Canal Street 2017 |
My waking hours in that room were spent praying, reading my Bible, or calling Greg. Somehow, one little phrase messed with me. I did not sleep well. Several forays onto Bourbon Street convinced me that I was a fish out of water in New Orleans. The week of learning was good and the graduation celebrations were fun but I came home from that trip stating, "I will never go there again."
Well, life has a way of taking you into boarded up alleys and dragging you back to things that scare you. Last week I was back in New Orleans for an amazing conference hosted by the Society for Human Resource Management. This time Greg came with me to be my body guard, luggage wrangler, and constant friend. Our cab driver was excellent and our hotel room was not haunted. Bourbon Street was still Bourbon Street, and after a couple of strolls down it I didn't need to go there anymore. But my thoughts kept zig zagging back and forth through the last fifteen years.
Alligator 2017 |
While I walked there was lots of time to think. During my first visit to Louisiana, I hadn't considered starting a business, we were city slickers, and it seemed like our teenagers would be teenagers forever. Here I was, fifteen years later on my sixth year in business, living in the country, and my teenagers had grown up. While I was reflecting, I knew the ride wasn't over yet.
There have been many times over the last fifteen years when life has felt like a hopeless maze of boarded up alleys I was being taken through in a taxi someone else was driving. Sometimes it was maddening, other times the life taxi brought me to wonderful destinations I hadn't imagined. My taxi was being driven by someone else. That part was not my imagination. One of the constants through the time was my faith. You and I are part of something larger we don't yet understand. Although the alleyway seems to be blocked off or boarded up, it isn't. We simply need to keep moving one foot ahead of the other, life-blisters and all. Because there is a greater Power than us, that is holding open doors just waiting for us to walk on through.
Comments
Post a Comment