Have you ever driven somewhere familiar, arrived at your destination, and realized you barely remember the drive? You know you made turns. You stopped at lights. You changed lanes. You kept moving. Yet, you arrived without remembering every part of how you got there.

I’ve been looking at my life in a similar way. I know I got here. I remember some of the turns. I can tell you about a few of the stops. There were roads I intentionally took and others I never planned on traveling. There were probably even a few detours I was convinced were taking me completely out of the way. Yet here I am.

For so much of my life, I’ve had an idea of where I thought I should be.

By now, I should have…

I thought I would be…

I figured this would have happened already…

Lately, I’ve had to question the “should” in all of that. Where did that timeline come from? And the harder one to sit with, how much of where I think I should be is actually connected to pride?

Sometimes,  “I should be further along” might actually mean, “I thought I’d have more to show by now.” More evidence, certainty, answers, or any proof that I’m going somewhere.

My pastor, Dr. Dharius Daniels, once posed a question that challenged the way I think about timing: How do you know you’re behind schedule when you don’t even know the schedule when it comes to God? This speaks for itself.

Like whose clock am I using anyway?

Mine?

Someone else’s?

The world’s?

God’s?

Questions like these have helped me receive the grace I’ve been given for being a work in progress, which is exactly what I am. Who I am and who I’m becoming are not two separate people. Every day, I’m participating in the space between them.

So much of what we first know about ourselves comes from someone else. I don’t remember being a baby. Someone had to tell me what I was like.

“You were always so…”

“You never…”

“You’ve been this way since you were little.”

Before I could tell my own story, other people were telling parts of it to me. Then came family, teachers, friends, relationships, experiences, successes, failures, and a world full of ideas about who I should be and what my life should look like.

Over time, wisdom gave me the ability to participate in the narration of my own life. Not by dismissing everything that has ever been said about me, but by living, learning, and paying enough attention to say, I know me too! I know who I am and I’m getting to know who I’m becoming.

I’m learning to experience my life while giving myself permission to experiment with the variables I’ve been given. I won’t control every variable, but I can remain curious about what I do with them.

I can try.

Change my mind.

Discover that something I thought I wanted no longer fits.

Take a different route without automatically assuming I took a wrong one.

Most of the pressure I’ve put on myself came from believing there was one correct route and my job was to find it. Life has shown me otherwise.

It can be hard to focus on my own route when I’m looking at everybody else’s. I have a phrase for that now: That business isn’t going to benefit this business.

I cannot build my life while constantly looking over the fence at yours. I’ve said before that the more attention I give someone else’s life, the less attention I have available for my own.

Recently, a guest pastor at my church, Darius McClure, gave me another way to think about comparison: “Comparison is not only the thief of joy, it causes you to overvalue others and undervalue yourself.”

Comparison doesn’t have to change anything about my life to change the way I see it.

And I have a life to live.

A business to mind.

A family to love.

A faith to nurture.

A purpose to walk in.

A self to continue getting to know.

A legacy to leave.

That deserves my attention.

When I stop looking around long enough to look at where I am, I realize I am sitting in answered prayers. Not all of them. There are things I’m still praying about. Things I’m still waiting for. Things I don’t understand. So much of the life around me was once inside a prayer, and some of what I’m experiencing now wasn’t even something I knew to ask for.

I prayed for one thing, and somehow there was extra. Surprises, people, relationships, growth, peace, opportunities, and versions of myself I had not met yet.

Scripture describes God as being able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all we can ask or think, and I understand those words differently now. I’m living inside some things I thought to ask for and others I never could have imagined. For me, God’s detours have led to destinations beyond what I knew to ask for. I didn’t just arrive here. I’m growing here and flourishing here, and there are still moments when I feel uncertain. There are places that remain uncomfortable, there are questions without answers and parts of me still being stretched.

An answered prayer doesn’t eliminate unanswered questions, arrival doesn’t mean completion, and clarity in one part of my life doesn’t mean I’ll never encounter uncertainty in another. There will always be more road.

Looking back, I can see places where what felt like interruption became direction. There were turns I chose, others I didn’t, and some I still don’t completely understand. I didn’t make every right turn. I didn’t always know where I was going. I still don’t. However, I can see my route differently from here.

I can sit in what I once prayed for while still wondering what comes next. I can experience comfort and still be stretched. I can be grateful for where I am without deciding I’m finished becoming. Most importantly, I can receive the grace I’ve been given for the roads that brought me here. I see now that I wasn’t as lost as I thought I was.

May we become wiser travelers, learning to recognize our own maps. May we do the work of seeing our lives clearly, knowing none of us are finished. There is still road ahead for us all.

I love you, but God loves you more.

In courage,

Carnell