I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the plans we make…about the way they shape our days and how we live.
I’ve been spending the last five years with one of my biggest dreams-come-true…my daughter, Maelie.
I’ll never forget that June day in 2010 when she burst into our lives, changing us forever. She brought her energy and passion and unique spirit from day one…and she made me completely fall in love with being a mama.
I was so immensely grateful that we’d made the choice for me to stay home with her. I wanted these days and years with her more than anything else I’ve ever wanted.
I think, like most new parents, we just assumed we’d have more. Having Mae was a struggle as fertility is pretty much never in my favor, but we didn’t see a life with one child. We figured that if God could give us this one, certainly He could (and would) give us more.
But as the years passed and we faced hope, heartbreak, and loss, we started to see that our dreams of more children were shifting. Changing.
And bringing new seasons so much sooner than we’d planned.
Two years of preschool came and went as did many, many months of wishing and hoping and praying…and seeing an answer of no.
I wish I could tell you that I took that answer graciously, but I battled trusting and I wondered why.
I knew that HE knew why…but that didn’t help ME to understand why. <<Click to Tweet
This season of being at home with my daughter has gone so quickly, and a few weeks ago, it changed.
I sent my sweet girl off to Kindergarten.
There have been many tears over the days and weeks leading up to this and since, as I’ve wondered what exactly my purpose is anymore.
Starting that day, and now every day for the next 13 years, our lives will be an early morning wake up and a mad rush to get ready, followed by a probably-rushed, hopefully-somewhat-healthy breakfast, a prayer, and then a school dropoff.
And then…then, I don’t know.
What I know is that my daughter has begun the journey of school every day.
And I have begun a new season…the one when I’m not the full-time, stay-at-home mom I thought I’d be for more than five years.
I have wrestled…wrestled…with this in the past months.
I have questioned God and asked, many times, Why was it so short? Why couldn’t I have more? Why didn’t my plans happen the way I so desperately wanted them to?
Ever so patient and loving, despite the mess that I am, He always brings me back to a reminder.
It’s an often-used verse, but it brings comfort.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)
I know He has the plans, but the part of the verse that really helps? Is that those plans bring hope and a future.
It’s not over, even if a season is over.
That morning a few weeks ago, I watched my daughter put on her uniform of a cute, blue shirt and khaki skirt. She strapped on her princess backpack, and we took the first day of school pictures on our peeling-red-paint porch. There were smiles, tears, more smiles, and few more tears she didn’t see...
And then off she went.
Off to kindergarten and into the next season.
Just like me, her season has changed, too.
And though it might be hard, and though we might struggle through parts of it, we both have that promise…
That His plans for us bring hope. That His plans for us include the future.
There is beautiful purpose in today…in tomorrow…in the days that come.
And that’s always enough. Always.
Mel is a follower of her Father, wife to Tobin, mama to Mae, a friend. She loves music, running, long chats over coffee, and could probably live on dark chocolate. A dreamer who loves everything from swinging on vines in the jungle and surfing, to dancing through her days with her sweet girl and heart-spilling on her blog, she takes each step of the ever-winding journey with faith that her Father has it all planned for good. She blogs at A Barefoot Life and is also a regular contributor for God-sized Dreams.