The Meaning Comes Later

Looking back across the years, I’ve noticed something I couldn’t see while I was living it. The moments I thought had ruined my plans were often the very moments that quietly built the life I have today.

At the time they felt like disappointments. Some seemed unfair, others were frightening, and a few left me hurt, angry or completely confused. Yet only years later did I realise I could see the same pattern emerging time and again. Life wasn’t happening to me. It was teaching me.

For as long as I can remember, I have carried a simple belief. Not that everything would go my way, or that life would somehow spare me pain. It certainly didn’t. But I believed that, whatever happened, there was something hidden within the experience I needed to learn. If I learned it, another door would eventually open, often a better one, and usually one I couldn’t even imagine at the time.

People sometimes ask whether I am religious. The answer is yes and no.

I spent much of my childhood in a convent boarding school with its daily Mass, Confession, Communion and nuns who were doing their very best to point us towards Heaven.

But even then I somehow viewed God differently. I remember telling Sister Bernadette quite firmly that I had no desire to become a saint. At thirteen, I had other ambitions. I wanted to find my prince charming, get married, and live happily ever after.

Now, after nearly sixty years of marriage, I’d say that dream came true, although not quite in the way my thirteen-year-old self imagined it would.

I found Him in gardens, in kitchens, on long walks, and in quiet conversations before sleep. Whenever I felt troubled, confused, frightened or uncertain, I talked. There were no formal prayers, just honest conversations. Somehow the answers always found their way back to me. They weren’t always the answers I wanted, but more often than not, they were the ones I needed.

One of the biggest lessons of my life arrived disguised as disaster.

Many years ago, I was sacked from my teaching position at one of the most prestigious beauty colleges in the city. I was deeply angry. It felt unfair, humiliating and completely undeserved. I could easily have stayed where I was, emotionally replaying the injustice, telling the story again and again, wishing things had been different.

Instead, I moved on, literally. We relocated to Canberra, and I started something I would probably never have attempted otherwise.

My own college.

It was years before I realised I had been looking at the wrong ending. Losing that job wasn’t the end of the story. It was simply the end of one chapter. The next chapter held possibilities I couldn’t yet imagine because I was still mourning the one that had closed.

At the time, I thought I was rebuilding my life. Only years later did I realise I was building the life I was meant to have.

Hundreds of students eventually came through those doors, lifelong friendships were formed, the business flourished, and opportunities appeared that I could never have predicted. And none of it would have happened if I had not first lost the job I desperately wanted to keep.

That experience taught me something I have never forgotten. Sometimes the ending you resist becomes the very beginning you need.

This lesson kept appearing, although not always dramatically. Sometimes it showed up in something as simple as selling a house. I developed a habit that amused my family. Whenever we were buying or selling property, I’d quietly ask for guidance. I would ask, “Show me the right house. Show me the right person.”

That didn’t mean sitting back and hoping for the best. I did my homework, asked plenty of questions, considered every option carefully, and then paid close attention to the quiet feeling that one choice felt more right than another.

On one occasion, I found myself choosing a retired schoolteacher who had moved into real estate over people who looked far more qualified on paper. Something simply felt right about him, and he ended up selling our house brilliantly.

Coincidence?

Possibly.

But I have learned to trust what repeatedly proves itself, even when I can’t fully explain why.

There were harder lessons, too. Years ago, I had a vivid dream about a car accident on a particular stretch of road. The dream stayed with me, and when I later travelled that route, I found myself pulling over for a moment. I watched a lone car approach in the distance and felt an odd certainty that it was somehow connected to what I had seen.

The other vehicle struck a tree, and the driver did not survive. To this day, I cannot explain what happened, and perhaps I never will. What has stayed with me isn’t the mystery itself, but a deep gratitude for life and the reminder never to take another ordinary day for granted.

Then there was Chris. Many years ago, while attending a conference in Melbourne, he experienced severe chest pain. Being Chris, he assumed it was indigestion. Back at his hotel, he rang reception to ask for Panadol. Instead, the receptionist called an ambulance. That simple decision saved his life. He had a critically blocked artery and may not have survived the night otherwise.

I have often thought about that unknown woman and how casually life-changing moments sometimes arrive. Sometimes that’s all it takes: one person paying attention, one person deciding to act, one ordinary moment that quietly changes another person’s life forever. I often wonder if she ever realised that a simple decision at a hotel reception desk gave Chris the chance to come home to his family.

When people hear stories like these, they sometimes think I am saying that life protects us from pain. It doesn’t. I have experienced disappointment, failure, heartbreak, illness, grief and loss, just as everyone does. The difference isn’t that I’ve been spared suffering. It’s that I’ve tried to learn something from it.

Faith has never protected me from pain. What it has given me is the ability to ask a different question.

Not:

“Why is this happening to me?”

But:

“What is this trying to teach me?”

That question has carried me through almost every difficult chapter of my life because time has a way of revealing what we cannot see in the moment. Loss taught me resilience, disappointment taught me courage, change taught me to adapt, and heartbreak deepened my compassion. Even the doors that closed quietly guided me towards the ones that were meant to open next.

Perhaps that is why I have never been afraid when life takes an unexpected turn. Again and again, what first appeared to be a setback became a turning point, and what looked like bad luck quietly revealed itself as redirection. It didn’t happen immediately, and it certainly wasn’t magical. It simply became clear with time.

These days, when something doesn’t go according to plan, I no longer assume the story is over. I have lived long enough to know that life is often still writing the chapter, and that the meaning of today’s disappointment may not reveal itself until much later.

Whether you call it God, the Universe, faith, providence or simply intuition doesn’t matter nearly as much as paying attention.

After all these years, I know this much to be true. Life rarely unfolds according to our plans, yet if we remain open to its lessons, even our greatest disappointments can become part of something larger and often better than we ever imagined.

We don’t always need to understand the next step. We simply need to take it… and keep walking.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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