Miles & Mercy — No. 03 When God Sends You Down a Road You Didn't Plan

I didn't plan eleven years.

I planned to get through the next load.

Then the next month.

Then the next hard thing. 

And somewhere in all that getting through — this became my life. 

Not the life I mapped out.

The life that got built while I was busy surviving it.

The Plan You Had

Most people who end up in a truck didn't grow up saying that's what I want. 

You came to it some other way.

A door that closed. A door that opened.

A season that required something different from you than you expected to give. 

I came to it the way a lot of us come to the hardest-good things — not because it was the dream, but because it was the next right step. 

And then the next.

And then the next.

What a Detour Actually Is

There's a version of faith that says God has a plan and it's going to be beautiful and everything will make sense. 

I believe that. 

But I've also learned that the plan doesn't always look like a plan from inside it. 

From inside it, it looks like a detour.

It looks like this wasn't supposed to happen.

It looks like I don't know where this road goes. 

Scripture is full of people who felt exactly that way. 

Joseph didn't plan the pit.

Ruth didn't plan the fields.

Paul didn't plan the shipwreck. 

And yet. 

Every single one of those detours was load-bearing.

It was holding up something they couldn't see yet.

What Eleven Years Taught Me About Detours

The road you didn't plan is still road. 

It still goes somewhere.

It still has mile markers.

It still gets you to the next place, even when you can't see what that place is. 

I've driven through enough fog to know — you don't need to see the whole route.

You need to see the next quarter mile. 

That's enough to keep moving. 

Faith works the same way for me. 

I don't need the whole picture.

I need enough light for the next stretch. 

And in eleven years, that light has never run out.

The Road Behind the Road

Here's what I've come to believe: 

The thing that felt like a detour was the actual route. 

Not a consolation prize.

Not plan B. 

The route. 

The one that built what needed building in me.

The one that put me exactly where I needed to be for the next thing God had in mind. 

I couldn't see it at the time.

I can see more of it now. 

And what I see makes me trust the parts I still can't see.

For the Driver Who Didn't Plan This Either

Maybe you're reading this and you know exactly what I'm talking about. 

The life you're living wasn't the one you drew up. 

Neither was mine. 

But I've stopped calling it the wrong life. 

Because it's the one that taught me to pray at 3 AM.

It's the one that gave me Honey and the road and the quiet.

It's the one that's making something out of me I couldn't have made any other way. 

That's not an accident. 

That's a road that knew where it was going even when I didn't. 

One Safe Mile  —  Renae Savage

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