His Plans

{I wrote this to submit to another blog for review and possible publication. When I look back over my life, sometimes I cannot believe how much I have changed. In some ways, I'm the same person I've always been. But in many more ways, I am a very different person than I was as a child, a teenager, a college student, a newlywed. I am so thankful God is directing my life and I pray I always am wise enough to turn to Him for the every day struggles and joys.}

My life did not turn out at all the way I had planned.

Exhausting. That’s what it is. Following Christ and being a detailed-oriented planner, it’s exhausting. Not only do I work extra hard to ensure that all my carefully laid plans turn out exactly, perfectly the way I want them to; but also I am backtracking and reworking those plans when God laughs and says, “Just you wait!” Time and time again my plans have been crushed, torn down, and destroyed, but then are replaced by the perfect, over-arching plan of God.

When I was a senior in high school, I wrote a blurb for my yearbook that stated in five years I planned to be preparing to move to Scotland. I had visited the country and had fallen in love. I was planning to go to college, get married, and then move to Scotland to own sheep (yes, sheep). Well, upon graduation, five years came and went and I am not in Scotland. I’m sure God entertained my dreams and wishes of living in the highlands with my little ewe lambs, or maybe He was just entertained by the idea.

I entered college knowing (without a doubt) I was going to be a journalist. The dream: headlines reporter for the New York Times. Yup, ambitious. I had my entire college career planned including internships and possibly transferring to a school in the city once I had my portfolio built. I graduated with a degree in Family and Child Development and I planned to be a stay at home mom. Quite the change from the driven career woman I had envisioned a few years earlier.

When I was first married I would always say I could never be a pastor’s wife or a military wife, specifically because I am not a huge fan of change. I hoped we would settle down in our hometown, buy a house, and live there for the rest of our lives. A couple years into marriage my husband decided he wanted to join the Armed Forces. We are now an Army family and I can’t imagine life any other way. We will not buy a house for many years, we will not settle down anywhere until my husband retires from the service. We will have completed three out of state moves this year, which is just a foreshadowing of all the change to come.

Now, looking back do I wish my life was different and I was a sheep farmer, a headlines journalist, or a civilian? Absolutely not. Do I wish from the beginning I had wished to be an Army wife and been purposefully preparing for my future? Absolutely not. See, the reason I was interested in moving to Scotland was because I had fallen in love there, with the land and with a boy. That boy is now my husband. While studying journalism I took a sociology class that helped me discover the importance of the role of a mother. I now have a son and am able to stay home with him to teach and train him in the Lord. As a young newlywed I slowly learned how to be a submissive, respectful, supportive wife. We built a foundation for our marriage that has helped us transition into our new roles as a military family.

So, looking back over my plans, hopes, and dreams… I am so very thankful that God intervened. His plans were far, far greater than my of-the-moment wants and desires. I am learning to embrace the disintegration of my carefully laid plans and to simply plan to follow the Lord where He will lead me. Now, I am still the detail-oriented planner I always have been, so do I have the next year all planned out in my mind? Of course! Do I anticipate about 1002 things changing in that plan as God sees fit? Of course! And I wouldn’t have it any other way.