Detour

I drive to work everyday on a sort of country road. It's two lanes and it passes through a golf course but it also goes back past some historic houses and in my opinion it used to be one of the prettiest drives in all of Nashville.

And then about 9 months ago someone, somewhere, decided that the road needed to be widened for reasons I still don't understand and they yanked up all the trees and pulled done the crumbling stone walls and ripped up the concrete. And then a couple of weeks ago they started rerouting everyone around on the same road I usually turn off on. On this road is a tiny church and the church has one of those signs that they change weekly with a new pithy saying. For a whole week once the first line said "God is up to something." I liked that. I don't remember what the rest of it said but I liked the idea that God was up to something.

This week the first line is driving me nuts.

"This detour was planned"

Not exactly what I want to hear. I wanted to be mad and rail against God and shake my fist and stomp my feet. In essence I wanted to throw a temper tantrum because I felt like God had stolen something precious from me. We are missing precious weeks of Sam's life that we will never get back. Ever. And I felt robbed.

And I did not want to be reminded that every second we are alive and have breath in our lungs is a gift from God. Every minute we get with Sam, the fact that we get to be Sam's parents is a gift. God can't exactly steal something that was his to begin with.

Am I still sad? Yes. Am I trying hard to believe that this detour was planned by an almighty and sovereign God who knows something I do not? Yes. Is it easy? No. Is it good for me? Probably.

This detour was planned. And it's only a detour. We'll still get where we're going. It just may take a little longer than expected.