I believe that God moves and works in ways that most often will never make sense to us. That’s been my experience, at least. While I’m not someone that struggles with the need to control things, situations or people, I totally understand it. It’s always tempting to hold on tighter when it feels like the wheels are coming off on a downhill slope. But I’ve learned throughout my life that when things are taken out of your control, it most often means that God is moving and working in a way that you could never see coming.
One of my first real-life experiences of God’s plan being better than my own began during my senior year of high school. Now, I had seen God move and work in my family my entire life, but high school was my first big, personal encounter. I didn’t know what I wanted to major in after I graduated, so I didn’t really know what college I wanted to attend. I’ve always loved music and thought I would be a singer, but I have terrible stage fright and I never wanted to be a starving artist. Still, I dreamed it might be a possibility.
I heard about a music school in Nashville where some of my friends were going. I soon formed a plan that I thought was perfect (que the sparkling lights). I decided that I was going to attend this college in Nashville where I would have a dorm room and meal plan – goodbye starving artist fear – and pursue my music when I wasn’t in class. Sounds like a fairly sensible plan, right?
[Stage right: Enter real life.]
My senior year of high school, as I was making these plans, none of which I had really prayed about, my grandmother, who I was extremely close to, fell. She ended up being in a hospital two hours away from April through July – exactly the time I had to make this big decision in my life. It made me start thinking about what was really important and could I live with myself if something happened and I couldn’t be with her. Also around that time, the school called and told me that they had given out all of the financial aid for the semester. It was a private, out-of-state school and for the first year alone, the loan I would have had to take out would have been astronomical.
Those two things made me stop and truly seek God and what he was telling me to do. None of the other colleges I had applied to felt right and I felt the most peace about staying home and going to community college. I was a little disappointed, but I felt so much peace that the disappointment didn’t last long. The week before my final exams, my grandmother took an unexpected turn and passed away. Because I had stayed home, I was able to be there with her, alongside the rest of my family. About one month after that, God opened a door that allowed me to transfer to a university where my tuition was paid in full. In fact, he made sure, from the first semester, that I always had enough money to cover my student fees and books and put some away in savings.
Had I followed my plan, I would be hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and I wouldn’t have gotten to tell my grandmother goodbye and how much I love her. I may not have even discovered my love for writing.
God had a plan for me then, he has a plan for me now and he has a good plan for you too. Friends, my life is nothing like I expected it to be, but I can tell you with full faith that I’m not worried. I have no idea what God has in store for me next, but I know I can be excited about it and trust that it will come in his perfect timing, not mine. God has moved time and time again on my behalf, and when I’m obedient enough to stop and listen and not force my will, it always turns out so much better.
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