The run up to this year’s birthday was not a happy one. Unemployed. Father-in-Law with cancer. Crazy travel schedule. No glamorous party planned. But the sadness seemed disconnected to the events. There was something deeper.
When I was a little girl, I loved Crayola pencils. I loved drawing people, and designing clothes for them. And I loved drawing families.
I spent hours as a child creating villages with my Playmobile figures, making houses & schools & shops, even creating oatmeal in bowls for them. I loved the dynamics of their little families.
I never imagined being married. I never dreamt of a big white wedding day. I never knew what kind of house I really wanted to live in (though the heated bathroom floors in my friend Freya’s house are pretty cool).
But I always had in my head that at 25 I would have a child.
25 just seemed like the right age; enough maturity, but still young and fun.
And here I was, the light fading on my first quarter of a century, and there was no child to carry through the sunset. The tears fell swiftly.
My plan was ruined.
When you translate the word “plan” into Hebrew there are a number of terms used. As I was reading through them, one stood out to me:
‘Damah’ meaning “to be like”
Plan…to be like…
Is that the problem?
Our plans set an expectation; something or someone we desire to be like?
Married by a certain age, driving a particular car, living in a specific area, promoted by a specified time…so we can be just like
Our brother
Parents
Cousin’s girlfriend’s best friend’s uncle’s dog.
Just like…the schematics detailing our existence that we have held so tightly onto…
But are now weeping abysmally as the ink on the paper drips off the page
“Exactly as I planned, it will happen
following my blueprints, it will take shape”
That’s, what he said
As he set himself up for failure.
Because those words weren’t his own.
But the speaking
Of Father God.
We will never fulfill our plans.
Things will never work out the way we expect.
Get over it.
Now.
Before life takes such a massive bite out of your butt that you cannot sit down for weeks.
“We plan the way we want to live,
but only God makes us able to live it”
I never would have planned that Steve and I, after two and a half months of dating, would spend a whole year in different countries.
I never would have planned to have a wedding in another country and give myself five and a half months to get ready and only arrive ten days before the service.
I never would have planned to live 5000 long miles away from all I knew and all who I knew.
I never would have planned that the majority of my friends in Texas were at least ten years older than me, all with children.
I never would have planned to leave a job with no guarantee of another job right away.
This is not what I planned to be like.
But.
