Paris or bust. When life changes directions.

I boarded a plane about a year ago with my long awaited ticket in hand to Paris.  I had wanted to go my entire life.  It had been something I had dreamt about, thought about, did projects about, wrote papers about for as long as I could remember.

After a long flight there our plane landed and in a delightful voice the airline attendant said 'hello and welcome to Australia'. 

What? Wait! I didn't buy a ticket to Australia.  My ticket said Paris, France.  There had been a serious mix up and I was upset...beyond upset...I was furious!  I planned a trip to Paris not Australia.  The Louvre and the Eiffel Tower were the first on my list of things to do. Australia had nothing to do with paintings or architecture!

Ever feel like that in life? Have you ever set out in life planning to get to one destination but instead got taken "off course" in another direction?  

As I got off the plane in anticipation of art I've only read about, cute cafes with real beignets and amazing architecture instead I saw the Outback filled with a lot of brown landscape....not exactly the colors Monet, Van Gogh or Rembrandt used...nope just lots of brown.

There I sat a bit puzzled and disillusioned by my "wrong turn" and crazy mix up. As I sat there figuring how to go back, I looked out the window as tears streamed down my cheeks at my change in plans and I saw something on the horizon.  I looked beyond the brown landscape and saw the most gorgeous sunrise I had ever seen in my life. Colors beyond anything I had ever seen on any canvas.  

Had I not taken my "wrong turn" I would have missed the most amazing piece of art I had ever laid eyes on.  I walked outside and began to see things I had never seen before or even knew I wanted to see...as I began to see them I realized this place was way more amazing than I had ever thought it could be.  I began to see things and meet people I would have never met had I went to my originally planned destination of Paris.

All of us in life have our own plans of the places we want to get to, the goals we want to accomplish, the people we want to meet or rub shoulders with but sometimes you think you bought a ticket to one location when God actually has a different landscape in mind for you and your life.

Are you at a point where you find yourself in a different destination than you were planning.  Are you fighting it? Are you upset about it? Are you trying to get back on the plane and go backwards to where you came from? Are you yelling at the airline attendant that there has been a huge mistake and your life wasn't suppose to look like this place you are in right now?

Acceptance is not giving in...it's letting go and letting God have his way with where your life is heading.  Sometimes that involves a change of scenery at a job, a school, a church, a neighborhood.  Stop fighting it and take in the scenery in this new place....God says He orders our steps so chances are you are not in the "wrong place" you are actually right where He wants you to be to use you.  It just might not look like the plan you had but it's the plan He has had this whole time....embrace it and keep following Him....who knows you might see your own beautiful sunrise full of colors you never thought existed until you ended up where you thought you didn't want to go but exactly where you needed to be.

¹¹ I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. ¹² I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. ¹³ I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

Philippians 4:11-13

 I never really went to Paris (yet) but used it as a story as to how we can plan our lives to go one way when God takes our lives and leads us in an entirely different direction and when you take a moment to look back you realize this was His plan all along.  God's pretty cool like that :)