Best Laid Plans

     Wow, this year is going by fast, isn't it?  Spring is back and I'm looking forward to seeing the flowering trees on my street in full bloom, to see more green leaves and flowers coming out and to feel it warm just a little more for those perfect spring days, which nostalgically always seem to include a slight breeze and a few clouds in the sky.  And of course I'd love a few of those rainy days mixed in...I've always loved rain.  Boy, if I could just pick the perfect weather every day, I'd be super happy.
     Ain't that the way it goes, though?  It seems I'm always imaging a perfect scenario whether it's the time of year, the day of the week or the plan for my life.  I seem to map out the exact way that I want things to go and of course life always goes right along with my desires...ha ha, wouldn't that be nice?  Life planned and designed by Laura.  Sounds like the way to go!  What's that saying?  'Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans'?  Yeah, that about sums it up right.
     I used to imagine how my life would be: by my ripe old age I'd be done having all my kids, I'd be a stay at home mom and my husband would make enough money that we never had to worry about finances (we'd have a perfect marriage of course).  Did I mention I would remain skinny and never gain weight?  Also my kids would be the best behaved kids in the world.  And without trying I would be Mom #1 and never be impatient or grumpy.  I'm laughing right now thinking of my naive little plan for my life.  The life I truly have is nowhere near what I pictured and worked towards.  How is it that we can have such grand marvelous imaginings and then be upset when...Surprise!...life refuses to follow our structured fantasy?
          "The mortal whose life goes exactly as scripted is most likely nonexistent...In other words, life...takes its own unexpected path, depending on the course God has decreed for it and the endless, seemingly random possibilities that may alter or influence it in this world.  Knowing this as we do, it is a wonder that we spend so much effort and emotion trying to be in total control of outcomes.  We still create unrealistic expectations and mental pictures of how things are supposed to be that cause us unnecessary pain and disillusionment when they are not realized." (Brent and Wendy Top, Finding God in the Garden, pgs 107-108)
     I've felt discouragement so many times with my unrealized desires and plans.  I feel like I work hard for good things to happen and many times the roller coaster that is life takes an unexpected drop or a hard right when I just want to go straight toward my goal.  What was the point in all that work if I can't go to where I want to be?  Why bother sacrificing things I want now for greater, future desires when I then have to watch as those desires seem  to be ultimately unfulfilled?  In my pathetic attempt to find patience with my situation, I find myself sometimes crying out in anger and frustration, "Serenity Now!", like George Costanza in Seinfeld.
     In my Bible I have a scripture highlighted.  Isaiah 55:8 reads: 'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.'  Next to it I have written in pen the words: He is in control.
     Why should that be such a scary thought?  He's the one who knows the real plan for my journey but I don't seem to want to follow his instructions that will lead me through the maze of life safely and out to the other side.  I want to design my own way through it, and yet have all the things I desire in addition to becoming everything I want to be all at the same time.  Give me my cake and let me eat it too!
     I was thinking the other night, once again (sigh) about my lack of children and the thought occurred to me that maybe I truly don't need to be a mother to become the kind of woman Heavenly Father wants me to be.  Maybe all the work I've gone through toward this seemingly unattainable goal is really all about becoming the kind of person who God can depend on.  Maybe I need to do all this work and sacrifice in order for me to know that I'm willing to do the things the Lord asks of me even when they're difficult and painful and in the end, the result I worked and planned for is not granted.  At least not in the time or way I thought...maybe not even then.
     Do I trust that Heavenly Father really is in control?  That He sees what I can't and knows what I really need?
     "Our lives may turn out to be a completely different plant from what the label promised.  And yet, when we plant and sow the best we can and learn to let the harvest be the Lord's, we will be richly satisfied and lack for nothing of worth.  It may not come out the way we pictured it, but it will be lovingly fitted to us.  Then, in the end...the weeds and weaknesses of this mortal world will be forgotten.  Our Savior will prepare us for perfection and plant us in the eternal garden of His Father.  There we will find that we are living in a landscape beyond our sweetest dreams." (pg 110)

Thou who knowest all our weakness,

Leave us not to sow alone!

Bid thine angels guard the furrows

Where the precious grain is sown,

Till the fields are crowned with glory,

Filled with mellow, ripened ears,

Filled with fruit of life eternal

From the seed we sowed in tears.
(We Are Sowing, Hymns, no. 216)