I Started Making Plans Again....

This weekend I made a difficult decision.  I have decided that instead of making my life and the lives of my children miserable by pushing through to graduate in December, I will go ahead and stretch this thing out to the Spring. 

I really hated doing it, but the whole decision is based on the plan thing.

Every time I throw my plans in the mix with God's, something goes wrong.  I knew God wanted me to go back to school and graduate, but He didn't give me a timeline.  I gave myself a timeline. 

Big mistake.

This summer I had to take 4 classes while my kids are out of school.  I ended up with one class finished, one class with a Satisfactory Progress (basically giving me time to finish observations later) and one class withdrawn, and the other class I can hopefully get caught up in since I don't have to worry about the other one anymore. It was a seriously bad idea to try to push through these classes this summer.

Between going to camp with Micah, Tony's umpire schedule, the kids being home ALL THE TIME and me trying to keep my MS under control, this whole summer has been a disaster.  When I finish, I hope my GPA isn't terrible.

I kept telling myself that I had to do this because graduation was so important in December.  I wanted to finish by the end of the year so I could go on to the next step as soon as possible.  I begged God to tell me what the next step was since graduation was so close.  I had my plans in place and told God that I needed Him to fall in line with me again.

Well, we all know how that works out.

When I made the decision to withdraw from the course this summer, I knew that meant that I would have to wait to graduate.  I hated doing it, but I also didn't want to just fail because of a class that I knew so much about the subject matter.  It was a basic computer course.  I'm pretty sure Becca could pass that class.  It wasn't the difficulty, it was the time. I just didn't have it.

The thing is, as soon as I made this decision to just withdraw and take the W, positive things started to fall into place.  My schedule for the fall semester now looks far more manageable.  I still have the financial aid coming in that I've already accepted, but instead of having a small balance that we had no idea how it was going to fit into the budget, we now have enough to help out with some bills that we didn't know how they were going to get paid.

Spring looks promising.  I only have a couple of classes that I moved over there.  They will be simple to do one at a time and I can just get everything done without stress.  That will be nice.  I am sure my GPA will look better at the end now (not that it actually matters to anyone but me, but I'm happy about this).

I don't like this decision, but I have this peace knowing that it will be best.  My plans stunk.  God took over. 

Story of my life.

A Fleece

I have an idea of what God wants me to do after graduation, but I'm not sure.  It's hard with these things.  I just want it written in bold letters somewhere "You are supposed to do ____" but that's not how God works all the time.  I want my writing on the wall.  I want to know with the certainty that He gave me when I went back to school this time what it is that I'm supposed to do with this degree.

I know what not to do.  I can't make a plan of my own.  That trips me up every time.  It's one of those things that comes naturally to me.  I make plans.  If God isn't moving fast enough for my taste, I plunge forward anyway. 

I really have to stop that.  Falling on my face just hurts.  I'm tired of doing that.

So I've asked.  I've waited.  I've lacked planning.

By the way, not planning in a place with a slogan "live your purpose" is difficult.  The university that I am attending is all about helping you live your goals.  It's assumed that you have a goal.  What in the world would you be there for if you didn't have a goal?  Especially for a person as old as I am.  There has to be a reason, right?

Yeah, my reason is to do what God told me to do.  At least it's a Christian University so that's an acceptable answer...but it doesn't stop people from asking, "so what are you going to do until God tells you what to do next?"  The answer "wait" really should be acceptable, but it's frustrating to others.  I totally understand why.  It's frustrating to me too. 

So anyway, there's a point to this.  I have an idea of what God wants of me.  I'm pretty sure I know what it's not.  It's one area that I have wanted to avoid.  It's the thing that I blogged about not wanting to do in my last post.  I'm not incredibly happy about it, but as soon as I acknowledged in that post that I was avoiding it, I've been so convicted about surrendering everything.  Everywhere I go.  The sermon that I had to listen to for homework.  The pastor's sermon I listened to Sunday.  Posts from my friends on Facebook.  Books that I've been reading.  I just can't avoid it.  I can't avoid God. 

So, I'm not saying what the direction is that He may be leading me to.  I don't even know if it's really it or if he just wants me to surrender to Him fully (by the way, that's what I'm hoping for at this point). 

Like Gideon in the book of Judges, I'm laying out a fleece for God.  Not a literal fleece (though if I did in the dry weather of summer in So Cal, it would have to be God getting that thing wet), but a figurative one.  I'm asking God to show me in a very specific way that this is from Him. 

Now, I've been very specific with God, but I'm not going to be specific in this blog.  I don't want to take the chance that someone will read this and think "I should make that happen."  Not that I have a large following, but I'm not taking any chances.  If this thing happens, I will know with certainty that it is from Him.  If it doesn't, I will wait some more. 

Here's the thing.  I'm not to happy about waiting longer. I'm also pretty certain that if this thing happens, I won't be too happy for a while.  The thing that I'm counting on is the peace.  I love the peace that comes in knowing that I'm doing what God wants me to do.  I want that.  I need that.  I need it more than I need to like the direction that I'm headed.  One of the things that I've learned about when God tells me to do something that I don't want to do and I do it anyway is that it always works out better than what I planned.  God loves me and wants what is best for me.  He also wants me to have joy.  I count on the joy.  I count on the peace.  I count on God's plan being better than any of mine.

That's what's in my head and in my heart, but I'm still struggling in the meantime.  Maybe I should take a cue from my lessons to my kids lately and "Do everything without grumbling or arguing" (Phil 2:14)

Thoughts

As I sat down and wrote my paper today on religious liberty in public schools, I acknowledged fully finally that God does not want me to be a school teacher. This revelation has been in my head for a while, but I've always thought of it as a kind of a backup plan, in case God doesn't tell me what I should do next. 

Nope. Not even then.

It's really frustrating to answer the questions about my plans for graduation. The fact is that I don't have any still. I voiced this frustration to some of my amazing friends from church and I was so blessed by their response. One of my friends told me of her journey to get her law degree, but God didn't call her to be a lawyer. Another of my friends told me of someone who she went to school with to get her teaching credential who knew that even though she was getting the credential, she didn't plan to be a teacher. Another story came of a man who went to school to get his degree in applied theology, telling everyone who asked that his plan was to serve God. That's it. No "I'm going into ____ ministry." Just serve God.

Well, I'm apparently not alone in my lack of "real plans."  That's good to know. Still, it's hard to continue to have this attitude of submisson when I know that December is coming up fast and I don't know what's next.

The hardest part of this is the fear. I fear that God is going to tell me to do something that I just don't want to do. Of course, I know in my head that if He leads me in the direction I don't want to go, His plans will work out far better for me than what I have in mind. I'm trying to be open to the unexpected profession that I think would drive me nuts.

I have one profession in particular that I'm especially afraid of. I really don't want to voice it because I have it in my head that if someone who hears me will say "that's what God wants you to do. He told me to tell you."

I know, it's not total surrender unless I let that go too. I really have to let it go, but I don't want to.