The Unplanned Life

   When I was a senior in high school, as part of my graduation package (you know the one-it contained your cap and gown, tassel, and any other sentimental junk that Jostens cleverly sold to you and your parents as a way to remember "the best years of your life") I received a book that I could fill out with all of my memories of high school along with my hopes and plans for the future. High school wasn't a good time for me. Most of it I spent miserable and alone, so the prospect of planning a future life that was going to be amazing was of particular interest to me. I can clearly remember writing how I wanted to be a super cool (I will never be cool, let alone super cool), edgy graphic designer (I ended up hating graphic design in college) living in a Big City (New York, natch, but Seattle would have been just as good), living alone in my loft apartment that doubled as my studio (at 18 I had no idea that a graphic designer would barely make enough money to live in an 8th floor walk-up studio apartment), without a husband or children to tie me down (and now I'm married with 5 kids, so...). It never occurred to me that any of this wasn't possible. I believed it would happen, and so it would. 

Except it didn't. 

Things happened.

Things I didn't expect:

A divorce (not mine).

Quitting college.

Being fired.

A wedding (mine).

Moving far away from my little town.

Loneliness.

9/11.

A baby.

Postpartum depression.

 Three more babies.

More depression.

A surprise baby!

A crushing job loss (my husband's).

And while this isn't an exhaustive list of Things That Happened to me- these are the things that I consider my defining moments. Things that changed me in fundamental ways. Things that have happened to people since the beginning of time and will happen to people yet, but all things that my younger, high school self could never see happening to me. Things that made me scared. Loathe to trust. Wary. Argumentative so as to ward people off. Sullen. Weary. Shy. Introverted. 

And that is the Unplanned Life. 

The one that stretches us. Makes us. Molds us. Trains us. The life that we didn't tediously plot for ourselves. The life where we have to force ourselves to become less and God to become more. Because the unplanned life is the scary one.  It takes all of the rules that we have etched in stone for ourselves and erases them as if we'd written them in the sand.  It makes everything that we believed we could do for ourselves seem small and ridiculous. It removes any barrier of comfort that we hide behind and thrusts us into the unknown.

It's something that in just the past few months I've started to grasp-this idea of trying to find the joy in the unplanned. You see, I used to fear the unplanned. I have ADD and I like change, but it has to be change that *I* want to make. It has to be a carefully planned and plotted change that has a beginning and an end and a comfortable lead time so that I can get used to the idea of it. 

Yes God, change me. Change my life. 

But do it this way. 

Slap me on the wrist.

Don't touch that.

No, really, I need that.

But I know I'll use that someday.

Make it so it doesn't hurt.

Please don't take that away, I depend on it.

No, seriously, don't you see I need that?

I've always seen changing things in my life as one would see rearranging a room: you clear out some stuff (baggage) that you don't really need, measure and map the square footage (take stock of your life), visualize the way things will look once you move them around (focus on the future), make your same stuff fit into the space just in a new configuration (no heavy remodeling),  do the heavy lifting (work work work on yourself) buy new stuff to replace what you threw out (accessorize on the outside so no one knows you're still the same on the inside).

And sometimes, just sometimes, you go pick through that donation pile and bring some stuff back in.
Just in case you might need it. 

But the Unplanned Life is surprising and messy and God uses that mess to change us in remarkable ways. It's change that you don't necessarily think that you want or even need. It's change that comes when you least expect it, even after you've told yourself to always expect it. And deep down, in that quiet place where you never let anyone see, you know that there is something in the change that is good for you (or will be), but your flesh hates it and digs its heels in and fights like mad to stop it. It feels awful, this tearing away. 

But then, after a while:

 It heals.

And you see. 

You know.

You feel better.

The scar remains, but you are still whole and on the Earth and ready to stand up and fight the next fight. Because you don't get that what He wants is for you to stop fighting. He wants to do the fighting for you and at the same time He is rearranging you on the inside. And He can because He is God. And His remodeling skills rival that of the Gaines'.

So, I am learning. I am learning to never say never. To let the change of the Unplanned Life wash over me and trust that His plan is working itself out in my life. It is a struggle to not worry. To not reel and rebel when the changes come. I'm a really slow learner. But I'm better than I was when I started- progress not perfection, right? I'm learning to take time with Him when my worry wakes me at 3 a.m. and my flesh wants to turn Netflix on and lose my 3 a.m. mind in reruns of "Lost". To read His word for answers instead of always wondering what so-and-so would think or say or do.  I'm learning to temper my reactions with trust and not anger. Faith and not fear. Responding and not reacting.

Trying to live the Unplanned Life in joy- turning my little acorn of faith into an oak for His glory. So that when people see me, they see Him and what He has done for me, despite the Things That Happened to me.

~M~