Rescheduled Beauty

Have you ever seen sunrise...from above the clouds? Well, that’s my view as I type this post. It’s one of the clearest and most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. The sun is seemingly beside you. You look down, and there are the clouds. Hours ago, you looked up at those clouds. The very thing that served as your definition of the sky is....beneath you (that’ll stretch your boundaries). Yet, I think one of the most amazing parts of this view is the fact that...I’m not supposed to be here to see it. 

​(Soooo...what had happened waaasss...)

Live footage...from above the clouds

I had a flight scheduled for 10:50 p.m....yesterday. I was all packed up. Had my class departure haste mentally prepared. Put my ‘not at home’ plans in place. Had a whole true friend fully prepared to pick me up at midnight. And then...I get a text from the airline informing me that my plans weren’t necessary...because my 10:50 flight had been completely canceled. Not delayed. Not moved up (never heard of that, but...roll with me). CANCELED. What flight? Ain’t no flight, shawty. 

 Because I am who I am, I panic immediately (this has to be a skill). I’m calling the airline & hotel like I usually call my mom when there’s a defcon 1 emergency. These calls result in a flight juuuust before sunrise...and result in this view. That moment yesterday resulted in this...rescheduled beauty. 
​
     We often quote the verse about God’s ways being higher than ours. However, it’s hard to appreciate & yield when His higher way bumps ours right out of the way. Picture it: you’re going about your way, living your seemingly best life, and BAM! God cancels it. You lose something or somebody. Your car breaks down. Your job downsizes. You get sick, or become a caretaker. Life...happens...and you can’t keep up with the shift, because it’s moving too fast. This isnt a slow shift; it’s chaotic and completely confusing. I call those moments a rescheduling, because I’ve realized that when God allows your life to be rescheduled, He wants you to have the perfect view of the beauty on the other side. 

     I’ve been rescheduled so many times. I didn’t ‘schedule’ the job I have. I didn’t schedule my car. I didn’t schedule when people in my life would die or walk away. I’ve never scheduled a heartbreak. I never scheduled financial issues or emotional weights. Yet, I can tell you how each of those moments lead to something more beautiful than I’d ever planned on my own. 

     My job gives me travel experience that I’ll surely use down the road. It’s exposure to different cultures, new people, and a chance to touch lives. Heartbreak lead me into wholeness, and a circle I never thought I’d be blessed to sit in. Financial hardship has given me financial wisdom. Despite the low points, there’s a beauty and a joy about my life that I wouldn’t have had if I’d followed my initial plans. 

     Wherever you are in life, I want to encourage you to see the beauty in where you are. In this moment. You may have been rescheduled. You may have been shifted. You may not be where you thought you’d be, but...you’re right in the middle of beauty - whether you recognize it or not. We often ignore the beauty because we’d rather mourn the death of what we had in mind. Somehow, it’s easier to look behind us than it is to look around or in front of us. Your tears, your mourning, your…pride…could be costing you the value of a present beauty that God has in store. You miss the beauty of the view in front of you when you choose to focus on the view behind you. 

     I also want to remind you that a rescheduling is different from a termination. It has not been shut down forever. Even when my flight was canceled, I was moved to another one. One view was sacrificed for another. One plan sacrificed for a greater one (after all, you’ve read a whole post on it). Though I had a cancellation, I was never…”planeless”. The same is true for you. Your dreams didn’t die so that you could settle or fail and live a hopeless life. In fact, it could be God pressing you to dream bigger and to dream higher. So starting today, I want you to release whatever’s behind you - release those plans, those ‘cloud level’ dreams - and embrace what’s before you and the God that’s above you. 

You never know…you could go from sitting in the dark to having an exclusive seat to sunrise.

Background music: Have Your Way - Daniel Johnson

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