The Miracle of Getting Lost on Purpose

This post was inspired by a memory of my mother boldly encouraging my older sister, to "get lost on purpose" when she made the life altering decision to move across the country years ago.

It prompted me to reflect on the idea that we’re taught to chart our course, follow the map, stick to the plan. Success, we’re told, is found in precision, in knowing exactly where you’re headed and how long it should take to get there. But what if the most sacred parts of you...the truest self, the parts not molded by societal expectations... aren’t waiting at the end of a carefully crafted and obedient path? What if they’re found in the wilderness?

A Call to Wander Getting lost on purpose doesn’t mean abandoning responsibility or running from yourself. It means releasing the grip of certainty. It means letting go of who you were told to be so you can remember who you actually are. This requires courage.

Sometimes the only way to find your way home is to first forget the directions.

This kind of wandering is not aimless. It’s soulful. It’s the detour you didn’t plan but desperately needed. It’s the season where nothing makes sense and somehow, everything starts to.

Why Do We Need to Get Lost  To get lost is to shed the identities we’ve outgrown. To question the script we've been performing. To admit we don’t know and in that not-knowing, awaken to possibility. This is where we create room for magic.

When you get lost:

• You slow down enough to hear your own voice again.

• You meet parts of yourself that were waiting in the shadows.

• You discover that clarity isn’t always a product of direction, but it’s often a fruit of stillness, wonder, and surrender.

The Gift of Becoming In the wandering, we begin to trust. In the stillness, we begin to feel. And in the not-knowing, we begin to know ourselves.

The miracle isn’t just that we find our way back. It’s that we return "home."  More grounded. More whole. More us.

Consider this...What if the “wrong turn” wasn’t wrong at all? What if the unraveling was actually the beginning? What if getting lost is one of the bravest things you’ll ever do?

Thank you, mom, for encouraging us to be brave, to be bold, and to have faith in

"finding ourselves" through the willingess to "get lost" on purpose.

✨ Reflection ✨

Think back to a time you felt lost...whether emotionally, spiritually, or relationally. What did you discover about yourself in that space?

If you gave yourself permission to get lost again, on purpose no less, what part of yourself might you find?