Plans Change. And That's Okay.

"For I know the plans I have for you,' says the Lord, 'plans for your well-being and not for trouble, to give you a future and a hope.'" Jeremiah 29:11

It took the most drastic life change this summer to convince me that over the course of my lifetime the plans we as mortal beings make are forever subject to change. The possibility of change doesn't just exist, but it is by our own hands that a change can occur.  Our plans can never be definite, nor will they ever be. The only plans that exist that will always remain the same are the ones that the Lord has made for us, individually and collectively.  In no way are we capable of changing those plans, let alone becoming knowledgable of what they may be before they happen.

Sometimes our plans collide with His. When this happens, our plans are the ones that fail, and it is at this time that we might doubt the course along which our lives are going.  But the question is "WHY?" Why would I begin to believe that everything will crumble, that I will not succeed, that I will not be happy if my plans do not work out? Why would I ever even consider that my plans are perfect, that my plans are right?

I thought I had everything figured out; where I wanted to go to college, what I wanted to study, who I wanted to be. But my version of my future was quickly interrupted by the news that I would be moving to a different state, 3,000 miles away, for my senior year. My world shattered. Everything I thought I knew didn't make sense anymore. With a bitter heart and absolutely no acknowledgment of God's bigger picture, I made the trek and spent the summer away from the only friends I thought I would ever have. I couldn't have been any more wrong.
Sure, the transition was difficult at first, but things began to look up and the pieces of my formerly dismembered life began to fall into place. The level of comfortability in a foreign place increased, I was making friends very quickly, and I was finally feeling happy again. Right after that initial feeling of official settlement, applying for college needed to take place. I had dragged my idea of an ideal college experience across the country, assuming that it could still apply here. Close-mindedly, I refused to take my parents' suggestions and requests to heart because I thought I knew what was best for me. Again, I couldn't have been any more wrong.
It took enduring kidney malfunctions not even 5 months after my last episode to realize that I don't know what I'm talking about. My plans are not perfect. They are not right.

My plan for the next part of my life has changed.  It has only changed because God's unalterable plan for me has continued to unfold, revealing several surprises and a few sorry wake-up calls. I've decided that going to back to the east coast for college isn't going to work for me; leaving the state may not even be the greatest idea. I've also decided that going to school even just an hour away from home isn't as bad as I previously conceived it to be. In fact, that may be what I'm supposed to do, it may be what I will do.

I hate to think that God knows me better than I will ever be capable of. His version of my future is much better for me, much more individualized than I could ever make it.  The life that He has laid out for me is the one that I want to live, however, sometimes my plans for myself get in the way of remembering that.  Having moved here has opened my eyes, splashed some cold water on my face; my former life with my old friends, at my old school, in a different state, has ended. This doesn't mean that communication won't take place or that visits won't occur, but it does mean that the plan isn't what I thought it would be; the outcome will change, and that's okay.

Every chapter in every book has an ending, including the first chapter of mine.  This plot twister was not in my version of my life story. However, it is indubitably in God's, which then leads me to believe that this is only the beginning of the next chapter. It's as if God is saying to me, "Welcome to Chapter 2," also known as "The Best Thing (Thus Far) That Has Happened to Me."