When You’d Rather Be Someplace Else

Have you ever wished you were someplace else? Maybe a different location, or a different place in life?

I’m writing this from the hospital, where I’m cooped up for three days because of a serious toe infection. I’ll still be at the hospital when I prepare to post this, on my birthday.

For me, that’s not as depressing as it sounds. My wife and I don’t have extra time or money to do much for my birthday this week, so we already expected to celebrate later on, when it’s easier to do so. Still, I’d rather be somewhere else on my birthday.

I don’t hate hospitals, though. Many people do, and there are plenty of valid reasons for people to feel uncomfortable. It could be the food. The needles and blood draws and constant checking of your vitals. The near-empty, echoing corridors. The wasted time, just sitting around with nothing to do. Being cut off from family and friends and your usual activities. The weird hospital gowns that don’t seem designed to actually close. None of those things have bothered me too much. Except maybe the weird hospital gown.

Nevertheless, I hated to go. I had just returned from a comicon Sunday evening, and my wife noticed something odd on my foot. When she saw my infected toe, she insisted I go to the ER.

Thank goodness she did. When the podiatrist arrived to examine it, she said there’s always a possibility that an infected toe like this would have to be amputated if it didn’t heal, but she believes we caught it in time.

I have horrible neuropathy in both of my feet, so I don’t always feel sensations, or else I feel them very faintly. Whatever damage I did to my toe wasn’t noticed at the time. I felt some soreness while walking Sunday afternoon, but I figured it was due to lugging boxes of my books to the comicon and driving a borrowed stick shift car.

After driving almost three hours to return home that evening, I just wanted to relax. I didn’t even unload everything. The last thing I wanted to do was spend hours at the ER and end up being too tired to do anything else the next morning before starting my regular day job. But I knew my wife was right, that I should get it checked out. Who knew those hours would end up being a few days, for a condition far more severe than I realized?

Sometimes I can’t know where I really need to be, or what I really need to do. I have my own agenda in mind, but life frequently interrupts my schedule. I wrote last month that my car was totaled in a freak accident, so I couldn’t Uber drive for extra money. The insurance settlement we received was quickly eaten up by other bills, leaving me with no car. Thankfully, I work from home, and my wife just started an amazing new job as a therapist, which will earn her far more than she made at her previous job.

However, she is paid per client, so we’re still short on funds for another month while she builds up a full roster of clients. While she works some evening and weekend hours, I’m doing more cooking and cleaning at home instead of spending long hours doing Uber driving or writing. I didn’t anticipate this sudden change of season in our lives, having to quickly improve my “house-husband” skills and live life without a car. But this is what has happened and I have to adapt.

In his song, “Beautiful Boy”, John Lennon wrote that “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” I don’t always understand why my life goes in the direction it does. Why something suddenly disrupts everything I had been working toward, throwing all my plans off course. But that’s what happens in life.

At the same time, we find that our needs are somehow met during those hard times. The car I drove to the comicon on Sunday was loaned to us by a Christian couple the day before. They learned of our situation through friends and said they keep an extra car available to loan out to people in need, so we can borrow it for a while, or arrange to borrow it when I travel to comicons. That’s a stunning blessing, arriving at just the right time. The Bible says, “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps (Proverbs 6:9).”

A preacher once said that “our interruptions might be God’s appointments.” In other words, what we view as an interruption could be an event that God is orchestrating, to position us for something far more important that he wants us to do, in a far more important place than the one where we were headed. That doesn’t mean we’ll never get to the destination we had in mind. It might just mean that our plans get delayed for a while. Perhaps days, perhaps weeks, perhaps years. But we can still get there. Or it might mean there’s a much better destination for us than the one we were pursuing. One with far greater potential to bless not only us, but also a whole lot of other people.

This morning while I was still at the hospital, my daughter texted me and my wife to say, “Just in case, I love you.” My wife quickly learned that our daughter’s school was on lockdown because of an angry local resident who was being evicted. The man refused to leave, threatening to use a gun and a bomb. Thankfully, no one was harmed, and the school lockdown was lifted. Though it could have been much worse.

We never know what will happen next in our lives, or how much life we have left. We don’t have enough information or insight to know whether we’re making the best decisions for ourselves. But we can choose to keep moving forward. If we’ve made bad decisions in the past, we can change how we think and act from now on. If we’ve suffered loss, we can grieve, and help others through their own grief and suffering, to be a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on. If we’re confused and uncertain about our future, we can trust that there’s still time to discover our true purpose and what kind of future lies waiting for us.

I personally trust God for whatever lies ahead. When I don’t know what’s coming, I know that he does. When I don’t feel I’m worthwhile or skilled enough to handle life’s challenges, I know he’ll walk me through each one. When I can’t read the warning signs of imminent danger – like an infected toe that I can’t even feel – I know he’ll surround me with wise and caring people who help guide and protect me. The Bible says, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord. ‘Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”

Whether you know God or not, your life has meaning and purpose, and God cares what happens to you. He knows what you’ve suffered through, what you’ve achieved, and what your private plans are, and he wants the best for you and for me. Even when we can’t see it. And you have a purpose and a destination in life, even when you feel like you would rather be someplace else.

Keep believing.