Plans, Tears, and the Creator of the Universe

I was having a hard day some time ago, neither my day or my future seemed like it was going to plan. I was heavy hearted and disheartened, but I couldn’t let the signs of it show.

One thing that you should know about me is that I plan. I plan and scheme and layout my life on an Excel spreadsheet (literally, I’m not joking). I have contingency plans for contingency plans. I stay up late, laying in bed, planning my future so that nothing takes me by surprise.

It’s not that I don’t like surprises, I just like to feel in control, I like to feel safe and know where I’m standing and know where I want to go.

And so when it seemed like my life was not going according to plan or any contingency plan, I felt powerless. I felt lost and helpless and insecure.

I wanted to cry (because that fixes everything (I’m actually joking this time)), I wanted to scream at the world to put itself back in the little box I put it in, I wanted to dream up some plan to fix all this. But my heart was in control and not my head. Oh, the horrible and wondering things that can happen when the heart is in control!

So I walked through the halls holding my shattered plans in my hands and holding my tears in my eyes.

Two of my favorite quotes popped in my head, “The first casualty of any battle is the plan of attack,” by Cory Doctorow and “If plan A doesn’t work, the alphabet has 25 more letters,” by Claire Cook. But I wasn’t in the mood for inspirational speeches especially if I was the one giving it.

So I finally get to my locker and look up at the Cross magnet I have on it, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” [Italics added] That is God’s work right there. I change my magnet every couple of weeks and it was just by chance that I had Jeremiah 29: 11 up. I was lamenting over my broken plans and the verse used plans three times. God knows the plan; His plan is never broken; He is never caught by surprise; He is always in control. I am secure in His plan. I was upset over my plan when God said that He would give me one of His plans. And I’d take one of God’s plans compared to one of mine, anyday.

The conflict isn’t completely resolved but it is looking better. God said that His plan gives me hope, and it sure has. My heavy heart is now a happy heart. I don’t need my head to be in control when I know that God is in control. I don’t need a plan to make me feel safe; I have faith in the Lord Almighty. And faith is much better than any plan.

---

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

2 Corinthians 12:9

Pixabay/bykst

The Light and Dark Side of Imagination

I’m afraid of the dark

I sleep with a nightlight

and I always have to have a light at the end of a dark hallway.

I’m not afraid of the dark because of the unknown

or because I can’t control what is there,

I’m afraid because of what I imagine there.

I know there are not boogey-men or vampires or robbers

but there is a difference between imagination and reality

Imagination can dream stories and cities and people

as an escape from reality

Imagination can create innovations

to better reality

Imagination can believe in possibilities

to change future reality

Imagination can transform monsters in my mind

into monsters hiding in the dark of reality

But I’ll take these monsters

so that I can have my imagination

of people

of places

of inventions

of hope

of faith

Light may show us what is there

what is reality

but darkness shows us

what could be there

and maybe,

what should be there

Simple Fear

I sometimes wish

that our fears

stayed as simple

as the monster under the bed

stayed as simple

as the shadow in the corner.

Instead of life choices

and concerns over our nation

and how our future will look five, ten years from now.

But those fears from childhood

only represent the anxieties of adulthood

fear and worry about the unknown and uncontrollable.

But only sometimes do I wish that.

Only sometimes because

I know my God holds history and the future

in the palm of His hand

just like He holds me.

---

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”

-Matthew 6:25-27

Please?

I feel like a dress balled up and thrown in the hamper after a night out

I feel like “beach glass” sharp edges smoothed out over the decades of waves crashing upon its pieces

I feel like a baseball that has been practiced with too many times in the afternoon fading sun

I feel like a Lazy Boy chair that sags to the left after years of use from its habitual occupant

I feel like the cracked glass of a iPhone 5S, shattered from too many times being forgotten in a back pocket

I feel like Grandma’s favorite kitchen paring knife, showing age in color and cut

I feel like a pair of Nike’s after crossing the finish line at the Philadelphia Marathon

I feel like the knee of a retired eight-nine year old shop worker standing up for four o’clock supper

I feel worn out

I feel worn out about planning the future

About what college I should go to

whether that is truly the perfect choice of education or if I am just settling

This will decide my life,

and I don’t know if I am ready to make that choice?

And I don’t want to think about saving money for retirement right now,

or what the government and my country as a whole will look like twenty-three years from now

or sixteen years from now trying to hold to my conservative values when I teach a class that differs from my beliefs

or

or

or  . . .

Can I please just be me for one moment and not planning for future me?

Can my toughest decision be what favor of ice cream I want to lick while walking and talking with my best friend on a 78° summer day?

Can my toughest decision be what color of nail polish, fire engine red or electric blue?

Can my toughest decision be to have Lucky Charms cereal for breakfast or have a strawberry-raspberry smoothie?

Can my toughest decision be whether to read a novel or a comicbook or maybe both?

Can my toughest decision be what station to listen to on Pandora, 2Cellos or Christian pop?

Can my toughest decision be to go running or to go running and swimming?

Please?

Pixabay/user:skeeze

Tears

Trusting in the Unknown

Art4TheGlryOfGod / Foter / CC BY-ND

The unknown

how scary

and yet

exhilarating it is

Some people crave

the adrenaline rush

and others try to avoid it as much a possible

How different our minds work . . .

What we are drawn to

or lead away from

But some unknowns are good

but require trust

and that is where the frighten people stop

Trust

is so hard,

it is so easily broken

Something that one never thinks of it when they are breaking it

but the now broken always do

Sometimes,

you need

someone to put their trust

in you

for you -yourself- to be willing to give out your trust

again

Trusting in the unknown

how scary

and yet

exhilarating it is

‘Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.’ – Proverbs 3:5-6