Detours

Nine years ago I left a cushy job at Accenture to pursue my dreams in the music business. I packed up everything I owned (thankfully not much) in my 1992 Mitsubishi Eclipse I called “Shabazz” (my beau’s name is Jabazz, isn’t that weird?), and drove down to Music City USA.

Hello Nashville, TN.

I didn’t have a plan, really. I had grown up with music—played the violin since I was four (it’s now huddled in the corner of my living room sadly collecting dust), took years of music lessons in a smorgasbord of instruments (mandolin included and no, I don’t do bluegrass), wrote lyrics to over 300 songs (way too wordy, I should have known I wasn’t cut out to be a songwriter), was on my church’s worship team as a peppy alto, blah-blah-blah.

My mindset was pretty simple. Optimistic. Naïve. Unstructured. Definitely simple. I was going to be a star. You know how embarrassing it is to admit that? Well, maybe it’s sorta funny, too. Armed with music in my blood and a dream embedded in my soul, I drove Shabazz into Nashville and expected an entourage of music biz folks to greet me, the “next big star,” at the border with champagne and a recording contract. Yeah. Not so much.

You know what happened? My dream didn’t work out. What a shocker. It took all of a few weeks for reality to punch me in the face. I didn’t have what it takes to make it in music. In hindsight, there were glimpses of that truth here and there. I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. Maybe I had some talent, but I didn’t have the confidence, the know-how, the connections, and the list goes on and on. Kudos to me, I have to say, for actually trying. I jumped a fence mostly on chance. Over the years I’ve lost some of that edge and am praying to find at least a piece of that chutzpah to keep with me.

In the two or three years I spent in Music City, my inner life shifted. In slow motion. I got real depressed, my eating disorder spun disastrously out of control, and though I was seeking God with a reckless abandon to help me find my purpose and live my dream (whatever he wanted it to be), I was met not with answers, but with the blasts of wind from slammed doors.

All my life I asked God to lead me wherever he wanted. I prayed I would do anything, if he could only just tell me what he wanted me to do. Didn’t hear a peep from him. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. I was disappointed, felt let down, and didn’t have much to believe in. And out of this void, I began writing bits and pieces of a book, Silent Savior, which has now made its way in publication.

Nine years ago I traded comfort for the unknown. I believed in a fairytale with an envious confidence. Nine years ago the haze of wishful thinking dissipated to expose my empty life. And nine years ago, the genesis of a book that would take almost a decade to complete and get published was birthed. Silent Savior is the dream I never knew I had. I really believe those are the best kinds. Sweet surprises that bear the handprint of the divine. My desires got rerouted in a better direction and I’m doing something today I never imagined I could do.

Don’t get me wrong. This is not a look-at-me-I’m-so-great-my-dream-came-true self aggrandizing moment. I am just amazed that God’s orchestration of our lives includes different paths, detours, intersecting highways, and even closed roads. Yes, all of the above. But all of it takes you where you need to go.

There are desire we have and choices we make and the divine is at work in the midst of these things. Sometimes things work out. Sometimes they don’t. But all along the roads we walk or stumble on, littered with stone or smooth as silk, we just need to trust that Someone up there is holding on to our hand and leading us in a connect-the-dots way. I mean, come on, I wanted a stage with lights and a microphone. I got a world of books and solitude instead. Guess what? I couldn’t be happier or more grateful.

Nine years from today? Who knows? I can say I kinda like the feeling I have now—the marriage of mild fear and excited jitters. So much can happen. To me. To you. Let’s just trust that God knows what He’s doing and may we learn to live to enjoy the ride.

Vroom, vroom, baby, vroom, vroom.