now what??

"Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will stand" Isaiah 14:24

Several months ago, shortly after AJ came home, our pastor (our family loves him and could go on and on, but i won't, cuz he's pretty humble and should stay so) spoke one Sunday on this very title, "now what?"... honestly, i don't remember many details, (more a symptom of my pathetic memory than his preaching skills, really) other than the fact that it was one of those Sundays when it felt as though he was preaching directly to me.  like God was trying to get my attention, and the message was meant JUST. FOR. ME.  well, i was listening, and i remember thinking that the message soooo confirmed what i'd already been stewing about since our return from Africa.  in a nutshell, i guess i'd realized that over the course of the past 37 years (ouch) i'd gotten really good at trying to orchestrate my life.  my type A personality (yes, i really am type A~ for all those reading that are completely taken back by that revelation! big news!) had the one year, five year and ten year plan all roughed in and things were generally going as planned.  it went something like this....grow up, stay focused in school and get good grades, (i'll leave out the four years where i tried to tame my curly hair by blow drying it "straight" without any hair products....not so straight....ahem.....) obey my parents, meet my dream guy, pray desperately long for him to notice me, wait for him to propose, accept proposal from my best friend and plan the fairy tale wedding with help from my dear mom, work for a time to help my dear husband finish school, have a family~ with the early number agreed on~ four kids (if we were so blessed).  so blessed we were, but not without the heartache of two miscarriages in between healthy pregnancies and babies.  those events certainly rocked the perfect scene i'd created in my mind, but God saw fit to give us the miracle of more beautiful deliveries that helped to mend some of the feelings of loss from the babes i never knew.  after the birth of Layla, we started down the adoption journey to Hudson, thinking fairly certainly that five was the final tally, the perfect number for our family.  all things considered~ the vehicle, the bedrooms, the bathrooms (or lack of, at the time), the mouths to feed, the post-secondary educations, etc....well~ it was easy to see that perhaps we were already biting off more than we could chew.  we felt led, however, that this was most definitely God's will.  we were excited and eager to walk this road.  well, then came AJ, and you all know the story of how he came to be ours as explained here over two days ....
so, by now you're wondering how i'll ever tie in the title of this post...I guess what i'm getting at, and learning through all of this craziness is that i'm absolutely certain that my life is not about me.  don't get me wrong~ there are many days when i forget this little nugget of truth and become selfish and absorbed in my own wants and needs.  however, the really super cool part of this journey is the realization i've had, over and over again, that my life is so much more purposeful and rewarding when i choose to hand over the control and let God's plans unfold.  without my meddling ways and perfectly carved out schemes.  because (and yes, i can start the sentence with "because", since it's my blog...) really, many people if truly honest would find this whole thing pretty "off the wall" and unconventional.  we couldn't agree more.  yet, if this is how my Creator, who knows me (us) best, has purposed to use me (us) in this world and for this season, then where else would i (we) rather be???  it has been most freeing for me, even in all of the chaos, to remind myself that we're here by divine design.  that is an amazing thing.
these days~ i guess i'm trying to position my heart and mind in the place where i'm regularly asking this question "now what?" and saying less of "next we'll do...." or "by the way, here's the plan God...." or "heads up, this is the long range goal...hope you're on board with that Lord".  not easy to keep myself in that place, but so freeing when i do...