It’s Not My Plan.

This is post number two I have started today. Post number one will eventually make it’s way back to the forefront and, as a teaser, it is Part Two in my You Asked for It series and has to do with kids. That totally narrows it down for you, I know.

If you are still hanging in there reading, I have, sadly for my family, been in serious reflection and frustration mode. Possibly, those should be reversed in order…frustration and reflection. Something has been tugging at my heart and my brain cells lately and I just could not reach out and bring it into clarity. Until this morning.

For the past 25 years or so I have not been living. I’ve been surviving; existing; getting by; making do. Any and all of the cliche terms apply here. I’ve been reactive and not proactive. Defensive and not on the offensive. You get what I’m saying by now, I am sure.

So. What to do about it? My first inclination was to do what I love to do best: Take. Control. Oh to be able to control it all…how wonderful life would be! Or so I convince myself into believing at times. It cracks me up that I am always the first to say to My Man, our Darlings and anyone else who will listen, “it’s not our plan…it’s His plan.” *gag me* Don’t get me wrong. I one hundred percent believe that it is truly God’s Plan;  that He is The One in Control. Then what does that make us? Chopped liver? *I love liver and liverwurst…anyone else?*

We are not mindless, powerless, robots totally controlled by God. Or our circumstances and the acts and mindsets of others, for that matter. We have a brain. We have resources. We have feelings and abilities and can decide for ourselves whether we blindly allow ourselves to be drug along the path our problems and circumstances take us or, whether we ask and seek and learn and decide for ourselves how we will respond, even if we can not physically control how it all plays out.

I totally believe God has been thumping me on the head with this truth lately: I have been more of an audience to my own life than a participant. Absolutely I have been there with my kids, doing what needed to be done, but I always felt like it was all spinning and I was running from plate to plate, giving it a quick touch to keep it spinning and then dashing to the next spinning plate. Ugh. It just hit me: trying to do it all, be all, please all. I just don’t think that is what we were created to do.Or, at least not what I was created to do.

And I have to be honest with you here…it hasn’t let up. Even with three adult children. I still feel like I am running from thing to thing, never catching up.Which is why I am so certain that this is not the way it is supposed to be.

So. Again. What to do about it all? First things first. I am focusing on me for a bit. No, seriously, this time I really am doing it. Focusing on my health (it’s totally out of control); my eating (ditto); and the things I need to be doing. Not necessarily the things I want to be doing. Does that make any sense at all to anyone? Cuz I’m really struggling with what it will look like.

I’ll let you know.