Travel is a mystery. Inasmuch as it is an adventure, it is a great and glorious puzzle. Imagine. In a matter of hours you can be thousands of miles from where you first began: from home, from the people who love you, from your routines and responsibilities.
In a matter of hours, you can be on your own miles above and away from the world you know best.
You can be anywhere.
And also, you can be exactly where you need to be.
I’m writing this in the here and now, from the mild discomfort of an airline seat, looking at the dense cloud cover below me as we make our final descent into Houston where I’ll change planes before heading to San Antonio. You won’t see this till the there and then, and that’s a sort of travel, as well, for both of us. Thoughts moving through time and space from my mind to yours.
But where am I going with this?
Let’s talk about destinations for a moment. Destiny, if you’ll humor me. I don’t think I’ll ever know what the ratio of ordained events to happenstance is in my life, but I can always look at both and see how they’ve worked together. I see how both have contributed to gently (and sometimes not so gently) ushering me to a place where growth happened for me. It’s rare to reach those places without the pain of some kind of travel —outside of yourself, your comfort zone, your own will and desires. Growth is pain. Growth is movement. Growth ultimately takes you to exactly where you need to be.
As before, this is a season of learning and growth and pain of a sort for me. As before, this opportunity to give and to give and to give will help me be not-so-selfish as I’m prone to being. My hope is for the people I’ll encounter on these retreats and my hope is for myself. God saves all of us, after all. We only need turn to him for it.
Someday, I’ll stand at the edge of this adventure and be able to say “I’ve been there and there and there.” Someday, also, I’ll stand at the edge of my life and see who I was versus who I will be then. I hope I can see the patterns of development in myself. I hope I can see the stages of life and that I can say “yes, I’ve been there and there and there, and look at where it’s brought me.”
Look at that. Touchdown.
Always exactly where I need to be.
Until next time, as always—
Carry on,
Martina