The plan…

We all make them from time to time; some of us more frequently than others.  For the free-spirited, they tend to cringe at the word plan.  They prefer to take life as it comes and not worry about following a road map. Life is an adventure for them! For those left- brained people like me, we spend a lot of time contemplating, mapping out, and creating the best plan one can find.

When I was in college and even several years past college this is how my mind worked. I needed a plan for my life. After all, that’s what all adults would ask college students, “So what’s your plan for after college?”  I dreaded that question because I never really knew. I knew I wanted to make the best decision possible but I could never quite figure out what that needed to be. So I put together the best “plan” I could with what I thought my life needed to look like. Years passed and my life wasn’t quite looking like I had previously pictured it would. At first realization of this I was devastated and discouraged. What went wrong? While waiting for this plan to happen I was constantly waiting for what I called my “golden ticket” to arrive.  Now some of you might be asking what’s a golden ticket? It could be anything you want it to be but for me it meant something fabulous.  I just knew that any day I was going to turn the corner and some amazing opportunity was going to fall in my lap. I had a whole list of amazing things I had hoped for.  Maybe a dream job with an awesome income, or the man of my dreams, or some dream vacation…the list could go on. Now I’m not saying there isn’t anything wrong for hoping for these wonderful kinds of things because sometimes they do happen and it’s amazing. I’m all for following your heart and your dreams! My problem was that I was so busy focusing on my golden ticket’s arrival that I missed out on some pretty great things right in front of me.

Since that moment of realization I’ve changed my perspective quite a bit. A lot of things in the last ten years didn’t work out like I wanted or hoped they would. There have been a lot of disappointments, some heartache, a few goodbyes, and several tears, but you know what I wouldn’t have changed it for anything…not even for a golden ticket. 🙂 I can honestly say now I’m thankful my life didn’t work out the way I thought it should/would when I was 20 years old. It’s funny how life works out like that!

I still find it necessary to have a plan for some things. I don’t think that I will ever be able to completely let go of that, but there are some things that I now feel confident that God is in control of. His timing and planning is better than mine! So I’ll stop trying to compete with Him. 🙂

Sometimes the altered plan is what’s meant to be and I couldn’t be more thankful!