Where to next?
We humans keep brainstorming options and plans,
but God's purpose prevails.
Proverbs 19:21 MSG
It’s silly to think of little, 2 year old Sylvia being the one to take charge. But I’m pretty sure she knew where she was taking us. I’m also pretty sure we weren’t following her recommendations. It didn’t matter how loudly she was yelling or singing (97% chance it was singing).
We already knew where we were going because we’re a family that likes to plan.
Stephen and I do a lot of talking about the future: what activities the girls should be doing this season, how we should spend school breaks over the next year, what Stephen wants from work in the next five years, and where we want to be during retirement.
We are also a family that ends up practicing flexibility nearly every day. We’ve learned to hold our plans pretty loosely. We so often end up making different choices, having something more important come up, and life just plain gets in the way.
Some days that flexibility is a lot easier than others; I tell the girls the schedule has changed and we jump to it. Other days the change comes with the tears of frustration and disappointment. And I apologize that it’s not going the way I intended, remind them that we practice for this everyday, and try to make the most of it anyway.
The thing is, we make our plans, by ourselves. It so often seems that only after it’s written in ink do I realize I forgot to invite God to the discussion!
And I really should remember to invite God to the discussion; he has some very cool plans, and I don’t want to miss being part of them! It was after I started in nursing school that I felt the call to speech pathology (just like mom had been telling me for years). It was after I went “away” to school that I met and married the guy from home. It was after we knew I was pregnant that we found out there were 3!
What are you making plans for these days? Have you sent out all of the discussion invitations?
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