Another year is coming to a close. For the most part, there were not a whole lot of surprises over this past year. The changes were expected even if the ways those changes came about were not.

As I sit here, occasionally staring out the window at the snow coming down, I find myself where I am most days – trying to get traction. I have things to do, people to see, and decisions to make – even preparations for Christmas to complete – but most of it seems like a grabbing of the wind. Some days it is hard to get going.

At the beginning of the year I wrote about shaking up priorities. Now, quite honestly, I’m trying to sort out what my priorities are. I wanted to see more of some people; that didn’t happen. I wanted to spend more time doing the things I love to do; I’m doing those things even less often than I was.  I wanted to do something meaningful, ethical, impacting and leaving me in a financial position to be generous to those who need some good news and dignifying help in their lives. Still working on that.

Not that this past year was bad. In fact, some amazing and wonderful things happened. Yet in the deeper, unseen currents of my heart and mind I have, for most of the year, had a strong sense that I need to keep my eyes open for something new. I spoke with someone back in the summer and said that I thought whatever the next steps were going to be for me, they were going to fit in the category of the unexpected. It would not be a “logical” next step. It would not fit a trajectory of where I have been, though it would certainly not happen without where I have been.

I considered Abraham going from Ur to Canaan; Joseph going from the sheep pastures to second in command to Pharoah; Gideon going from hiding in the winepress to being the judge and deliverer of his nation; David going from the sheep pastures to the throne room; Peter going from fishing with his brother to writing letters that would shape people’s thoughts 2000 years later; Paul getting knocked off his horse (literally) and the direction of his life and of millions of others’ lives changed forever. I considered my own dad and how he finished his days in another country doing what no one, not even him, ever expected he would be doing.

The key to these stories and many more, is that not one of these men had any idea what was coming down the pipe; not one of them woke up one morning and planned to be where they were by the end of the day, and later, at the end of their lives.

I am more persuaded than ever that I am going to find myself in the completely unexpected, especially as I begin to explore options that to this point, simply aren’t “landing in my wheelhouse”.