When the Detour Becomes the Way

We make plans.

We work toward something. We grow. We prepare. We make decisions based on where we believe our lives are heading.

And then sometimes, the road changes. Sometimes it even blindsides you.

I know something about that.

For much of my adult life, I’ve been committed to personal growth while building ministries and businesses and raising a family with KC. All of it stretched me and grew me as a leader, a mom, an entrepreneur, and in the many other roles I’ve been blessed to carry.

I had a plan for where all of that was leading.

And then, in a six-month period in 2024, all the paths I perceived to be pointing in one direction stopped.

Isn’t that the way life is sometimes?

There’s a Proverb in the Bible that says:

“The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.”
Proverbs 16:9

I had planned my way.

But God is establishing new steps. Steps I didn’t see coming.

What felt like a detour at the time, I’m beginning to see differently.

Sometimes the detour becomes the way.

What Do You Do With What You’ve Learned?

This last season has caused me to look back over my life with a different question.

What do I do with all of it?

All the tools I’ve found and developed.

The skills I’ve accumulated and cultivated.

The lessons I’ve learned from life and loss.

And even the lessons I’ve learned from honest feedback when I didn’t quite get things right.

Instead of only asking God, “What’s next for me?” I’ve found myself asking:

“God, how might You use what You’ve already taught me to help someone else find their way?”

That question has changed something in me.

Because when I look back, I can see a thread that has been there for decades.

I love pouring into people and seeing the light go on when they can learn from one of my mistakes instead of having to make it themselves.

I love helping someone discover a tool that helped me grow beyond a former version of myself.

I love seeing someone maintain their priorities while reaching for a big dream.

And I love praying with someone who knows they were made for more than the life they’re currently living as they take new steps of faith and hope.

I’ve been doing this kind of coaching, guiding, and mentoring for decades.

It was just always kind of on the side.

Until the detour.

Maybe the Detour Isn’t Wasted

Over this last year, through prayer, I’ve felt God opening my schedule to do more and more of the work that lights up my heart and soul.

Mentoring. Guiding. Gathering people together to grow.

It’s one of the reasons I created Growth Tables.

I still mentor people one-on-one, but I’ve seen something different happen when a small group of people who are each growing in their own lives gather around the same Table.

Yes, our Table may technically be a Zoom call.

But something happens there.

People begin to know one another.

They learn from one another.

They encourage one another.

Relationships deepen while each person does the work of growing in his or her own life.

And as I’ve watched it unfold, I’ve realized something:

Maybe the path I thought I was on wasn’t the only way God could use everything He had been building in me.

Perhaps some of the things we call detours aren’t interruptions to our LifeStory at all.

They might just be the very BEST part of it.

The unexpected ending.

The door that closed.

The plan that changed.

The season we didn’t choose.

We may not understand any of it while we’re living through it. But I’m finding that we don’t need to.

With enough distance, we begin to see that the road we never intended to take brought us somewhere we never would have discovered otherwise.

And sometimes...

the detour becomes the way. And God’s way is ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, as in, every single solitary time BETTER.

Around the Table

As you think about your own LifeStory:

Has your life taken a turn you didn’t expect?

What have you learned, developed, or survived along the way that might now be useful to someone else?

Might something you’ve been calling a detour actually be bringing you to God’s Best?

You don’t have to have the whole road figured out.

Sometimes you just need enough faith to take the next step.

Helping YOU Live a Great LifeStory.

TRACI