I remember growing up and planning my future life. We all did it, right? I wanted to get married young, have a big family (two perfect boys followed by two perfect girls), be done having kiddos before or by thirty. Of course I would home school my perfect kids, we would learn by going on lots of outings around Saint Louis. My husband would have a good solid job and be the strong spiritual leader of our family. I didn't necessarily think it would be easy but I didn't really know what hard was.
Jeremiah 29:11
11 "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."
I always loved this verse. I knew God had a plan for my life and by golly, so did I! I thought my plan was his plan. I set out to do it. I did do some of it. I got married at the ripe young age of twenty. Had baby one (a boy) at 21. Baby two (another boy, perfect plan!) at 23. Babies three and four at 25 and 27. Something tricky happened with the plan though; neither of them were girls.
My husband had a stable job and then got let go, with a terrible economy and competitive job market he didn't get another stable job for seven years. We lived off the unpredictable life of freelance. My ideas of home schooling were soon shot down by an oldest who's personality is not so willing to learn from me. It was solidified by the two proceeding boys having special needs and needing things only special education can provide. My live natural and homeopathic also got thrown down when those two were born. Brain surgery, heart surgery, palate surgeries and the like threw me in the deep end of doctors and hospitals. This home birth momma was way out of her league. I clung to Jeremiah 29:11 for years. Knowing God had a plan, right?
We searched doctors, therapists and the Internet for five years before getting the genetic diagnosis on our five year old son. I realized no amount of therapies or doctors could "cure" him, a tiny piece was missing and that tiny piece caused an array of problems. I didn't love my son any less and it didn't change him to me. It did change my relationship with God though. I now had a son with a brain condition with no cure and a genetic diagnosis for the other that obviously can't be cured. We prayed for healing but no "full" healing came. What was the plan, God? My plan had gone off in the ditch.
I didn't understand why God's plan was so drastically different than mine. I had a good plan, full of good things, God honoring things even. But morning after morning I woke up in a very difficult situation. Being a mom is hard. Really hard. Being a mom with a lot of little kids is crazy and messy. Being a mom of a child with special needs is complicated. Being a mom of multiple children with special needs, an oldest child trying to grasp his younger siblings and a new healthy baby felt impossible.
And I'm not alone. A lot of us are waking up every morning with our hardest thing. Our thing that we carry around and it just feels heavy, oh so heavy. We look around and feel alone. We pray to God and wonder, what was so wrong with our plan? Wouldn't we be more faithful, more joyous, more of everything if our plan had only gone through?
"Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." Jeremiah 29:12-13
The proceeding two verses are the crux of the whole thing. God's plan for our life is the only one that will bring us to the point of coming to him. Coming to him humbly and praying, begging, and pleading for him to help us, to restore us. His plan will set our eyes and heart searching for Him. Our plans will keep us comfortable, happy and passive. His plans will rock your world.
God's plan for my motherhood, God's plan for my wife hood, they rocked my world. They changed my heart. They changed the course of my life. My way wasn't "bad" but I wouldn't have needed any help. I could have done that life on my own will power. God's plan brought me to my knees, literally. I had no strength, I had no answers and sometimes no one had an answer. I had to learn to take everything to God. I had to search him for answers and leading. The plan he set for my life is bringing me closer to restoration with him. It's making me more like Jesus, slowly and painfully.
I know that a lot of us are looking at our lives saying, it wasn't supposed to happen like this. We are carrying burdens that are hard, everyone's hardest thing is their hardest thing. No judgment there. I encourage you to not look at your peers, don't look back at your parents, and don't look to the world. Search Jesus, prayerfully and humbly. Find his will for your life. Ask him to reveal his plan. There are a handful of things I know to be true and one of them is, God is faithful. He will walk the path with you and carry the burden when you can't.
Oh, how this speaks to my soul. I also had so many plans that went awry, so many frustrated sessions of yelling at God with tears streaming down my face. But I've realized, in hindsight, how His ways actually are higher than my ways. The easy life I imagined for myself would not have wrought deep character. He puts us through storms and deserts and hardships for a reason. In the midst, yes, we wonder where on earth He is and what on earth He's doing. But in the aftermath, we realize it was just the refining fire trying to get rid of the dross in our lives. I love a story I heard once of a man visiting a silversmith, who explained he had to hold the silver in the fire for *just* the right amount of time. Too little, and it would still be full of impurities. Too long, and it would destroy it. "How do you know when it's been just the right amount of time?" The man asked. "When I can see my face reflected in the surface," was the answer. God refines us until He can see His face reflected back. Not less. Not more.
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