Live Interrupted
This morning I was on my way to work at a quiet coffee shop because my soul needed coffee, earbuds, and a change of pace. On my way there, I passed a truck in traffic from which the wheels had quite literally fallen off. Just driving along and the axle broke and the wheels fell off, and I thought, “Geez, that’s kind of how I feel.”
The thought caught me by surprise, and even though I said it, I wasn’t quite sure I even knew what I meant by it. I let the thought soak as I sat down with my coffee and my computer. My earbuds drowned out the noise. This is where I feel like my best self. I buried my head in the sand and began working. When I looked up again, nearly two hours had passed in a blink.
Life. Life passes in a blink. And sometimes we find ourselves so consumed with surviving this month, this week, this day, this MOMENT, that we miss it. We miss the shouting of God’s quiet voice as we live in the day to day.
And sometimes, to get through the noise, He does something unexpected.
For over a year now, we have traveled weekly (or more) to be with sweet husband in another state as he works. To say this life is exhausting would be putting it mildly, but we continue on. And we do our best to survive the month, the week, the day, the moment hoping that we don’t miss it. We know the calling, and so we continue around the mountain. It’s a treacherous, joyous, uncommon journey as we continue on toward the summit.
Two weeks ago, I made our usual preparations. Our middle had a birthday party on the day we typically return, and he made me swear up and down and sideways that we would make it home in time for the party. I promised him we would. We were over halfway home and making good time for the party when my phone rang, “Hey look in your cupholder…”
Sweet husband’s keys, which he would likely desperately need, were sitting there nestled in my cup holder. “Don’t bring them back,” he said. Well, that’s sweet, but you need them. We don’t have a choice. And then the reality sunk in.
I could back track the hour and a half to bring the keys rather than continuing the two hours home… but middle would miss his birthday party. It wasn’t an option. A devastating realization, but I just wasn’t willing to break my promise.
And so I began quickly calling to make arrangements. I would drive the rest of the way home, drop the boys off and have someone take them to the birthday party while I turned right around and made the three and half hour trip back to bring the keys and then back again.
And that’s how God interrupted the noise. I now had 7 extra hours of solitude as I drove a journey which, to be quite honest, I wasn’t thrilled about making. But from the moment I pulled away from home once again to head back in the opposite direction, I felt a strange sense of peace. I felt a calm. I felt that those stupid keys were always meant to be in the cupholder. So God could get me alone with Him or else.
You see in life, when we find ourselves frustrated by inconvenience, it is often the moments God desires to use most to speak to us. To iron out the crinkles of our heart and cut through the noise of everyday to offer an invitation to be interrupted.
Will you allow yourself to be interrupted?
My life lately? (“Lately” being a pretty all-inclusive term for the last 5 years…) I feel like that truck sitting in the middle of traffic. I am rolling so fast, trying so hard to keep it all moving that sometimes it seems that the wheels have done fallen the heck off.
But in that moment (or seven hours as it were) a couple weeks ago, I found myself faced with an invitation to be interrupted. And often, we embark on moments of devastating disruption that God intends to use as the path to His divine destiny. When we allow that paradoxical transformation to happen, we can find peace in the chaos, wisdom in the wondering, and strength in our flailing.
Do not miss the shouting of God’s quiet voice cutting through the noise. Live interrupted.
