Cone Zone

It's summer (well, close enough), and that means ice cream cones and orange construction cones.

Let me talk about some experience I've had with the latter rather recently.

I took a whirlwind trip to Wisconsin (from Omaha) over what we'll call a weekend.  My intended purpose was to attend my great uncle's funeral.  I left Saturday night after my writing group.  It seemed a little strange for me to plan it that way, as theoretically, I could have left Friday after work and made a fuller weekend out of it.  "But I promised someone I'd give them a ride to NaNo."  (NaNo is what we call the writing group.)  Theoretically, I could have told her something came up and I wouldn't be able to give her a ride; I'm sure she'd have understood.

I took a roadside nap or two (or twelve as it took a few stops to realize I would sleep better with the blanket), which took up more time than I was expecting.  Also unexpected was the amount of construction.  My sister had just been there and back the previous week, and I had 2 other friends driving across all of Iowa who knew I would be, too.  None of them said anything to me about the construction.  Miles and miles of multiple projects along eastern I-80 and northern Highway 151.  Slowed me down, that's for sure.

I intended to be in Sun Prairie (Wisconsin) at 10 a.m. for services.  When I wasn't even to Dubuque by 7:30, I knew I wasn't going to make it. 

View Larger Map
I figured Dubuque was big enough to have a ward, probably (hopefully) meeting at 9 a.m.  According to my calculations, I'd get there sometime between 8:30 and 8:45.  Thankfully I have internet on my phone, and was able to get onto lds.org.  Not only did it tell me there was a ward at 9 a.m., but it gave me the address and a map to the building.  And I was able to stay pretty close to the path most of the time. 

I pulled into the parking lot, which was on top of a hill overlooking the Mississippi River basin.  Breathtakingly beautiful, and I was glad I had a few extra minutes to take pictures after freshening up a bit.  Just the peace from the view was enough reason for me to feel being there was more important than going to church with my dad.

The first Sunday of every month is typically Fast and Testimony meeting, which is like a spiritual open mic night.  I heard other people say things that I knew God wanted me to hear, and I wouldn't have heard them if I had been in Sun Prairie like I wanted.  It continued from there, as I stayed for Sunday School and Relief Society (which I don't necessarily do when I'm just passing through).  The story at the beginning of the RS lesson didn't really have much to do with the lesson, but had so much to do with the answers I was seeking and believed I would find on this trip. 

There was another woman who told a little bit of her story, which she prefaced by saying she hadn't really shared that part before.  It didn't have much to do with the lesson, either (a little bit, but not really), but was the perfect perspective I needed with regards to the answers I was seeking.

The lesson from this experience is one I've shared here before: 
Sometimes what we see as road blocks along the journey to our destination are there to get us to where we need to be rather than where we want to be. 
This so often happens when we are trying to align our will with God's.  We want something good and worthy , but He wants something better for us.  We think our will is aligned with His because it is turned to something good , but He has something better in mind and knows that, ultimately, we truly want what He wants for us, so He provides a way for us to get there.  No matter how many orange cones it takes.

When God laughs at our plans, I've found it best to laugh with Him.
How's this for a laugh?  It's a picture of me in my trunk with Nuella, with whom I slept for a spell.

Sleeping in Cars with Bikes