When Your Life Takes an Unexpected Turn

Life doesn't always unfold the way we planned. Unexpected turns can leave us feeling disappointed, confused, or uncertain about what God is doing. But our faithful Father is never surprised by the path ahead. Today, Hope Johnson reminds us that even life's detours are part of God's beautiful purpose, and we can trust Him with every chapter of our story.

“For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows if perhaps you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” — Esther 4:14

Growing up with a father who was a professional illusionist and theatre afficionado equipped me with many unconventional skills. My dad taught me how to juggle clubs, how to deliver a monologue, and even the secrets to some of his mind-blowing illusions. But the lesson from my very colorful childhood that I find myself returning to again and again comes from improvisational comedy. In improv, there’s a principle called “yes, and.” In the middle of a skit, you never question what your co-actor does; you say yes to the new reality, and you build off of it. If he says, “I hate this Georgia heat,” you don’t say, “You’re crazy! It’s winter, and we’re in Maine.” No, you don your Southern accent and tell him it sounds like it’s time for some sweet tea. To refuse to say “yes, and” breaks the flow of the scene and puts the focus on you, the actor, rather than on the unfolding story.

I’ve learned that this principle goes far beyond improv. When life takes an unexpected turn, we have the choice of saying “yes, and,” trusting God with where He is leading the story of our lives, or to sulk and get angry at Him that things didn’t go the way we wanted. I confess that in my own life, I’ve often chosen the second option. You see, I didn’t expect to be single at 35. Truth be told, I didn’t expect to be single at 25. As a young teen, I penned the “perfect” plan for my life — meet a godly man in college, marry young, go into missions with my husband and live happily ever after. Yet year after year, despite my best efforts, I’m as single as ever. In my grief and disappointment, I’ve often fought against the scene God is writing in this particular season of my life. In the same way a bad improv actor might ruin the magic of a skit by refusing to embrace the unfolding story, I have often tainted beautiful times in my life with melancholy because I didn’t have a husband at my side to share them with me. 

But about five years ago, a striking pattern in Scripture leapt out at me and challenged me to surrender to what God was doing in and through my singleness. The lives of so many who were intimate with God and saw Him do amazing things in their generation had this common denominator: They had a plan for their lives, God called them to something radically different, and they said “yes, and.”

Here are just a handful of these amazing stories:

• Daniel's plan: Live out his life in his homeland. God’s call: Be taken captive by a pagan nation, learn the language and literature of his captors, face a grisly death for refusing to stop praying to the one true God, see God’s power in a miraculous rescue from that death, and by God’s power, prophesy about the coming of Jesus. 

• Joseph's plan: Enjoy a life of comfort as his father’s favorite. God’s call: Be sold into slavery by his brothers, gain the respect of the pharaoh only to spend years in prison, but ultimately be a huge part of saving not only the nation from famine but the very brothers who had sold him into slavery. 

• Ruth's plan: Live out her life with her foreign husband in her homeland of Moab. God’s call: Go to a foreign land widowed with her mother and law, work long hours gleaning in the fields to make a living, be united with a kind, godly husband, and ultimately, be part of the line of Christ. 

The list goes on and on: Moses, Samuel, David, Mary, Jesus’ disciples, the apostle Paul! But I think one of my favorite “yes, ands” in all of Scripture is that of Queen Esther. She likely expected to marry a Jewish man and live in relative simplicity, but God had other plans and made her queen of Persia. This wasn’t an easy road—taken from her home by the king’s edict, she had no choice in the matter. She could, however, choose how to respond. Her uncle Mordecai challenged her to say “yes, and” to her God-given situation when he said, “Perhaps you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this.” Esther took Mordecai’s words to heart, and God used Esther mightily to save many of her people from death.

If, like me, you find yourself resisting what God is calling you to in this chapter of your life, I hope that the example of Queen Esther gives you the courage to give an open-hearted “yes, and” to the Lord. Look to Him, ask what’s next, and embrace your new reality. You may not understand what He is doing now, but as He has proven through His miraculous work in the lives of His children throughout Scripture, you can trust that His plans for you are good and His heart toward you is kind. Just as He called Esther to the throne for a reason, He has called you to this season for a good and holy purpose.

Want more from Hope Johnson? Check out this episode of the Significant Women Podcast.