A change of plans

I never really considered myself a "non-spontaneous" person. In fact, I never used to plan anything (which probably drove my mom crazy!). I always seemed to live in the moment, but being a mom brought many changes. I can't just do whatever, whenever anymore. I always need to think of their schedule and whether I need a babysitter. Gone are the late night trips to the gas station for beef jerky and haagen daaz.

Maybe that's why when plans change it takes me a minute (or an hour) to wrap my head around what's happening. It's like I can't move on to the next activity because I was expecting and planning for something different. So I have to take some time, switch my thinking, and then go forward.

Just today, I discovered my son has a hole through the center of his tooth. Turns out they didn't form enamel on the tops. Awesome, right? :/ So the dentist (who happens to be my dad) said he needed it filled within the next month. And also, my dad/dentist lives 13 hours from me.

We were planning to drive home tomorrow and then come back in a few weeks for the filling. That's a lot of driving for one mama and two kids. A whole lot. So I took a minute and said "wait. we are here now. lets stay on and do this now." Wow..makes sense! And luckily God blessed me with some kind and flexible friends who could help w/ my pets so I can do so.

But it STILL took me a minute to get it straight in my mind. OK, so I don't need to get up early. I need to plan a few more days of clothes. It took a few minutes to get it all together. And then I decided I needed to blog about it, because maybe I'm not the only one going through life with the plans changing right now.

And as I typed, I wrote something I didn't even know was in my mind: I can't move on to the next activity right away because I was planning and expecting something different.

I think there is something in that phrase for us. So many times in our lives things do not turn out as we expected. In fact we can nearly be guaranteed that at some point this will occur. When things get mixed up, take some time. Get alone with Him and refocus. Maybe this wasn't the way you wanted things to be, maybe a situation is completely different than expected. But we know that ALL things are in His hands. And He assures us that He will work all things together for our good (Jer. 29:11). And He loves us enough to be patient while we are working everything out in our minds. Just be confident that no matter how life looks right now, there is no detail out of His control!

 Just get your next step from Him and move forward. One step at a time.