Last week I took big steps into making a plan for my new life. And in true God humor fashion, I got a pretty nasty surprise that ended up being quite the gift.
Let me explain.
This past week I showed up at my best friend’s house. I let myself in without knocking because that is where we are in our lives together. I just call out “I’m here!” and she calls back, “Hello! Come in! I have coffee!”
“I pulled out a notebook”, my friend tells me as she hands me my coffee. She knows how I take my coffee: she knows me. “It feels like a notebook day.”
I pull the yellow one subject notebook out of my purse and hold it and a turquoise pen up in the air for her to see. “We are planning my new life today, it’s for sure a notebook day!” I take the coffee offered. We are going to need it today. I can’t wait to get started.
We spend the rest of the day sharing the hard things and having her ask me the deep questions and sketching out some solid plans. It’s helpful to have a friend who is a legit coach.
I don’t want to take God’s plans from me, but I really am excited to make a plan.
Someone tell me that made sense.
2023 was brutal to me. Every time I thought I was getting some kind of footing, I got knocked down. Every time I thought I had it figured out, it fell apart. I got hit over and over again in 2023, and it was brutal.
My friend was witness to that.
It was also the year that I have never seen God work more. It was the year I was shattered and reworked into something much stronger, more beautiful and deliciously alive. I am finally, tentatively, standing on my feet instead of crawling.
My friend had a part in that part of the story as well.
I want to rewire my brain to a more healed way of thinking, not stuck in the voice of what I left. I want to have a plan so I don’t fall into a pattern that finds me waking up in five years wondering how I got where I unintentionally arrived at.
I want to make intentional plans to live an intentional life.
If 2023 taught me anything, it was that God has got me. And whatever plans I may think I have are basically nothing compared to what God has got planned.
And that is saying something, because God gave me a very vivid imagination.
That the timing of making my new life plan happens to be at the beginning of the new year feels like a celebratory gift.
My friend and I took the day and sketched a beginning steps life plan in a one subject notebook we will be adding to. I felt awash in hope, my friend felt it too. Hope is what gives your soul wings to soar on. I went home grinning wildly, drunk on getting to just live life.
The next day, I took my wall calendar that was filled to the brim with the dates I have scheduled and my planner and began to transfer the dates from the calendar to the planner. This was one of the steps in making my new life. It was a cold dreary night, and I wrapped in a blanket and sat in front of the electric fireplace my kids had purchased for me for Christmas. My faithful dog, Beau, laid beside me. It was a lovely, cozy moment. Me grinning and planning, my dog laying at my side, my face warm from the pretend flames blowing heat at my face.
Suddenly, my dog stood up, stretched, and puked on my wall calendar.
So this is how planning my new life is going to go.
Since my calendar was ruined, no biggee just MY ENTIRE YEARS PLANS, I was happy to leave behind the puked on pages and instread agreed to a round of Rummikub with my son when he suggested it after hearing my panic at the ruined calendar (for the record, Beau was fine and VERY apologetic).
Instead of spending the night transferring dates, I spent the evening losing to my son and watching him rub it in to me and having the best time.
On a whim, I posted this on Facebook. The response I got was surprising. I had a fun time interacting with everyone and hearing their suggestions on calendars or learning who taught them to play Rummikub.
The next morning, I received a text from a friend who said, “I’m convinced that God does have a sense of humor. You have to admit that the dog chucking on your plans for the year is funny stuff. It probably wasn’t at the time, but it sure made me smile.”
And I admit, a night’s sleep away from the event did make me chuckle as well.
That night, I received a Facebook message from a friend. Not a close friend, but someone who you are connected with on Facebook and would say hello to if you saw them at the grocery store but don’t really know. She offered to make me a planner. Yes, make me a planner. She makes her own planner and I got to view it and I am going to tell you; she is crazy talented, and I am so impressed – but that is her story to tell. What else she told me is that while she didn’t know the details of my story (and assured me she wasn’t snooping to know them now), she had been praying specifically for me since this summer when she had heard I was going through some things. Her sincere message to me had me all choked up and my eyes brimmed with tears. Here was another God story how he was working things on my behalf that I didn’t know about…a reminder to me that God still is working.
Even if my calendar plans got thrown out.
As it turned out, I found the prettiest calendar I have maybe ever had. The calendar that was thrown up on was also the calendar that held all the dates of all the things in 2023. It was one of those 18-month calendars. Maybe 2023 is really done with in more ways than I even realize, and I can move into 2024 with some unexpected beauty and freedom born from a really nasty reason.
Had Beau not puked on the calendar, I would have missed the interaction with some friends on social media. I had forgotten that social platforms could be magical like that.
Had I not been honest and posted the nasty thing that happened, I would have not gotten the message from someone who offered to help and find out she had been helping me greatly for months. What a gift she gave me.
Thanks to Beau, my beginning sketch of a new life has never looked brighter than it does on my new calendar. Thanks to something nasty, I got quite the precious gifts.
That is how I’ll look at it all, as I continue to retrain my brain, sketch out a life plan and keep journeying on to see what else God’s got for me. Although, I will admit, I’d be fine if I didn’t involve any more puke.
This I know for sure… God has got me. I can’t help but see Him at work all around me. And that’s enough to fill me with abounding hope to feel more excited than frightened for the journey ahead.
You have an amazing gift to see God's glory in all of life's inconveniences. It's beautiful! Your teaching me to see God in everything, even a puking dog lol Thank you!
Are you writing a book? I hope that gets added to that planner if it’s not already there. Love you.