What did you think your life would be like as an adult when you were in high school?  Did you have specific plans?  Is your life filled with things you never could have predicted?

I remember an exercise in high school that instructed us to write out a timeline of goals for our lives, how we saw them unfolding.  Schooling, marriage, kids.  All the things we think will play out in our lives.  I can’t say I followed that timeline of expectations very well, both by choice and by circumstance.  All the best planning could not have predicted where I have ended up. Do you know the feeling?

I’ve been trying to learn to let go of planning and to just receive instead.  (Yes, I know some of you are laughing – I’ll wait until you’re done).

One great way to do that has been learning about contemplative photography, whose principle is to not “take” shots, but rather to receive an image.  Three times recently I have received an image but only in looking at the photo did I really see the whole picture.

I decided to avoid the highway and take the back roads to run errands one day. The greens and blues and peace of the little lake (which I’ve driven past for 20 years) made me stop and back up so I could photograph it. I posted it to Facebook with the caption, “I took the road less traveled.”

Somehow, I missed the fact that I included the side mirror in the image. I was kind of bummed about that because I really only wanted to see the lake. Then a neighbor commented, “I can see your past” and I really looked at the image captured in the mirror. That image was, in fact, my past – the road I had just taken, a road very much “less traveled.” A past that lead me to the beauty I was currently enjoying. That reflection in the mirror actually became my favorite part of the picture.

Then about a month ago, we were doing some yardwork on a chilly October morning and I glanced down as I walked past the coral bells.  I could just see a little edging of white on the leaves.  It called to me so I pulled out my phone camera and captured this.

Then I heard God saying, “No, Carrie, stop.  Really look.  There is more beauty there than you can see.”

I enlarged the image on my phone.

Round crystals on the leaf, sharp-looking ones on the lower left edge. And this was just from the camera on my phone. This wasn’t even what a really good camera and lens would display.  If I hadn’t stopped, I would have missed so much!

Finally, the end of October, I decided to enjoy one last afternoon by the fire table.  I sat next to it for warmth and also scooted my chair around several times to stay in the sun – also for warmth.  And then I received this image.  The sun originally caught my eye but, again, I saw so much more in the photo.  I saw summer in the bright pink hanging flower on the right, fall in the dark red bush on the left.  I hadn’t even realized I could see the orange tree and blue sky reflected in the black glass of the table’s edge until I saw it here.  I loved the flame of fire just floating in midair. 

So many things I would have missed if I hadn’t had my phone camera handy. If I hadn’t paused to really look at the image.

These photos made me wonder if I would have felt like something was missing if I hadn’t ended up on the epilepsy path.  I wouldn’t know what it was but would have felt a slight ache in my heart or had an image in the back of my head like that dream that you just can’t remember, can’t quite see.  A shadowy image that runs when you try to recapture it. 

What are the things I would have missed?

Meeting one of my dearest friends, a fellow epilepsy mom.  We would have stayed acquaintances smiling at each other at preschool drop-off but with no reason to connect.

Hosting concerts and sporting purple hair as fundraisers.

The sense of power I feel at fighting back against epilepsy and reaching out to grab someone else’s hand struggling on the path as well. 

I started writing this post 6 days ago.  It seemed like it was done but it didn’t feel like it was done.  So, I waited.  I figured there was something more to add, something more I wouldn’t want to miss.

Cody recently started taking therapeutic horse-riding lessons just outside of town.  In the 22+ years that I have lived here, I had never once driven down the road that is only three miles from my house where the facility is located until two months ago.  I found this place because I looked for a riding facility for people with disabilities, thinking there must be one somewhere in the Twin Cities, never expecting to find one only 3 ½ miles from my house!

Thursday night as we left the arena after his lesson, we drove straight west. Behind some trees and homes, I could see an incredible orange fireball glowing on the horizon.  Not the sun, mind you, but an arc of light so much bigger than the sun with a beam of light shooting straight up from it. 

I had to stop twice to take – I mean, receive – pictures.

Then we noticed the clouds were intense red, and Cody asked to have my phone to take a video for daddy.  The road jogged north a short distance then we turned onto the main road heading west again, heading right into the reddest, fieriest sunset I have ever seen.  Cody took video (with commentary) while I drove us to a new subdivision that is on a rolling meadow where I hoped we would have a clear view. 

One dirt road and a grassy quasi-driveway in an empty lot later and we arrived to an uninterrupted view of this. 

As we drove into our garage, Cody said, “I guess God wanted you to see that!”

What are among the things I would have missed walking the path I had planned back in high school?

I would have missed that sunset.

“I guess God wanted you to see that!“

Yes, I guess He did.