Detours- My (Adult) Life Story
WARNING: LONG POST AHEAD. It’s literally my entire adult life story but it’s my intention that you find some hope in it :)
If you are a fellow ‘Region Rat’ like me, you know that Northwest Indiana is chock-full of road construction right now. It’s gotten so ridiculous that the detours have detours (I wish I was kidding). We drive several minutes in the opposite direction just to loop around and get back on the main road. The frustration can be maddening!
My life feels so much like this right now. I’m currently navigating a personal detour as I loop around my health challenges, turn in the opposite direction of my career path, and squint to see the signs I need to get me back on some sort of main road leading to my final destination. Have you encountered something similar in your life? Maybe you’re in the middle of it right now. It can seem so confusing as you try to follow God’s path for your purpose only to have a door close in the form of death, a job loss, a divorce, a global pandemic, murder bees, the year 2020 in general. If you’re anything like me, you start to wonder if you’ve lost your ever-lovin’ mind and how in the world does any of this work together for even the smallest resemblance of good.
The bridge you need to cross is on fire, the door you need to step through is bolted shut, the answers you beg so desperately for are written in another language and residing in a safe you don’t have the combination for, pieces of the map are torn off and your compass is malfunctioning. How are you supposed to move forward when every step is met with an obstruction? Where do you go from here in the midst of all the uncertainties?
Can I just tell you that I get it because I’ve been there and I’m still living in it currently? I’m not an expert in the realm of deciphering unknown instructions, but I AM an expert in fumbling through the dark and learning the hard way how to trust the process. Just shy of 10 years ago, my life looked completely different. I was in an almost 10-year marriage that was dying a slow, painful and inevitable death, I was a first-time mom with zero clue how to tackle that giant responsibility without royally screwing up my kid, I had a budding sales career that pulled me in a million different directions and I started feeling the sharp sting of death as individuals I held very dearly moved on from this life in rapid succession. The ground beneath me felt shaky and my vision of my future was depicted with a giant question mark.
Cue Detour Number 1 - DIVORCE. So now what? I went into overdrive as I knew I had to find a way to stay above water as a single mom who wanted my baby girl to feel stable and surrounded by love while simultaneously showing up to a job that paid my bills but also required me to push myself beyond my limits as I traveled to customers, worked late and tackled impossible sales goals. I ran on coffee and adrenalin - it’s amazing how quickly our minds and bodies can switch over to survival mode.
The interesting thing was that this same drive also launched me into a successful sales career, first in radio, and then it transitioned to the fuel industry. I got really good at sharpening my skills, multitasking, and juggling life as a professional and a single mom. I got addicted to the high it gave me. I lost a sense of reliance on God, I could totally handle this on my own - or so I thought.
Cue Detour Number 2 - DEATH. I had already lost several people very close to me during the time of my collapsing marriage and eventual divorce and it was taking a massive toll on my mental and emotional health. I became much more cynical and guarded. One of these deaths was my Gramps who had been the person I had been closest to my whole life.
I clung to my Grandma as we both fought to get through the pain. Then, only a few months after my grandpa’s passing, my grandma started feeling sick. She had seen a local doctor and her pain was brushed off as a simple infection - ‘here take these antibiotics, you’ll be fine.’ I called her one morning to check on her and the trembling in her voice conveyed her increasing discomfort. “Kelley, I’m not feeling so great,” I told her I’d be there in a few minutes and we were going to the ER. I wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. My daughter and I hopped in my car and we took Ninny (as she was affectionately named by the great-grandkids) to the emergency room. It was cancer, we would lose her 5 months later. I was broken again and angry at God but God had a plan to lift me up despite my downtrodden attitude in the midst of my circumstances
Cue Detour Number 3 - LOVE. I had been casually online dating in all of my not so spare time. I met a few men who seemed decent, but no one that knocked me off my feet. I was not about to settle, I didn’t need any more heartache in my life. But then there was this one guy. He had dark hair and these kind hazel eyes. He took me on one date and I was hooked forever - literally. We were married three and a half months later and will celebrate 6 years of marriage this coming March. God knew that I needed a companion on this journey and He knew the perfect time to place Brent in my life. The challenges weren’t over, not by a longshot, but I would now have a helper, a best friend, a strong partner to walk this path with. Katey would have a loving step-dad who wrapped his arms around her and loved her like his own. He even wrote a separate set of vows just for her on our wedding day. Boy am I eternally grateful for this awesome gift of a husband who loves us and God!
Cue Detour Number 4 - MORE BABIES. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes 2 more babies in the span of 2 years. So this was a tad bit of an adjustment (add a tone of sarcasm here and that teeth-gritting emoji). Holy sleep deprivation! Dex and Gwyn were both in diapers, I smelled like straight spit up and poor Brent was trying to hold everyone together. Meanwhile, Katey was adjusting by jumping in like the giant helper that she’s always been while oscillating between our house and her dad’s every other weekend with a new baby over there as well. There were a few tears cried (and by ‘a few’ I mean ‘many’) as we all did our best to adjust. We were blessed but life was hard. Little did I know, God was through molding me yet.
Cue Detour Number 5 - CAREER. So this one sort of runs throughout the rest of the detours but the biggest jump in my career came when I was offered my dream job. Oh, and I was 7 months pregnant with my youngest at the time. Oh, and the commute would be between an hour and a half to two hours ONE WAY. Oh, and I’d need to travel around 25% of the time. No biggie. I’m superwoman, right? I’d been traveling my entire career, I’d juggled lots of spinning plates, and done this commute in the past for a previous job, how could I say no? The company was awesome, the money was great, the team I’d be working with was exceptional, the benefits were unlike anything I’d ever seen. This was IT! I said yes and stepped right into the role and right onto an airplane. I hustled to prove that the VERY pregnant ‘new girl’ deserved the desk she occupied. I slowed down a bit once I hit the ‘no-fly zone’ with my pregnancy and had Gwyn not too long after. I thought I’d cruise through maternity leave and jump right back into the corporate world, but God had other plans.
Cue Detour Number 6 - HEALTH ISSUES. My pregnancy with Gwyn was rough and I never quite felt right after delivering her. Something about my body was off. Then, 10 days after she was born, I landed a 3-day luxurious stay in the hospital due to postpartum preeclampsia. That story is a beast in and of itself so you can read that saga in its entirety here:
Anyhow, long story short the preeclampsia caused a constricted blood vessel in my brain and I ended up with three chronic conditions and an inability to do my job. I felt as though a giant door was opened for me and then slammed shut right in my face. Why would God do this? What was the purpose of all of this? Why would He allow me to excel at something and pave the way for a really great career only to take it all away? Don’t hold your breath in suspense, I still don’t fully know the answer to that but I do know this - His will is perfect and sometimes He allows us to experience things in our lives in order to better understand where our priorities should be (I’m currently writing a book around this whole subject).
I was motivated by money, success, and self-esteem while neglecting to extend my time and energy away from myself and toward the ones I loved the most. I was missing the little things that were actually the biggest things, all in the name of climbing the corporate ladder. When my brain went haywire, my soul saw things a bit more clearly. There was nothing inherently wrong with wanting to use my talents, I just needed to be more intentional in focusing them in a way that pleased the Lord and prioritized my family. I was elevating myself and letting the important people wait in the wings, throwing them any scraps I had leftover. This was backward and God knew it. He also knew I wouldn’t come to that conclusion if I hadn’t had the chance to learn this lesson for myself.
So, my friends, embrace your detours. They suck, they hurt, they inflict the kind of pain we try so desperately to avoid in this life, but they grow us in ways we would never grow otherwise. It might be an old cliché but the truth is still found within it - these are ‘blessings in disguise.’ They are the roadblocks that God places in our way when we’ve wandered too far down a path not meant for us. Don’t climb over them, don’t go around them. Be thankful for their redirection and pray for the Lord’s guidance as you move forward in faith.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
- Isaiah 55:9 -
God cares for us too much to let us go. He sees our destinies with perfect clarity and He knows our hearts with that same 20/20 vision. This life is ours to use in a way that we glorify the One we love. Trust Him with it and watch in awe as He creates a masterpiece!