Going With The Flow to Byron

The greatest lesson I learned this week has been to go with the flow.

My husband broke his arm nearly two weeks ago, and we had been booked into a holiday house at Byron Bay for the following week.  I knew that the chances of cancelling with such short notice were slim, because they would only cancel the booking if they could find someone else to rebook.

At the time that my husband was coming out of hospital after an operation to put a plate in his arm, I wasn’t sure what would be best for us.  Jon is an active person generally, not sporty, but usually happiest when he is doing something.  His incapacity left him feeling rather miserable.  As I wasn’t sure what would be best, I put the whole thing in God’s hands and asked God to arrange an outcome for our highest good.

After a couple of days passed, Jon started to feel a bit more comfortable with using his left hand, and could still use the fingers of his right hand, as long as he didn’t put any pressure on them.  He started to feel more like going on holidays and so did I.

Two days before we were due to depart, I knew that our highest good was going to be for us to have our holiday.

I knew that our holiday wouldn’t be quite as I had imagined it, with us visiting local cafés and restaurants to sample their vegan fare and taking day trips into the Byron hinterland.  However I was delighted to find the local Spar supermarket sold delicious raw vegan desserts and chocolates, and that a number of pizza places could deliver vegan pizzas.

I hadn’t been looking forward to driving the 200 or so kilometres in my husband’s big car, but I knew we wouldn’t fit our dog, Cassie, and all of our stuff in my smaller car.  I had never felt happy driving his car.  Not a confident driver at the best of times, I felt like a little mouse when I drove his car, with my nose barely peering over the dashboard.

I knew that, by the end of our holiday, I would be an expert at driving my husband’s car.  Not only would I need to drive there at the beginning of our holiday and back again at the end, but Jon had a follow-up appointment at Redcliffe Hospital in the middle of our holiday week.  I would have to drive the 400 kilometre round trip in that one day.

Everyone told me that it was an easy drive, and luckily that turned out to be true.  But even during that day of the hospital visit, I learned to go with the flow.

We had intended to drop in at home prior to Jon’s appointment at the hospital, to collect a couple of things we’d forgotten.  We had forgotten to add in some extra time to allow for the extra traffic on a week day, so we had insufficient time for our stop off at home, and would have to go afterwards, making our trip back to Byron later than we had planned.

After dropping Jon off at the hospital, Cassie and I were waiting in a park overlooking the sea, when I received a phone call from Jon telling me that 45 minutes after his appointment time, he still hadn’t been called in.  This was going to make it a much longer day than we had anticipated, but a moment later I had the thought that, rather than wait for Jon, I could make the 45 minute trip to home and back while Jon was having his appointment.  I even managed to water some plants while I was there.

As I made my way back to the hospital, I saw a long stream of traffic going in the opposite direction coming just about to a standstill.  I heard on the radio that there had been an accident on that road, and that must be the cause of the long delays.  Had we left it till after I picked Jon up, we would have been stuck in that traffic jam.

We did end up running into a bit of peak-hour traffic on the Gold Coast on our way back, but by then I was confident that this, too, was for our highest good.  The slower traffic caused me to move from brake to accelerator and back again just enough to provide a bit of relief from the position of full-on accelerator that was causing me to become a little fatigued.

Although our holiday has been different than we expected, we have all enjoyed it.

Cassie has loved the two walks each day on the beach, where unlike our local beach at home, there have been doggies galore, particularly on the weekend.  She also enjoyed the occasional visits from a friendly bush-turkey.

Jon has enjoyed discovering that, even though he has a broken arm, there are still lots of things he can do, and sitting reading on the day bed, with his dog curled up by his side, has given him hours of relaxation and joy.

As for me, I have loved the time away from the ordinary, particularly at mealtimes.  I have loved the feel of sand between my toes and felt great joy watching all the dogs playing and socializing.  I have even loved becoming a more confident driver.

I have loved being reminded that the universe is always working for our highest good, even if we can’t see what it is.  When we go with the flow, we are helping the universe bring us that highest good.  When we resist the flow, we are putting obstacles in the path of the universe.

When we resist the flow is when we can encounter difficulties.  Cassie provided a metaphor for this this morning on our walk on the beach.  She went into the rough surf.  I pointed out to her that there was a strong rip, but she had followed the wave back in the water and was then surprised to find the next wave came into the shore even stronger and bowled her off her feet.

If we resist the flow, we run the risk of being bowled over by events.  If we go with the flow, we are always in alignment with Source.  We may still encounter difficulties, but we just don’t see them as such, because we know that they are always taking us in the direction of our highest good.