All who wander are not lost

“Do you have a plan?”
That was one of the first questions my now-husband-then-guy-I-was-attracted-to asked me. It puzzled me at first. How does a middle-aged woman who is stumbling along in life, trusting in God to guide her, answer such a ridiculous question?
Um, no. Hello? How would I ever have gotten here with a plan? Goals, yes. A plan…not really. I didn’t have the resources to plan. I had just liberated myself from a going-nowhere-relationship … actually a sinking-fast-relationship … and discovering that I really wanted to be a firefighter when I grew up. I was pretty much there.
Living on my own, fighting forest fires, dependent on no one and loving life. God was good. A plan? What for?
A few months before this I knew I needed a way to extract myself from my current situation. I needed a job, a job that would haul me out of being dependent on my livelihood from a man who no laonger really liked me, but thankfully tolerated me enough so that I at least had a bit of time to get my feet under me. I applied for jobs. I interviewed. All these jobs I was fabulously qualified for. I was waiting for decisions on a few of these.
I asked God one night (not that I have a solid relationship with the Big Guy, either, but I liked to think I could draw on his power when needed) I asked God to shut all the doors to the paths that would lead me off the course I was meant to travel. And for the one that was meant, to open that door wide and shove me through it.
A day or so later I got a call on an application I had completely forgotten about, an online application for a wildland firefighter. That call landed me a job as a BLM firefighter in Cody. I met my now-husband-then-guy-I-was-attracted-to in that office. I followed that path (praying and taking cues from impulses and intuitive prodding I prefer to think of as my angels’ guiding me) to this place I am now. Still Cody. No longer fighting fire, performing a service to humankind as an EMT for several years and now handling the American Heart Association certifications/education program for a hospital. All jobs I absolutely love, writing prose, developing artistic styles and married to a marvelous man. Life is good. God is stupendous!
Could I have planned this? Not even close. I didn’t even know this is what I wanted. I just walked through doors and trusted each step was meant to be and taking me down a path I was meant to walk. Good job, God. We’re buds now.