Letting Go of What We Thought Should Happen

I found this old letter yesterday while searching for an eye prescription. My youngest daughter will be joining the glasses club soon and I thought if I am ordering her a pair, maybe I should get a new pair too. I didn’t find the prescription, but I did find this reminder of how funny life can be. I stared at it for a while. One part of me feeling like it was yesterday and the other part of me in shock that it was so very long ago.

I remember this day very well. We lived in our country bungalow home with our chickens and two dogs. No kids yet, but we still felt like our plate was full and our time was fleeting. It’s funny how you think you’re so busy no matter what season you are in. I remember stressing about how I would have the capacity to teach 26 first graders and get my Masters Degree. But I was up for the challenge and this day… I was accepted.

It is amazing how one piece of paper can make us feel validated. Let me take that back… it is amazing how our OWN plans can make us feel validated. Accomplished. Significant. Seen.

Fast forward… I would find out I was pregnant, get really sick with a thyroid disorder, become a stay at home mom, watch my husband lose his job in a sucky economy and have my second baby. And never even start my Masters.

I remember for years saying to myself… One Day, I will do it. But eventually I let it go along with a billion other ideas of things I’ve wanted, desired and saw myself being good at. I think that’s the hardest thing… I do believe we are capable of being good at many things. After all, we were made in His image and creating, building, designing, imagining and dreaming is in our DNA. But finding His plan… That sometimes can feel like a million light years away and impossible to embrace.

We spend so much time asking ourselves what it is that we are supposed to be doing in the world. What is our calling? How can we help? What is the right job? That we often miss out on what is right in front of us.

What if we found that God’s big plan for our lives is that we wouldn’t spend so much of our time trying to figure out a big plan for our lives? Perhaps He just wants us to love Him and love each other. ~ Bob Goff

Looking back, I didn’t miss a thing. I may not have a Master Degree in Reading but I certainly have one in parenting. Being a 24 year old mom of chickens and dogs (they all died by the way), I would never have imagined that God would entrust me with 4 little babes to call my own. I didn’t know that God would use me to encourage women of all ages through my blog stories and my own struggles. I didn’t know that God would entrust me with not one, but twelve houses to move into, decorate and then hand over to someone else. I didn’t know that God would choose me to walk through health journeys to teach me His plan, His ways of how we care for our bodies. I didn’t know that He would use me to homeschool my babies and encourage their salvation in Christ. I didn’t know.

But how can we ever truly know His plans without letting go of our own?

I don’t think we can. Over the last, almost 13 years of marriage, I am learning that Letting Go is simply the process of moving on. When things don’t work out, when doors close, when the result isn’t what we expect… we trust in His sovereignty and keep moving forward.

Striving feels stressful. And when I find myself in that place (its happens often), I swallow my pride and I let go.

I still don’t know what I wanna be when I grow up. When I was 23 years old, I quit teaching to go be an airline stewardess all to go back to the classroom 6 months later. So who knows, ha. But I know that letting go and letting God is where my Peace comes from and I can say looking back over the last 12 years, I am thankful for the path He has placed me on.

Disappointment is the place in the middle of our greatest expectation and the actual result that we receive. But we don’t have to sit there. We can get up, walk away, let go and let God do His thing.

I pray today, you can let go and let God do what He wills and trust that His plans will be perfect for your life.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.