Best Laid Plans: When Spirit Invites a Detour

Earlier this week, I was preparing for Session 5 of my Money as a Spirit Ally course when the little nudges began.

First, a couple of students texted to say they couldn’t make it. No big deal. These things happen. A few more messages trickled in the day of class -some due to travel, some due to scheduling conflicts, some just needing space. I thought to myself, Hmm. It’s going to be a more intimate group tonight. Should I still hold class? Is there enough energy in the room to carry it through?

I wasn’t sure. So I sat with it for a while. I prayed. I checked in with the Spirit of the class, the energy of the container I’ve been stewarding for four weeks now. I got a soft nudge to wait and see. So I did.

And then, shortly before class was set to begin, boom. zap. silence. The power went out.

No internet. No lights. No Zoom. No class.

According to the power company, it would be several hours until service was restored.

I had my answer.

Looks like Spirit decided to cancel class.

And you know what? I didn’t get upset. I didn’t panic or scramble or try to force something to happen. I simply notified my students that we’d reconvene next week, and I went about my evening. No electricity, but a surprising sense of peace.

Now, I want to be honest with you. That has not always been my default.

There was a time in my life not that long ago when something like this would have sent me into an anxious spiral. I would have worried about disappointing my students, about falling behind, about how to make up for the lost time. I would have tried to salvage the class with my cell phone hotspot or some last-minute backup plan I pulled together in a frenzy. Or worse, I would have insisted on pressing through even when the energy wasn’t right, and then wondered why it felt off or flat or frustrating.

I didn’t know how to trust interruptions back then. I saw them as obstacles. Failures. Signs that I wasn’t doing something “right.”

But over the years, I’ve come to learn that detours often carry Divine fingerprints.

They aren’t always comfortable. They rarely arrive with polite explanations or clear instructions. Sometimes they show up as a flat tire, a missed flight, a rescheduled appointment, or a power outage right before I’m supposed to lead a sacred session on, of all things, power and agency and co-creation.

Cute, Spirit. Real cute.

But when I zoom out just a little, I can see the beauty. The orchestration. The grace.

Maybe we weren’t meant to meet this week because someone in the group needed more time to integrate last week’s material. Maybe someone else is right on the edge of a breakthrough and needs a few more days for something to land. Maybe I needed a night off, even if I didn’t know it until the lights went out.

What I know for sure is this. The class will happen exactly as it’s meant to. I trust that.

This trust hasn’t come from reading spiritual memes or repeating soothing mantras. It has come from lived experience. From surrendering, again and again, when things didn’t go according to plan, and discovering that what showed up instead was often more spacious, more beautiful, or more aligned than what I had originally mapped out.

It has also come from years of not trusting and dealing with the consequences. From pushing through when my gut said “wait,” from forcing things when the energy was off, from ignoring the signs because I didn’t want to fall behind.

By the way, behind what? Whose timeline am I trying to meet?

There’s a saying I love. Pain is what happens. Suffering is what we do with it.

And for much of my life, I unconsciously added suffering to every bump in the road. I believed that ease was something you earned through effort. That success meant always pushing forward no matter what. That control was safety.

But grace has taught me something different.

Now, when things fall apart, I pause. I check in. I look for the deeper message. I ask, Is there an invitation here?

Sometimes the answer is no. Just a random glitch. Carry on.

But other times, there’s something sacred in the interruption. Something I wouldn’t have seen if I’d stayed glued to my original plan.

That’s how I’ve come to see trust. Not as passivity, but as a kind of deep listening. A spiritual flexibility. A willingness to move with what is, instead of trying to force what was “supposed” to happen.

And honestly, it feels so much better.

There’s a softness that comes with trust. A steady kind of peace. A quiet confidence that I’m being carried, even when I can’t see where I’m going. I don’t have to know the whole plan. I don’t have to hold everything together. I just have to stay present, keep listening, and follow the next right nudge.

When I do that, when I loosen my grip on how it “should” be, I find myself inside a bigger story. One I didn’t have to write alone.

So this week, we didn’t meet for class. And that’s okay. In fact, it’s more than okay. It’s perfect.

We’ll meet next week. The material will be ready. The people who are meant to be there will show up. I trust that.

And if something else shifts? I trust that too.

In the Meantime…

If your own week got hijacked by unexpected twists or turns, I offer this simple prayer for you:

Divine Beloved, change me into one who can trust the detours. Help me to remember that nothing is wasted, and nothing is outside of Your love. Let me flow with what is, instead of grasping at what was “supposed” to be. Fill me with ease, grace, and faith in the unfolding. I am utterly Yours. I am You, You are Me, We are One. All is well.

Let the lights flicker. Let the plans change. Let Spirit lead.

It always works out. Maybe not the way we expected, but always, always the way we needed.