When God Rearranged My Planner
You know the feeling when nothing seems to be going your way and you can’t get a break? That feeling of “it can’t get any harder” and yet life seems to come up with yet another way of throwing you a curve ball?
That’s how it felt three years ago when these pictures were taken.
We had recently sold our first home on 2 acres and left the beautiful dead end road with all our wonderful neighbors due to not having enough land/grass for our two horses. In the meantime, my grandparents generously invited us to live in their basement and our horses to stay at the farm as well! What a blessing! While this was a wonderful chapter of spending more quality time with my grandparents, it also was a struggle not having a home and commuting 45-50min one way to work everyday. We also ended up staying there much longer than we anticipated due to the high demand for land near our area. Small country properties in our area were scarce, going faster than ever, and were priced much higher than they had previously been. The timing made finding a home that suited our needs AND price range seem nearly impossible!
Andrew was not only commuting 50 minutes (one way) to work, but would then reach the shop, pick up a work truck and then drive another hour and a half to the Lake on most days! This left him feeling exhausted with not much time to do things with me or friends in the evenings. He felt discouraged, tired, unhappy in his situation while being unsure of the direction he should take.
I was working as an orthodontist assistant Monday-Wednesday and going to cosmetology school Thursday-Saturday. This left Sundays packed with church, housework I had fallen behind on throughout the week and homework/studying. Overwhelmed and drained are definitely adjectives that come to mind!
Throughout all of this we decided we wanted a baby. We had already waited longer than we originally had wanted or expected so we were eager to start a family! Both of us were healthy and young. This wouldn’t take long, right? Wrong! Another curve ball, another blow. TTC (trying to conceive) quickly became complicated and nearly impossible when my body unexpectedly stopped cycling. The doctors didn’t have answers and our morale took another hit.
During this time, we were also unhappy with our church situation. We had stepped down from leading in the youth group due to lack of time and wanting to focus on our next chapter: family. But this left us without a connection group and feeling unplugged from the church we had called home for years. We tried to find a solid connection group that a) had similarly aged people or couples that b) really studied the Word. Unfortunately, we didn’t find a match and were unable to fill that need by starting and leading one ourselves due to time, commuting, and not having a place to host. We felt unconnected and weren’t being “fed” or filled.
You may be wondering my reasons for sharing all this!
- Never assume.
Please never assume that the smiling couple in the pictures are living their imagined dream. Don’t assume their home is that big beautiful farm in the pictures. Don’t assume that because they don’t have children means they aren’t crying themselves to sleep over the fact that they can’t. Never assume that there are no hidden health issues. Please don’t assume that because they are not involved in evening activities or Bible studies means that they are choosing to keep to themselves.
Yes, Andrew and I were (and still are) so blessed! We still loved our life and enjoyed our time together! We had family that housed us, a mom who is a realtor who was constantly looking for a home for us, cars to commute in, each other and a God who loves us and knew what He was doing when He rearranged our planner. But despite these facts, it was still a difficult time.
2. Trust God
Sounds easy right? It’s something we hear so often yet when something near and dear (whether that be a person or our hopes and dreams) to us seems compromised, it quickly can become a major challenge. “Do I trust God enough to surrender to His will even if I never become a mother?” I remember asking myself. My lifelong dream was always to be a stay at home mom with lots of kids. It seemed as though that dream was becoming more and more unreachable.
It seemed as though all of my plans were not going according to schedule or unraveling before my eyes!
Yet God had a plan.
I quit my job so I could fully focus on finishing cosmetology school! This freed up my schedule more and lessened stress.
We eventually found a beautiful home on 8 acres RIGHT outside of town.
Andrew got a new job that doesn’t require him to travel and he is much happier!
We experienced loss (a story for another time) but God was so so good to us and He gave us Tobias in 2018!
I now work part time as the hairdresser at a nursing home! I am home the rest of the week with Tobias!
And we found a church with an amazing community that encourages us and challenges us! We host connection group in our new home too!
When things don’t go according to our plan it can be hard and it can be even more overwhelming when it all happens at once! During this time I learned something that I hope I never forget:
That I am a PART of God’s big plan. I am not THE plan (or in other words, His plan doesn’t revolve around mine). I can’t confine God’s plan for my life into the small box of my human desires and imagined dreams. This doesn’t mean that God doesn’t care about my hopes and dreams because He does!
But my perspective has changed.
When life (or satan) throws me a curve ball, my goal is to trust God enough with my hopes and dreams and surrender to His perfect plan even when it doesn’t fit my agenda!
–Jen
