DETOURS...

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What are detours? Some wanted, some unwanted, planned, unplanned...Detours take us places we did not expect, taking a risk, changing of ones mind, an adventure, a loss, a choice, a pre-determined factor by an unseen hand or the choice of another for good or bad. Like Alice we can fall down rabbit holes and walk through doors or slip cracks in the floor and we find ourselves elsewhere,,,in unexpected places.

By Definition:

An alternate or temporary road used when a main route is closed...any longer path taken, to avoid a problem or visit a special place

To travel along a path that differs from the original or planned route.

Oh the Detours we have taken...all of us, some of us don't even know where or why we have ended up here. Some detours are pleasant leading down roads to people and places of great beauty and value. But I guess I'm leaning more toward detours that alter the plan, morph the image of our being and make us wonder: can I ever get back? and where was I going anyway? What was the plan?

The Israelites took a detour. After a dramatic rescue from their captors, they find themselves in the Wilderness as it has come to be called. God used Moses to deliver His people from Egypt and He leads them out to take them to a land flowing with milk and honey. What should have taken 11 days lasted 40 years!!!! And many never made it through to the other side. This causes me great agony, I think of the years I feel I've wasted, the time I can't get back. I judge the Israelites for taking so long and not understanding the plan, but I am no different. I want to be a Joshua forging ahead with great belief, but I meander, I waste time, I complain. I really dislike this part of me...the wasted part, talents buried, choices made risk taken, rotting corpses of myself I've buried in the yard and forgotten. I've not tended this garden of my life well and even I can't live off of what it produces. I feel ashamed of myself and I want it all to be different.

So what do I do now, where is the path back, if there is even one. And what am I going back to? I don't think I can go back, I don't get a do over, I just get the NOW. Like the Israelites everything is left behind buried in the desert with the bodies...so many bodies, the bodies of myself, the one I hide, the one I was going to be, the one I was meant to be, and the one betrayers buried for me.

So, I stand here remembering a Promised Land, a Dream, an Echo of someone unseen but meant to be. Have I planned these detours or has another or is it a blend of many things? These Detours have shaped me, altered me and the path, taken me elsewhere, but can I (we) ever believe they are part of the plan? Accidents weaved into the path, OK' d and redeemed by the Hand of Him that sees. Will you come with me? Down my detours, down your own detours and see...and maybe we can find our way through, maybe we can understand...Let's detour together, 1 detour at a time let's not waste anymore time. Detour 1 coming soon.