Cocooning

I was tooling towards Como Zoo with all three kids in the backseat when suddenly I realized I was heading south instead of north on 35W. Road construction was terrible. With all the lanes veering this way and that, somehow I ended up in an exit lane going the wrong direction. No big deal, I thought. Just get off at the next exit ramp and turn around.

But with all the detour signs and closed entrance ramps, what should have been a 40-minute trip ended up taking 1 1/2 hours. When I realized how far off course we'd actually gone, I felt like a tiny mouse in an impossible maze. I almost gave up. "Kids, we're so off the mark, I don't even know if I have enough gas to get all the way to St. Paul and back."

They were disappointed. I was mad, and talking to myself: Life is full of detours, Cheri, learn to embrace them. Maybe life IS a detour, and you're so angry about having to abandon your own map and plans that you're missing it! Stick with this. Enjoy the journey. Be an example to your kids.

But I think my higher-self was stuck in the trunk. My steering wheel will attest to the frustration and anger it --and everyone else in the car-- endured. I turned into the Wicked Witch of the West (only difference is I was going south). We made it to the Zoo, fueled only by my spite for the god of detours--the one who makes any human effort to arrive at a mapped destination seem insignificant and small.

And if you doubt there is such a god, can you please explain how we got lost on the way home, too?

It took me 2 days to de-compress. Because the Zoo-fiasco is simply magnifying how I feel about life in general. Two job opportunities that had me flying high with expectation and a new vision for my future crash-landed. My sister's fight with cancer, and watching the toll it is taking on her kids and husband (and also my mom and dad who are live-in help), is terribly sad. And my waitressing job (its scheduling issues, poor tipping from guests, etc) continues to thwart dedicated efforts to make ends meet.

Detour. Detour. Detour. I feel like I walk around with a permanent lump in my throat.

And yet God continues to speak through caterpillar (now in chrysallis) hanging from milkweed in my kitchen window. The road from caterpillar to butterfly includes a detour. We "watchers" expect the chrysallis phase, and even welcome it, because we know it's part of God's design. But does the caterpillar know the bigger picture? Does he think he's dying when he's hanging in that upside down J? Does he know he will emerge, in time, with wings?

Lord, help me to trust that I will get there (wherever "there" is) in your time and way. And help me to live in a state of grace, cherishing EVERY phase of the journey.

(Detour sign from FreePhoto.com)