Tomorrow afternoon, the mister and I will embark on our journey to our new home in Massachusetts.
This round (as many of you know we moved from Boston to Midland, TX just about a year ago), we will both be doing the grad school thing. He’ll be at a school in Cambridge getting is MBA, and I’ll be attending a school in South Hamilton working on my Master’s in Counseling. I’m expecting it will be quite the experience for us both!
Although I am super excited to see old friends, have our own place, and experience a new and different phase of life, the whole process has caused me a great deal of anxiety and fear.
You see, none of this is what I had planned.
Some of you might remember the details surrounding our move to Midland and how random and out of the box it was. You may also remember that I spent a lot of time reflecting upon the fact that sometimes our plans and the Lord’s don’t quite align.
Well… I’m in the same ballpark, but this time, the game seems more difficult. It’s on a much larger scale.
Don’t worry. I’ll explain…
In high school, I dreamed of being a young mom. I wanted to get married and do all of that jazz first, but I wanted to be a young mom. You know, like Lorelai from Gilmore Girls. It was going to be awesome. I would have a daughter like Rory, and since I was so young, she would find me relatable and her friends would like me. Our house would be the place they would hang out, and if any of them needed advice, I would be there. Pure bliss, eh?
When I moved to Nashville my freshman year of college, I decided that I didn’t want to be 11 hours away from my family. I loved my friends there, and loved the city itself, but it was just too far. For that reason, and a couple of others, I made my way to Texas Tech that next year. The people in Lubbock were great, but I soon (like within a week) decided that I never wanted to live in West Texas. It was too dry, too windy, and way too conservative.
As soon as I graduated, I headed back to Dallas and settled into life there. My family was close, I was able to interact weekly with my sister and her four kids, I loved my church, and the community was rich. Two of my best friends from college even moved close by. I had no plans of leaving. I was quite content.
When Caleb and I moved to Boston in January of 2013, I knew it was going to be a four-year stint. Caleb would finish up his job at Bain Capital, wrap up grad school, and then we would be Dallas bound. Maybe we would even have kids up there, and I would still have a shot at being a young mom (well, kind of). I would raise my kids next to my sister and our kids would play together. It would be a blast! I mean, what kids wouldn’t love hanging out with us all day? Duh! (Note the sarcasm there.)
I had it all planned out.
Proverbs 19:21 reads, “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.”
Today, I sit here as a 28-year-old grad student with a husband in the Oil and Gas Industry. In other words, I’m no longer “young mom” material, life is going to be too crazy to have kids in the next two years, and it looks like Dallas is out of the question…at least for a little while.
My plan has officially been derailed.
“Get over it,” you may say. “There are people in the world that don’t even have clean water to drink, and people are being martyred for their faith in Israel. Haven’t you heard?”
I have, and I hate that I’m struggling with something so small in comparison to those things, but I am. I’m struggling to surrender my plan, to hand it over, and to trust God. I mean, come on! My plans for Dallas weren’t bad. In fact, I had every intention of glorifying the Lord with every step. What’s wrong with that?!
Yesterday morning, I was reading in Mark 4. The scene takes place when Jesus is on a boat with his disciples in the middle of the night:
“And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling [with water]. But he (Jesus) was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, ‘ Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?’ And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’”
– Mark 4:37-41
I exhaled.
Trusting God seems like it should be easy. I mean, after all, He’s good, knows and controls everything, and loves me beyond my wildest imagination, but sometimes, I just forget to do it. I start focusing on the details of a situation – my fears, anxiety and all of the things I wish were different – and I forget that He sees all of it – and He uses everything to grow me and make me more and more into the person he created me to be (Romans 8:28-30). He’s in control and if he wants me somewhere different, he can move me. He knows what he’s doing. If it means having “kid one” at the age of 30, living in Midland, Africa, or Cambridge, or doing something crazy like selling everything we own, he’s got us. In him I have hope. He can be trusted.
The truth is, having a kid (or adopting) at 30 is probably the best for us. It’s not what I had planned, but I think it makes the most sense. We will have more time and more resources to run a stable home.
Also, Midland isn’t so bad. Some of our coolest friends live here in Midland. They are so cool it pains me to leave them for two years. (I guess sometimes you just want the best of both worlds.) We have family here, and the mister has a great job to come back to.
It’s all going to be okay.
I don’t know where you are, or what you’re struggling with. It may be something big, or small, but believe me; you’re not weak for struggling. We all have things we have to work through and all that counts is that you’re working and not giving up. Trust God. He’s got you. He is your help in time of need. He hears you, sees you, and loves you. Talk to him.
Sometimes things don’t work out how you want them to, and you just have to trust God and roll with it. I’m working on it!
Lindsey Weatherl 