The Best-Laid Plans of Women

Summer plans are sprinkling across our calendars, aren't they? Even the Magi made plans (and changed them) when they saw the star in the East. So I think it's a good thing that we follow suit.

I love plans.

I dream up plans.

I write plans.

I've had plans published.

I live my life to make my plans come true.

Yet God remembers the teenage girl I used to be. Full of dreams. Full of big assumptions and theories. Full of plans.

And He is not fooled. I am no longer a teenage girl. Without revealing my true age, let me just say I am now older and wiser.

I am educated in all the wisdom of what planning can and does do to a person's mental image of life...especially when that person must answer to all the people who know that person best...her family.

My family holds me accountable for those plans I make.

And I've learned it can be short of embarrassing. Plans can make us socially inept. Plans can paralyze us. Plans can deceive our good intentions. Plans can turn us into false prophets.

Plans can also be gifts. Plans can open doors to new acquaintances and new contacts. Plans can make us dream bigger and sometimes soar to new heights. Plans can turn heads and open closed minds. Plans can awaken the good in people.

I've never said plans were not good. Heavens, I wouldn't think of saying that. What would the world be without plans? What would my home look like without plans? I still love to plan. I've already gone over a thousand plans in my head each year. But, again, I'm older and wiser.

I make plans. I do not live by them.

Our plans...those beautiful, color-coded, best-laid plans...don't usually get us through the first day. I think they change before we set our best foot forward. They change and revamp and resort so many times that we probably use two ink cartridges just printing out our own schedules.

The plans created behind the scenes cause much stress and commotion and sideline meetings and misunderstandings and miscommunications and, yes, even, hurt feelings. The actual doings are a blessing and a vindication. God takes our plans made by our human hands and reworks them to His glory and His purpose. Plans aside...it can become a great success if we are willing to step aside and give Him all the glory.

I've learned a lot from watching what plans can and cannot do when people get their hands on them.

So let me contradict myself once again.

Do I believe plans serve a purpose? Of course I do. I'm still making them. I'm still using them. I'm still toying around with a few. I still carry a cumbersome planner on the car seat next to me.

But I only make the plans. I never interfere with the life God has given me to live. Well, okay, never say never. ;) Let's just say I try not to interfere with God's will in my life.