I sat across the table from my beautiful daughter Jessica, trying to speak past the lump in my throat. The restaurant in Southern California was noisy and crowded, but I was determined to get the words out. So much had happened in the past year and this moment was the culmination of all of it; the loss and betrayal AND the healing, hope and renewal.

It was nothing short of a miracle.

“Dad and I want to give you this,” I choked out and gave her the cash gift we had planned to give her last summer when she graduated from college. All of our lives had taken an unexpected detour and we were GRATEFUL to be back on course, following God’s plans for our future.

Three weeks earlier, I was at my usual Monday night Bible study and the teacher was summing up her story of God taking her through a year of extreme pain to work out some profound things in her life. As she spoke, I felt the sweet nudge of the Holy Spirit saying to me, “Your year is up.” I was so distracted by the thought, I HAD to check the date on my phone. Sure enough, exactly one year ago was my first appointment with my new Stanford cancer doctor… which kicked off a year of surgeries, appointments, and MANY personal struggles for my family.

I was very teary-eyed driving home that night.  It was an awareness of God’s presence speaking a personal message to me. “Your year is up,” kept replaying in my mind. It had been a year of unraveling for me on ALL levels—physical, personal, spiritual, financial, emotional… ALL levels… and God had taken me to a new, deeper intimacy in my walk of faith.

As I arrived home, Jessica had some news. She has been trying to move to Southern California for a year to pursue her career goals, and nothing has worked out for her. In fact, her year took a terrible turn and everything in her life was put on hold. This same “Your year is up” evening, she received a random text from a friend she had danced with on her competitive dance team in high school, asking her if she was looking for a place to live down south. Within days Jessica had an apartment, a room-mate, a car and a job!

“Your year is up!”

I don’t know exactly what it means, but something has definitely lifted, opened up for us.

We have just recently had a major crossroad by our home close for six weeks of repairs. A collapsed bridge would be ripped out, and a new, firm foundation laid. The much-needed roadwork would also bring a SUPER inconvenient rerouting of traffic, adding an extra 10 minutes to my commute down narrow, country roads. The detour would not be fun— inconvenient and long— BUT… very necessary.

Roadwork. Detours. Delays. …a great analogy for life.

It has been a year of construction, an undoing, and God has been faithful to repair the brokenness, rebuilding a solid foundation of security in Him.

As we left the restaurant, Jessica was all moved in and Eddie and I were preparing to drive home. We hugged her goodbye and there was such a sense of peace knowing God had made a way and the waiting was over. The detour had not been fun, but there was a new strength in all of us, especially Jessica, to journey wherever God would lead, trusting Him each mile of this new road.

And speaking of new roads….

The roadwork near our home was completed this week and we are able to drive on it. No more long, miserable detours waiting for the work to be done.

Take down the ‘road work ahead’ and ‘road closed’ signs!

The road is open and…

My year is up!

(Now if someone can just make sure Cory receives the ‘year is up‘ memo, we’ll be good! Hah!)

2 Corinthians 1:9-10  “…But this made us stop trusting in ourselves and start trusting God, who raises the dead to life. God saved us from the threat of death, and we are sure that he will do it again and again.”