I had a plan

I took a trip with my sister a few years ago. When we left the house we had a plan for how that trip would go. We knew where we wanted to be when, how many miles we had to drive each day, and what we wanted to do. We had a plan. My sister had even gone online and mapped it all out down to the best routes to take and what the weather was going to be where.

We had a plan but almost from the minute we pulled out of the driveway that plan was changed through very little fault of our own.

The first change in plans was the need to buy tires. That was an unexpected expense when we had no extra money for the trip. From there things just kept changing on us. The weather that was supposed to be mild and warm turned very cold. The plan to spend every night camping turned into night after night in expensive hotels. And so the trip went.

It turned out to look very little like the trip we had planned. We managed to keep our main plans but everything else was changed. Those changes came at us hard and fast and forced us to just go with what was happening in the moment.

And do you know what?

To this day that trip is one of my most favored memories of any trip I’ve ever taken.

The journey that I’m on now…the one drawing me ever closer to Christ is much like that trip I took with my sister. I’m learning not to make plans, not to look to the future but I’m learning that through changes that keep coming at me out of the blue. Changes that force me to stop planning ahead and live in the moment. Changes that shake my world and make me see that I have no control over anything.

But…

I had a plan.

Once upon a time.

I well remember the day that I told the Lord I was tired of trying to control things. I was tired of holding tight to everything, controlling-or so I thought-everything, right down to the little details. I handed my life fully over to Him that day. What I didn’t realize when I did that was that He already had full control of my life.

I remember, too, the day I learned to be grateful for everything. Even the bad stuff. I stood in my kitchen and thanked the Lord for something I wasn’t at all grateful for. I told Him I had no idea why I was supposed to be thankful for the bad things but that I knew He would use it for my good and so…thank you. Not the most grateful prayer, I know, but that day it was the best I could do.

I still haven’t found it in myself to be grateful for losing my baby. I just can’t. I know it was the Lord’s will. I know He has a plan that is so much greater than anything I could ever imagine. I know He will use even this for His purpose. But I can’t be grateful.

I’ve tried telling myself that the Lord may have saved my baby from a lifetime of pain. Or a slow agonizing death. Or… But nothing I tell myself has yet to make me grateful for the loss of my child.

There have been many things in my life that I didn’t thank the Lord for. Times when I struggled or hurt and it wasn’t until years later that I was grateful for what I went through. This may wind up being one of those things or I may never be grateful. Not for the loss.

I am grateful for the time I had with my baby, however brief it was. And I can see now, daily, how the life and loss of that baby is changing me. Molding me into something I wasn’t before.

Sometimes I wonder if the changes will stay. Sometimes I wonder if it will be good if they do. I can see how the experience has drawn me closer to Christ. But I can also see that it has caused other changes in me…changes that I don’t yet know if they’re good or bad.

I wonder, as I write this, if that is the kind of thing I should be writing and posting online. Should my blog be kept strictly uplifting? Edifying? And yet…we all struggle. Our faith doesn’t stop the struggles. It doesn’t stop the pain. It gives us a hope that the unregenerate don’t have but the trials and the struggles persist. We must face them, get through them.

And so…I will post of my struggles. Of my own thoughts, doubts, and wonders. So that you, my reader, can experience them with me.