I like life to move along on a straight path.  I like blue skies, sunny days and above all, no potholes in my life please.   I know that is unrealistic but still, I continue to delude myself that my road ahead, at least in the near future, will be free of bumps.

Sometimes there are twists in the road of life that end up being wonderful.  One of those happened about 10 days ago with my younger daughter.  Two blogs ago, (041518 Sobering Week Blog) I wrote about some tragedies that made me think about my relationship with her and how we never know how much time on earth we have.  I ended up writing a note to her and left it on her bed at our house…she comes by sometimes to rest between shifts of her jobs as our house is closer to work than her apartment.  In the note, I described the tragedies that I had become aware of and asked if she wanted to work on a closer relationship.

My daughter did reach out to me and we had lunch.  It ended up being a good “clear the air” time and I believe there  is a better understanding between us than there has been in several years.  I’m so glad of that.  It’s clear to me that I am not what she wanted in an adoptive mother and I told her that I had dreamed of having a daughter that actually liked me…so neither of us got what we wanted.  Somehow, verbally stating where we were in our relationship helped to establish some basis to move forward.

I felt good about that part of my life moving towards a better place…that’s represented by the bucolic “barn in farmland” picture.  Sometimes, a twist around the corner leads to something much better!

But wait.  Slightly less than a week later, there was another twist in the road and the sign made me emotionally slam on my brakes and go into a slight skid.  Change ahead?  Whaaaaaat?  Our long-time production manager who has been with us 8 ½ years…since Day 1 of our business…is leaving for another position.  It’s not a competitor and the job is an excellent opportunity for him but the timing is awful.  Just the week before, our newly hired replacement to our back-up production manager who had moved out of state at New Years, left.  I know that is a bit of a run-on sentence so will see if I can explain that better.  Back-up person to our production manager moves out of state at the end of last year.  His replacement whom we have been training for the last 4 months, left 2 weeks ago with no notice.  Our production manger gave us notice last week that he will be leaving at the end of the month.  That means that we have a crazy difficult twist in the road coming up.

I am taking deep breaths, trying to stay calm and I pray a lot.  I know that just because it looks like we are going to have no one in production who can run the machines doesn’t mean that we are headed for a catastrophe.  Maybe we will find someone who can take us to the “next level” in our business, someone who will be all that we need and more.  I don’t have to imagine a negative outcome just because I can’t see down the road how it will work out.

This is a glaring weakness for me.  I LIKE TO SEE WHERE I AM GOING, AND I WANT TO SEE A STRAIGHT, SMOOTH, NO-POTHOLES ROAD.  I must step back then and handle what I can control.  What is out of my control I must let go.

This is a good time to end with a verse.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.  Prov 3:5-6 (NIV)