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Written by LCR Member Sharon Boyles

 
"Sometimes, we shake the apple tree and the universe delivers oranges."
~Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way
 

Back in May, I planted acorn squash seeds that I had saved from last year’s garden. Six of the plants came up as normal acorn squash vines. The seventh one…well, let’s just say I named her Audrey.
 
In June, Audrey bolted across the garden, along all the fence lines, and out into the grass. And she’s still going. Every time I work in my garden, I can almost hear her whispering, “Feed me, Sharon, feed me now!” Her leaves are huge. Her squash are getting to be the size of pumpkins. I think if I stood still long enough in my garden, her tendrils would curl around my ankles, and she’d start climbing me!
 
Audrey is most likely the product of cross pollination, but she wasn’t in the plan for my garden, and she’s not producing the results that I expected.
 
This happens in life, too. All of us have seeds that we plant, hopes that we nurture, grand plans that we craft, but there’s never any guarantee that anything will turn out as we hope or expect. We shake the apple tree but instead get oranges. We plant acorn squash but instead get mystery squash. We intend to live out our days in a comfortable, Bilbo Baggins kind of life, but instead Gandalf shows up, knocking on our front door and talking about destiny.
 
I can’t tell you how many times things have not gone according to plan in my life. I moved to New Mexico expecting to stay there for the rest of my life. What I got instead was intense loneliness and a yearning to be home in Cincinnati. When I got out of a bad relationship, I planned to be single for the rest of my life. Now, I’m meeting wonderful, single men. When I started college at UC, I planned to become a pharmacist. Instead, I became an English major. I’ve been surprised by the unexpected again and again, in good ways and in challenging ways.
 
The arrival of the unexpected is God in action, and because God is good, you can always trust that the unexpected is there to benefit you in some way or lead you to your right path. The unexpected reminds us that our lives are in God’s care and that God is lovingly in charge, so it’s safe to trust what’s blooming, even if it’s not what we planted.

Unexpected events and mistakes can be acts of compassion to save us from bigger mistakes or extended suffering. They can redirect us out of a life of dry and unenthusiastic existence and into a greater and more sparkly Plan.

When our plans are too small, when our spirits are too small, when it’s time to learn something new, or when our personal ambition is taking us outside the Divine plan in crazy ways, the unexpected becomes a gift that calls us home. Little earthquakes are what open us up to paths that are better aligned with our soul and spirit.
 
I definitely don’t see Audrey as a bad thing. She’s not what I planted and she wasn’t in the plan, but she speaks to my spirit and shows me some wonderful mysteries. I’m inspired by her queenly beauty, her vigorous and tenacious spirit, her bad-ass attitude, and how joyfully she continues to bloom and grow, not letting anything get in her way. I’m not getting what was in the plan, and that’s okay. I’m getting so much more.