The Unexpected

Have you ever thought that your life would be different than you had expected? Not in the sense of "I didn't anticipate this little thing happening in my routine" but in the sense of "I never thought this would ever happen to me"?

Is that foolish of me to even ask? Because my life has had a little more bumps and deviations along the path than I would have ever anticipated.

There are circumstances that I would have never chosen to put myself in, people I would perhaps rather have not met, and places that I wished I had never gone. Some of these deviations from my grand plan for my life rest upon my decisions; however, many of them do not. But who ever wishes to experience pain and sadness? Who desires to experience the gut-wrenching sensations of grief? Who wants to see that which is ugly, perverted, mean, broken, sick or despairing?

I don't - and I'm sure you don't either.

But I suppose those bumps signify more than inconveniences from my plan. I suppose they are allowing me to be shaped into someone who I didn't know I could be. I suppose they are showing me that I have more to learn about that which is greater than me and even more about who I should be. I suppose that there must be some flaw in my grand plan.

But I'm forgetting something.

Many of those deviations from my plan, those bumps along my anticipated path, have brought much more than pain and sorrow. Those bumps have brought beautiful things into my life that my imagination could not have ever conceived. There are circumstances that I would have never anticipated, people I never knew that I would meet, and places I never thought that I could go - and yet, they all entered into my life and have dramatically changed me. Those deviations have made life vibrant and invigorating in comparison to my grand plan which is actually small, dull, and without great emotion. But that's because someone else holds my life in His hands. Yahweh has mapped out my life from beginning to end and He is the one who has placed these bumps along my path.

So in reality, these deviations aren't actually deviations, they are the steps along my path of life. In the end, don't have supreme control over what will come to pass and what will not, but as I continue to walk, my life will better reflect Him who created it as I continue to look to Him as the master planner.

Face the unexpected.