and then... life happened

I couldn't find where this was originally posted, but thank you, Julia.

Okay, last week’s entry was deep; and in all honesty, I’m not sure I even liked it. (I’ll have to go back and check. I may want to edit.) But I was feeling quite busy what with one thing and another, and needed to post something, so… there it is.

Still, being aware of that, I thought we’d go in a different direction today. I saw this diagram and thought, this is so me. Is it you, too?

    When you were 16, what were you going to do with your life?
    Who were you going to be?
    What line of work were you going to go into?
    Who was going to be part of your life?
    Where were you going to live?

You get the idea. Next question, how has all of this turned out for you?

Me? At 16, I was going to live “somewhere else.” I didn’t know where and didn't think about the house, but I was going to live away from the megalopolis that the East Coast had become; in the country, maybe, definitely with a yard to dig in. I’d have a small, fuel-efficient car. I’d teach junior high band, hopefully get married, to some yet unknown man, and definitely have a houseful of kids – one biological, the rest adopted.

Never dreamed I’d go into pastoral ministry… never thought I’d be divorced… never would I have put up with having only 2 kids… At least I got the car part right.

Life has taken me places and into situations I never planned, as it does for all of us. Some of this has been great. I’ve seen Michelangelo’s Pieta, and let me tell you, it was breathtaking. I finally got my Masters – in Divinity, no less! Met some great people, learned a whole lot (including about how much I don’t know.)

Some of it wasn’t so great. The marriage was so painful that the leave-taking was actually a relief. The absence of all those children left a hole in my heart that's still mending.

My life is so different than I planned, but then, what did I know at 16? And, with all the good and bad that has happened, I’ve also learned to trust – myself, but also God as Spirit. She nudges and prods, often without my knowledge, but increasingly with my participation.[1]

For instance, just now I was distracted by the music I put on. At first, I was impatient about losing my focus, but then I realized it was my favorite song on the album (a very different recording of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.) If I hadn’t “woken up” to the nudge, I’d have missed hearing it until next December (since I’m packing up Christmas music tomorrow.)

Would you take a couple minutes and share a bit of your story? (It’s a lot easier to comment than it was before.) Maybe tell about a way your life is different than you ever could have planned, maybe even better. Or if it’s not better, then what have you learned so that you can live in wholeness? (Me, I keep my Christmas tree up a few weeks after neighbors’ have been left curbside; and I make a point of watching the squirrels and birds in the winter wilderness of my yard.)
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[1] At the Washington Island Forum last June, I listened with delight as John Bell repeatedly referred to the Holy Spirit as “she,” afterward adding that the word for Spirit in the Hebrew is feminine.