Plans

Plans. We all have plans, ideas of how things will go. Some people plan in great detail, others plan “as they go”. Some plans are trivial – what order to run errands, do house work, or what direction the lawn will be mowed. Other plans directly affect other people or are even made with people – where to go out to dinner, what to make for dinner, what activities to join. Then there are plans that we have been developing throughout our lives about how we expect life to play out. These usually consist of events such as: graduate high school, go to college, get a job, get married, have kids, dream vacations, retire, etc. I would venture to say that most people have at least a few of these events in their life expectations and probably also have specific or general time-frames for each “stage”.

At some point in life, we realize that things do not usually go according to plan and our reactions to these changes or adjustments vary. Some people respond in a more fluid manner, some need to have control over the changes, and some resist change until there is no other option. Often our reactions depend on what type of plan has been disrupted, but usually the biggest disappointments come when the “big things” don’t happen as we imagined.

That has been our journey for the past few years. The plan was get married, wait a few years, then have kids. Part one and two of the plan had been completed, but part three was slow in coming. People say, “Just give it time, it will happen.” But things just didn’t seem right. Maybe it was impatience. Many of our friends were having their first or second child, and we were ready to join them in having a family of our own. If it was impatience, the next three and a half years were definitely going to teach us greater patience. Time – everything takes time. Waiting – I hate waiting. Sometimes things just don’t go as planned.

Over those years as we scheduled doctor visits, waited for the next appointment, processed information we never thought we would have to think about, and made decisions that we hoped would get our plan back on track, we watched as it seemed the world was passing us by. Couples getting pregnant that had been married fewer years than we had, babies growing up and having birthdays that were born around the same time as when we had hoped to have our first, families having a second or even third child, while we’re just standing on the sidelines - no kids, no pregnancies, no closer to our plan. Sometimes things just don’t go as planned.

Why? Why do we have to be different? Why does it have to be so difficult to have a baby? Why?

Questions, anger, wanting to place blame, even the steps of grieving were emotions that rioted inside us as we processed how our plans were changing and how they may never happen as we imagined. Disappointment flooding us again, again and again as we accessed our options medically, only to be told that it didn’t work this time and they don’t know why. What does our future look like now? What happened to our plan? God, even though He has been a constant in our lives and we have both placed our faith in Him, was not making sense to us. We would remind ourselves of the truths that we had experienced in the past and were promised in His Word – that He is sovereign, He loves us, He wants good things for us, He is in control of the smallest things in the world around us, He wants us to change to be more like His Son Jesus, that He is sovereign. I would tell myself these things over and over, but my head was having a hard time convincing my heart. I knew I just needed to trust, and so I did, numbly. Sometimes things just don’t go as planned.

Time – everything takes time. Time allows thinking, reflection, and hopefully understanding. Time is something we think we don’t have a lot of, but God uses it in ways that we don’t understand until we are looking back.

More and more babies. They are everywhere, except for in our home. Sometimes my heart hurts so much with the desire to have a family of our own. I hear a baby crying on TV and my insides jump and my mind clicks into action. Then I realize… We start looking at other ways to start a family. We joke about buying one at Babies ‘R’ Us. We go to informational meetings at adoption and foster care agencies. More time passes as we process our options and try to figure out what fits us best. What does God want us to do if He’s not going to give us biological children? We decide to pursue foster care, feeling that God was leading us this direction. It was something we both had in our hearts to do; we just didn’t think it would be now. Sometimes things just don’t go as planned. 

And so it’s been three and a half years since our plans started turning upside-down. At times we still cling to that old plan and still question why we can’t have things be that way. But we are slowly seeing a new plan, and realizing that we are living that new plan – not one that we could make. One that has many unknowns, questions, and more waiting involved than we might want. Becoming resource parents for foster care has been the next step, and now we will see where His plan takes us. We hope that somehow, someday God will give us biological children; but maybe His plan is that someday we will have a home filled with children that needed a better home and that we will eventually call our own.

We believe deep in our hearts that God has planned out our days for each of us, and we are coming to accept that our plan was not quite the same as what He planned for us. He knew before we were born that we would be at this moment in our lives. We believe He wants good things for us, and apparently there is something that He has in mind for us that is better than what we could think of for ourselves. And so we step forward, trusting this other, better plan, remembering that sometimes things just don’t go as we have planned, but that they always go as He has planned.