Which Direction?

Grownups always ask kids what they want to be when they grow up. Schools have career days where different adults in different professions come in to the schools and share about their business or job. I think that very few kids at that age can actually state with certainty their life career choice, in fact, many young adults in college change their major’s at least once or even many times. And what about the directions our lives take apart from the way we earn our living? Do we get to choose those directions?
When Karen and I were engaged and planning our lives together we both had ideas of how things would go. Both of our children were planned, our house, our church, our future plans. Audrey is deathly afraid of spiders. We didn’t plan that. Some people have coulrophobia, fear of clowns. When Karen got cancer our whole world was turned upside down. No one would ever plan that. You wouldn’t plan on losing your business or mounting up bills and medical expenses. You wouldn’t plan on going Home at an early age. So who planned that? God? Anyone at all?
I don’t believe God causes all the little details of our lives to happen. I don’t believe God points out certain people and directs that this one or that one will get cancer or have a fatal car wreck. I don’t believe the Lord causes some wives to be beaten or some children to be abducted or sexually abused. I believe the sinful world we live in as a result of fallen man is the catalyst for much of the despair and disease we see.
After losing Karen there were many dark, lonely times, and still are on occasion. What am I going to do now? How am I going to survive? How can I function? Can God even use me anymore?
I may have talked of this analogy before but sometimes when driving East from here, I cross the continental divide. One time, when I got to the top of the divide, it was raining very hard. I pulled over and just sat quietly for a few minutes, mostly because I’m a poet and I love those quiet, solitude, kinds of moments to think and reflect. It occurred to me as I sat there that all of our storms form out in the Pacific Ocean and travel from West to East. The rain falls where it may, and as I sat there it occurred to me that the rain that was falling on the West side of the divide, from where I sat, would begin the journey down the creeks and rivers and eventually end up in the Columbia river system and back to the Pacific. The rain that fell just a few feet to the East would begin its journey down the Missouri, and Mississippi river systems and eventually end up in the Gulf of Mexico. The thing is, the rain didn’t get to decide which side of the divide it fell on.
Sometimes the storms in our lives take us places we never intended to go. We don’t always get to choose which side of the ‘divide’ we land on. I know this with all certainty, Romans 8:28 All things work together for good, to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.
Its ok to have goals and plans. Its ok to seek to better ourselves and our families. Just remember we are going to have storms. We are sometimes going to end up in places that we never intended. We may think we lost our direction, but if we seek the Lord and believe that all situations can work for good, we can go forward.