Our Plans vs His Plan

Monday morning, I'm on the way to work in 20 degree weather, the light dusting of snow on the ground, the ice still present on my windows as I'm flying down the highway. Now, if you are familiar with Cleveland Highway / Dalton Pike you will know the area that my husband and I refer to as "that long stretch of highway where you don't really know where you are." I'm in that 5 or 6 mile stretch and my car makes a light rattling noise and I cut the heat to listen to the noise. As I listen, I press the gas a bit harder to hear it better and the car quits. I start de-cellerating and my lights come on and the engine cuts off. I pull over to the curb, wait a minute and try to crank it up again. The engine won't turn over and now there's smoke. I sigh and flip on the emergency lights and call my boss -- I won't be at work for a while. Then I call Brent -- honey, the car quit. Then a nice cop pulls over and calls a tow truck for me... and I sit in my car for 45 minutes waiting for the tow.



Now if you know me well at all, you probably know that I am from Charleston, SC and I grew up on the coast of a barrier island and I TOTALLY don't tolerate the cold. Cold to me is about 55 and that's when you put on a sweater and give up on your errands, cuddle up in a blanket in front of a fireplace with hot cocoa. So imagine me (who would much rather be in a wetsuit, surfing on the atlantic) sitting in a car with no heat in the snow for 45 minutes. Yep, I was an unhappy camper.

It occured to me (or rather, God spoke) that I was being a total baby after the fact. As I thought about it a conversation my husband and I had came to mind. My husband told me several nights ago about a man he works with who prayed that a pallet they were moving would not topple over. A few moments later, it crashed to the ground and the man who had prayed started smiling and laughing. My husband could not help but ask what made him so happy. The man replied with possibly one of the deepest things I've heard said about this subject matter: "When I pray for something, and it is given, I know that God has allowed my way. But when I pray for something and it is not given to me, then I know that God is doing something bigger than I can see, and I am glad to know that God is working His own plan, and not mine."

Next time you find yourself sulking because things aren't going your way, think about this. God is doing something different -- and that's a good thing.

I remember one Christmas when I'd asked for all sorts of things as Brent pestered me for ideas. We like celebrating Christmas in our house -- in fact we probably over-do it. Something about growing up in modest families has driven Brent and I to really enjoy Christmas. We have many traditions, including some about the number of presents everyone has to have, the fact that one must be handmade, everyone has their own ornament every year, etc. I think its our little way of making up for all the corners we have usually cut all year long. This particular Christmas, I'd asked for a particular pair of snow boots. I had tried them on, and told him my size. I was thrilled when something the right size appeared under the tree. Christmas morning, when I opened that box I was terribly disapointed to find that it was a game, not the beautiful boots I'd hoped for. I went along through the remainder of the gifts, trying to be happy and not be so upset about something silly like snow boots that he proably couldn't afford. When we got to the last of it, at the very bottom of my stocking (which he'd insisted we would open last that year) was a gift card for the store with the exact amount of money needed for that particular pair of boots - so I could get them in the right color and size. I was ecstatic.

Sometimes God lets our cars break down in the snow and changes our plans totally because He is using His own plan. Sometimes, God says "yes" and it just happens differently than we think it will (like the snow boots). Either way, God loves us enough to have a better plan than we can come up with. My husband has a theory about tatoos that I find applies here: "When I was 10, I would have had a tatoo of the power rangers or mega man. Today, I realize that would be stupid and totally not what I want to have for the rest of my life. So when I think about getting a tatoo, I remind myself that in ten years, I probably will think whatever I like now is stupid and not what I want for the rest of my life."

Thank God that He has a plan for your life that is so much better than your own!!