My Plans

My sister and I are 2 years apart, but in just about any way imaginable we are as far apart as two people can get. Sure, we have things in common, but polar opposites describes us well.

Growing up my sister was the popular one. The pretty one. The out going one. She was who I wanted to be like.

I was the smart one. The shy one. The one with the sarcastic mouth.

I had all the book knowledge, and she had all the street smarts. She listened to all the popular music of the time, and I snubbed it and told her I refused to listen to it. (Of course I still stand by that when it comes to country music, because when you're right, you're right.) She was on the dance team in high school, the thought of going to high school mortified me. She couldn't wait to get her driver's license, and have the freedom to go anywhere she wanted. I put it off until the last possible second.

We were as different as 2 people could get. But the funny thing is, as we've gotten older, we've turned out to be much more like each other than we ever thought we'd be.

I recently picked up a copy of Plan B by Pete Wilson, pastor of Cross Point Church in Nashville. Honestly, I figured it'd be a good book. I've met Pete once, heard him speak at Cross Point, and my sister knows him and his family pretty well. I figured this would be a book I could read that I could trust. But I expected to start to read, and read a chapter at a time. You know, that it would be one of those encouraging Christian books that even though it's well written you can only handle for short spurts.

What I didn't expect was to be sucked in to the book immediately. Because this book was telling me the story of my life. And probably the story of your life too. It is all about learning what to do when life just doesn't turn out the way you planned it.

That is something I know a LOT about. And this book got me thinking about my life, and what I had laid out as my Plan A.

When I was younger, I unintentionally made plans for when I'd grow up. I was the one that wanted to stay near my family. Sure, go to school, but not really worry about a career. Settle down, get married, and have a family. Do the mom thing. You know, a happy American life.

My sister, my polar opposite, wanted to live life. To be in a city, to work in the workplace. She wasn't all about settling down too soon, or having kids young. She wanted the exciting life of freedom.

The funny thing is that in some ways we've ended up in each other's dream worlds. She got married young, and has 3 amazing kids. She still lives outside of Nashville, where we grew up, but in the country. (Now that is a far cry from wanting to be a city girl.) She is doing the mom thing, and is even more amazing at it than I would have ever imagined.

I didn't get married young, haven't had those kids yet. After college I moved away, 600 miles away, and went to grad school. I found life away from home, away from my family. And then I found a career that I love. I'm the one living the single life of "freedom" like my sister wanted. Just not really in a big city.

Our lives not only didn't turn out to be our perfectly planned ideals, but almost opposite of what we thought we wanted. Now knowing each other, and seeing each other in the roles we play, we can both attest to the fact that we're each exactly where we need to be.

Would I have made a great young mom? Maybe. Would my sister have been a successful business woman? I wouldn't doubt it.

But God had other plans. Plans that were bigger than what we saw based on what we thought we could accomplish.

One of the characteristics I have noticed about Plan B situations in my life is that they often require more of me that I think I have.

This makes sense when you think about it. Generally when we make plans and dream dreams, we draw on our giftedness, our skills, our education. We skew toward our preferences and our comfort zones.

Plan A seems so perfect for us. Plan B by definition seems harder and a lot less appealing.

-Pete Wilson, Plan B, p 38.

I don't know that we ever live long enough to be living fully in a situation that won't be a Plan B. I'm learning more and more how to seek God when I don't get what I want, when I feel like He's sending me on a path that is in the opposite direction of my Plan A.

What about you? Do you feel like your life is completely opposite than the way you imagined it would be? How can you turn to God and see Him in the midst of Plan B?