I’ve been working on a two shelf construction that will help give some organization to an area of chaos in our kitchen. My original plan was to create a shelf with an angle. Once I got into the creation stage, I realized that there were some major design flaws. I hadn’t planned on the strips I used to hold the other boards together working out the way they did; my inside shelf ended up being too short; and quite honestly I got tired of taking everything apart and redoing it. So, I compromised and redesigned. As I built it, I had to change the original plan. The end result? Well, not so bad, considering. I actually could not have imagined the way it ended up looking. Still very functional. Still serves the purpose it was created for. Not perfect, but useful. Just took a whole different route getting there.

Isn’t that true for our lives as well? When we set out on life’s journey, we have a certain, plan, an idea for what it’s going to be like. As we get into the middle of the creation process, we run up against obstacles that cause us to step back and rethink the current path. In the end, the new decisions made were still very functional. We are still able to serve the purpose we were created for. We aren’t perfect and neither was the journey, but we are still very useful.

As I stood back and looked at my shelf today, I was pleasantly surprised at the way it turned out. How about your life? Can you step back and look and be pleasantly surprised at the direction your creation has taken?