Pumpkin Bread Detour

I am not a person who enjoys my course of action to be re-directed.  I love to see things stay on course, but of course, life doesn't work that way.  I am sure God just laughed when I married my husband, knowing that my husband would thrive in detours, while I would become frustrated.


So after I posted "Won't You Be My Neighbor" and had a vision to reach out to our new neighbors....then came the DETOUR!!  Our son broke his leg and my course was temporarily sidelined in order to serve my little man.


God, on the other hand, wasn't frustrated with my detour... He was guiding the path.


I had prayed a selfish prayer that our new neighbor would have a son for my high school son to play with.  After my re-energized vision to reach out, I began to pray for my new neighbors.  Their arrival came over a few weeks.  One day, the grandmother stopped me to let me know her daughter was moving into the house.  Parts of the story unfolded.  She was a single mom and the family had gone through some big adjustments.  Now I had even more to take before the Lord.


So while my cast boy was healing, God was preparing.  With increased freedom, I made a batch of pumpkin bread and became ready to welcome the family to our neighborhood.  The family arrived with a teenage boy, who loves baseball.  While my house was empty, I took the bread in hand, prayed over my steps and strolled next door.


The woman received me with open arms as I handed her the pumpkin bread.  As I stood on her front porch she began to unfold her story.  Through smiles and an uplifted voice, while fighting back tears at different points in her story, I was able empathize.  Her marriage of 19 years had come to a very ugly end and she was now going through drastic downsizing.  Where she had only worked part time, her new journey requires full time.  Her mother helps since her job takes her out of town for multiple days in a row.


Many of the lines of her story were similar to mine.  The downsizing meant getting rid of items and leaving behind extras not found in a rent home. For her, she is missing her swimming pool and I miss my trees.  We both laughed about how much we really didn't need.  She is giving up her three Christmas trees.


We both smiled at each other with "that is life" and you could hear the determination to go forward.  She let me know they were going to be around for the evening to visit some more. There was a moment to share where we go to church and invite them to join us. What I felt was a "detour" was instead God's perfect timing.  When will I learn that His timing is always right?


This will require an investment of my time in order to cultivate this relationship. I came away THANKING  God that I now had life experiences that could relate with hers.  I look forward to being able to share my Christ as the healer, as I first embrace her as a friend.  I was convicted...everyone has a story to tell, but have I taken the time to listen.

"Do you not say, 'There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest."Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. "For in this case the saying is true, 'One sows and another reaps.'  I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor."John 1:35-38

I hope you can look up from what you may feel is a detour and see that God knows the path ahead....and maybe, just maybe, the perceived "detour" is  instead His perfect path. Now I need to go make some more bread, there is another neighbor I need to meet!