When Your Life Makes an Unexpected Turn

Personal experience has taught that life isn’t one straight, smooth and effortless journey. There are patches of rocky road, exhausting up hill climbs, stretches of fog and darkness. Though life’s path can often be level, smooth, well marked, and brightly lit, those hard stretches can seem to go on forever.

We shouldn’t be surprised by this state of travel. The overwhelming evidence is that we live in a fallen and bent world and we are broken and finite people.  The mixture of both create those difficult stretches we all experience in our lives.

Rough patches can mean many things, sometimes we just need to get through them.  But other times there’s more to a difficult stretch of road than simply getting through it. Sometimes long stretches of rough travel is a signal that radical change is coming or needed.

And this radical change is a redirection of our life, a turn down a different path to a new destination we never planned on or expected.  When this happens to us what we thought was so certain, what we worked so hard for, tenaciously planned and prepared for, prayed and dreamed about is suddenly gone, often in a flash.  We feel totally blind sided by these unasked for and unwanted changes.

Yet, often, maybe nearly always, its these changes in our travel plans that lead to the better roads, brighter paths, and a more joyful journey.  Why?  Because most likely our former path had become the wrong one for us. Somewhere, unannounced to us was a much better road, one planned from the beginning of creation.  We just didn’t know it or see it. The hard road can push us to a new and better path only if we can work through the emotions of such radical and intrusive change.

Which is why these directional changes are the hardest of all.

Yet these changes , as unbearable as they can be in the moment, can also provide us hope that we’ll not only come through this rough patch but we’ll be on our way to a better destination, a new life. The real question is how we confront and deal with our new reality. Are we willing to walk away from our old plans and dreams and start to construct new plans to a new destination?

These moments do not come often, so I’ve found the benefit of the wisdom, perspective and insight of a traveling companion, someone whose traveled before us.  First, it’s simply helpful to have a friend walk with us while on the rough roads.  Secondly, a companion, because they tend to be more objective, can help us evaluate whether a rough patch is the signal to change directions and head to a new destination or something to get through.

Finally, I’ve found making sure there’s space for prayer, reflection and meditation are essential in working intellectually and emotionally through these segments of our journey.  It’s in these quiet moments that breakthroughs in perspective and clarity on direction so often come.

So, if you’re in one of those places on your journey where traveling is difficult, seek wisdom from others as well as through prayer and reflection.  Determine if it’s just a rough patch to get through or a indication of a radical change in direction.  If it’s simply getting through,  keep walking.  If it’s a change in direction,  seek out a new destination and create a new travel plan that will bring you to a better place.  But either way, standing still is not an option, going back rarely the answer, instead look, lean, and move forward -it’s the only way through it and onto your new destination.