Plan B

I'm not usually this weepy. I'm usually not this emotional. This is a season that I am walking through. Just like the seasons of the year, it will pass and change into something completely different.

But for right now, I'm walking through this one. I do not like it. I'm not a fan. I want to hand it back and say "I'm sorry, I think there's been a mistake." But there is no mistake.

While I was talking to my Mom on the phone yesterday (after my last blog entry), I finally had a meltdown. Between the funeral yesterday, and following a crazy rabbit trail of YouTube videos, I had hit my limit.

The YouTube videos were about Todd and Angie Smith. A friend on Facebook had posted the original video, but it was just a song and a collection of pictures. I needed to know the story behind the pictures. The story, in a nutshell, was that during their 20 week ultrasound, they had been informed that their daughter Audrey Caroline had some severe birth defects and would not live. They decided to carry her to term and she only lived two and a half hours. The man conducting the interview kept referring to it as "Plan B". "What do you do when your plans fall apart? When your child dies, when you're served divorce papers, when you lose your job... Will you trust Him when you're walking through Plan B? Is He still there?"

My Jesus is still here. And He is still the same.

There I was, sitting on the front porch telling her all about the videos when I got smacked in the face with a reality.

My problem isn't "Plan B". My problem is that I haven't buried my "Plan A" yet. I've been living in a dream just hoping I would wake up and that it had all been some terrible mistake. Well, it was a mistake, but not one that I could blame on anyone else. I guess I thought if I just kept "Plan A" in my pocket a little while longer, I'd wake up and everything would be ok.

It's not ok. "Plan A" is dead, and I need to let God lead me to a different ok, an ok that I hadn't planned.

Before bed last night, it really hit me. Like, I was on the floor in my bathroom just rocking back and forth weeping. I was praying, but no words would come. I was yelling, cursing, just flat out angry, but with no words. I think there might have been one word, over and over again:"Why? Why is this happening? Why do I have to go through this?" And like the loving Father He is, He just let me be angry. He let me yell at Him.

And He held me.

I buried "Plan A" last night. And I know that "Plan B" is going to be spectacular. I just need to stop hanging on to the dead plan and move on. I keep thinking to myself "It shouldn't have turned out that way." You know what? It shouldn't have, but it did. Tough cookies. Move on.

I refuse to be chained to a dead plan. I refuse to let bitterness and anger win. I refuse to let abuse cripple me. I REFUSE.

God has a better plan for me. He has something that is going to be better than anything I could ever imagine for myself. I just have to be patient. I told my Mom this morning "I am sitting here waiting for someone that I don't know, and I don't know when they're going to get here." That is the hardest. We live in an age of instant gratification, a culture that screams "Give me what I want, and give it to me now!".

"Plan A" didn't include a divorce. "Plan A" didn't leave me childless. "Plan A" didn't have me 25 and single.

"Plan A" was my plan. "Plan A" is dead and buried.

Now, I'm walking through "Plan B". I'm trusting God to get me through this and letting Him lead the way.