Upendo Ministries

There’s a quiet grief that settles in when life doesn’t unfold the way you thought it would.

You make plans. You build dreams. You imagine a future that feels sturdy in your hands. And then, somehow, it changes.
Sometimes suddenly. Sometimes slowly.
Sometimes without asking you.

The path you thought you were walking disappears. The story you were writing turns a page you didn’t see coming.
You’re left staring at the exit sign on a door you never planned to walk through.

There’s no map for these moments.
No neat instructions for how to let go of the life you thought you’d have.

And yet, buried in the ache, something unexpected happens. You start to realize that the exit isn’t the end. It’s a beginning wrapped in disguise. It’s a quiet invitation to bloom in a place you never thought you’d stand.

Life has a way of re-routing us, and though the detours don’t come with explanations, they come with lessons.
Disappointment becomes a teacher.
Detours lead to gardens we never would have found if the story stayed on our timeline.
God is still good, even when the road looks wildly different than what we prayed for.

And most of all, we learn that we can bloom here.

Even in the middle of uncertainty.
Even when the door we wanted to walk through stays closed.
Even when the plan we built dissolves in front of us.
Even when the timeline we clung to quietly slips away.

There is growth on the other side of what we thought would be.
There is beauty beyond the exit.
The exit is the very thing that ushers us into the space we were truly meant for.

I am learning that life rarely sticks to our blueprints. But this is not failure—this is grace.
The doors that close are a mercy.
The paths that shift are protection.
The exits are not just places of loss, but places of re-planting.

We don’t always get the life we imagined.
But with God, we get the life we were meant to live.

And the beautiful truth, is that we can bloom better here than we ever could before the exit.

Because His hands still hold the pen. And His story is still good.

-Vanessa