The sweet taste of God’s love when you are connected to the life He has entrusted to you is better than any dream you could ever imagine. Wake up even when you are tempted to fall asleep, check out, and numb everything. Be fully in it even when it feels muddled, uncomfortable, and incredibly confusing. Let your body, mind, and heart all be in the same place. The temptation will be to look at your life like it’s a calculus problem to solve. When you look at your current circumstances, you may feel behind or off-track from your plan. Perhaps the place you are in isn’t where you thought you’d be. The path you are on might not make logical sense. You might even be in a place where you feel like your desires have been forgotten. Sister, stay awake to the detours God gives you as divine invitations to the greatest, deep-down, soul smiles. He will take us on the long route if it means He can give us the water our souls are really longing for. I needed this detour as a reminder of how much I loved humans. I needed to listen, laugh, and connect on a human level with people who were in many ways just like me. I needed to remember how fragile life really is. I needed to be stuck in a van with strangers to see people again. This journey that ended up taking me a total of sixteen hours was what my soul needed.
And in the most unimaginable way, with the gray sun dropping behind the storm-covered Colorado mountains, I smiled. We all have a story, don’t we? Every stranger, every human, every soul has a story. I reminded her of how God never loses sight of us no matter how broken life gets. She shared about how her grandfather was a preacher and how she wants to raise kind children. On the drive Debbie told me about her faith and how disheartened she was by the church. My heart expanded like those magical foam mattresses you get in the mail. We shared Goldfish crackers, told stories, and used each other’s phone chargers.
DETOURS PODCAST FULL
She was sassy, blunt, and full of quick, say-what-everyone’s-really-thinking-but-too-afraid-to-say-out-loud comebacks. “Debbie from the plane” sat right next to me. Twelve strangers from around the country, meeting for the first time, overcoming a near-death experience, were now traveling together in a van with one destination in mind - Denver. In a wild turn of events, we almost felt giddy. I gathered the closest strangers in a huddle like we were planning out our next strategic play. I looked to my right and saw a single woman and to my left was an Asian couple with a baby and another family of four. The rental car guy said, “I do have one twelve-passenger van.” He dangled the keys. Unfortunately, everyone else had the same idea and the cars were completely gone. I refused to take a bus all the way back to Denver. When I finally got off that dreaded plane, I ran toward the rental cars. Unsuccessfully the pilot attempted one more dangerous landing before we were rerouted to Grand Junction Airport, an hour away.Įvery passenger belted out a hearty cheer as our plane landed and slowed to a halt. Out the window everything was murky the clouds were as dark and thick as molasses. The pilot said something about air pockets, the storm, and how everything was going to be okay. The pilot immediately pulled the plane straight up like a rocket launching into space. As the plane approached the landing strip, it bobbled back and forth like a ping pong ball in a hurricane. I’d boarded a plane headed from San Diego to Denver on a cool morning. Instantly, I was transported back to that June day when I’d met Debbie. I could see her bouncy hair matching her boisterous southern drawl.
Her name caught my attention as I was going through the contacts on my phone.
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