The 5 Year Plan That Wasn't

I don't know if it was because I was so Type A or a dreamer, maybe a mixture of both, but when I turned 20 I set a 5 year plan. It looked something like this:

By age 21- Graduate college with my BSW

By age 22- Be well into my new career

By age 23- Marry the love of my life

By age 24- Have a house and be settled

By age 25- Have baby #1

That's the gist of it. Things started out pretty well. I graduated and was on cloud 9. My boyfriend had proposed that Spring and we were preparing for a wedding the following March.

The day following graduation, he called to say that we needed to call off the wedding. There were a lot of peronal battles he was fighting and he just didn't know if things were going to work. Of course, I refused to call it off, but I agreed to postpone. He was the love of my life. I KNEW God had chosen him for me despite his circumstances. 

We worked everything out after I made an immediate move from Georgia to Virginia. A couple weeks after moving I began working as a Child Protective Services Worker. New career, check. We were married in October 2008. I was married at 23. Check.

We bought a house the same fall that we married. Check. My 5 year plan was going swimmingly...until I turned 25. According to my plan, it was time for a baby, but honestly,  neither one of us felt ready. A year later it was go time. Ironically,  we faced infertility issues and our baby plans took MUCH longer than expected. Our infertility journey tested us emotionally, physically and mentally. 

No one had prepared us for that. We saved ourselves for marriage, we were stable, we had good jobs, a house and the desire to become parents...and we couldn't. 

I was mad. I was hurt. I was tired. God had allowed everything else to fall into place. Why not this?

Jesus replied, "You don't understand now what I am doing, but someday you will."
John 13:7

God used that time to draw us closer to Him and eventually we were blessed with a beautiful little girl. They say hindsight is 20/20 and I get it. After G was born I was in a much better place to sift through all that we had been through. It was during that time that God opened my eyes to something that I had neglected to remember: His ways are not my ways and His ways are perfect. His timing is perfect. Everything that He allows in my life is to serve a greater purpose and that His blessings will always be better than I could imagine.

"My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts," says the LORD. "And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine."
Is. 55:8

Have you lost sight of this too? Have you been so busy planning out your life and the lives of your children that you too have neglected to focus on what His plan for your life might be?

Take some time to reflect on where you are, how you got there, and where you hope to go. Did you include God in your plans? Try this: seek God in all things. Invite Him into the big and small decisions that you have to make. He will direct you. He has a plan for your life and He wants to offer you the best.

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