The Best Laid Plans

If you want to make God laugh just tell him your plans.

I am a planner. It’s how God made me. I like color coded order. Having a plan for the day gives me a sense of control. Knowing how my day is going to unfold helps keep me from losing my mind. No matter how well or detailed or flexible my plans are things can always get derailed.

Derailed is definitely the word I would use to define my last three-ish weeks. The school year was wrapping up and I was determined to get everything ready for a smooth summer. Some of you may know that I work full time from home as a medical coder/biller. My job has been a blessing in so many ways and allow for our family to have extra income. So I decided I was going to make sure my summer had some balance.

My partner in crime/social media mastermind and myself have been working really hard to get all of the content for Ketchup Sandwiches created and scheduled. The idea being that if all of the content was prescheduled then I would have time to focus on writing and sending out query letters for podcast interviews etc.. Well, you know what they say about plans. If you want to make God laugh just tell him your plans.

So, the beginning of May my social media partner, Christie, came down with bilateral pneumonia. Understandably she needed to rest and recover. Then end of school things stacked up one on top of the other demanding more time than originally allocated. To top everything off my job had an increase in demand and a slight change in metrics requiring me to dedicate more time and energy to keep up.

The days quickly folded one into the other with barely enough time to take care of the basic needs of my family and myself. All the while, there was this desire to get in here and write blogs on topics that I am passionate about, feed my creative side with content creation, and work on my second book. In three weeks I barely did any writing outside of jotting down pieces of ideas that trickled through me.

Looking back over these past few weeks, I see all the broken plans and can’t help but feel a tinge of failure. Falling into the old mindset that I need to be some kind of super human robot mom who just does everything with flawless grace and perfectly lined lips. I could have let the failure color everything and lead me into a downward spiral, but instead I laughed through the uncertainty and tried to focus on one thing at a time. It is important to remember that Joy is a choice.

I have to wonder if all my broken plans was nothing more than a way of God reminding me that He is in control. My plans pale in comparison to His. My timing is imperfect while His is flawless. There is balance to be had and with God’s grace and goodness I will find it. It is important to acknowledge that even in the remains of shatter plans there is Joy to be had.