my careless contagion

Nebraska, you're not for everyone. But on this road trip, you were home to a great and unexpected blessing. Yes, I accomplished what I set out to do, which was to uncover what went wrong in my life. Not only that, but my expectations for this trip turned out to be inferior to how it actually unraveled.  It's clear, as I sit down to write this — the final post of my Nebraska retrospective — God chose to bless me on this trip. But you know what? It wouldn't have happened had I not said that prayer and put it in His hands. While the outcome may have looked obvious to anyone else, to me it did not look obvious. All I knew is I did not want to run afoul of God's plan or timing. That last sentence contains what I have learned in the last 20-plus years since I lived in Nebraska. Things are better left in God's hands than my own.  What went wrong all those years ago? I pushed God out of my life, leaving me to make dreadful decisions which took me far from His care....

Niall Horan's Too Much to Ask is a typical breakup song. I gravitated to it as my divorce neared about a year ago. After 20 years with the same woman, and my "heart dancing" without her, I was met with a potent mix of emotions of which I could scarcely make sense. Somewhere in our heads, so many of us think when we break up with someone that our rift could be easily repaired. "If they would only (fill in the blank)," we tell ourselves, we'd be inclined to give them another chance. When I told Kate, my ex-wife, I was leaving her the first time, she clearly wasn't listening. I can still see the room we were in as clearly as this one. I can see my anger in the air. I can feel that moment like it was yesterday and not more than five years ago.  After trying and failing to make our marriage work over the next few years, I again told her I was going to leave her. A great storm was in me for the longest time as I struggled with that possibility, and onc...