learned from the detour.

As we probably won't pass this way again, why not take note of the memories, lest we arrive at Point B without any stories to tell or blog posts to write.
 

 Wishing you grace for the journey!
Hugs,
Brenda
xox