Hi, my name is Becky, and I am a planner.
I make lists, keep a detailed calendar on both my phone and my computer, decide what I am going to eat days in advance so I can spread out my grocery runs, run through things a million times in my head before I actually say them, put my colored pencils or markers or crayons in rainbow order, and lay out my clothes at night for the next morning (okay, that last one’s usually only when I’m working the next day and don’t want to have to find scrubs that match in the wee hours of the morning).
Before my senior year of high school rolled around I already knew what college I was going to and what I was going to major in. I didn’t really have to think about it, and while friends were running around the end of senior year trying to figure out what they were going to do with their lives I just sat back and watched, and prepared myself for college.
The same thing happened before I graduated college. I knew I wanted to go overseas long before this, but at the beginning of my senior year of college I applied for the World Race – and at the end of the year, while my friends were running around trying to find jobs and wondering where in the world they were going to live and how they were going to pay for it until paychecks started rolling in, I was preparing for the race – going over the packing list a million times, making daily visits (sometimes hourly) to previous racers’ blogs, and planning trips to REI and other such places to find the best deals on the gear that I felt best suited me.
Even on the race I tried to plan, to be in control – and it worked a little bit because the powers that be at AIM decided I could be my team’s finance person. I didn’t get to control everywhere we went or the ministry we did, but I did have my hands on one thing – the money – and that gave me a sense of security (and maybe a little bit of power, too, ha!). I did get stripped, little-by-little, of my need to plan and/or control every aspect of life and experienced some freedom like I’d never felt before (but you can read about that in other blogs from my time on the field).
But I came home, and, sad to say, fell back in to a lot of my old habits. I started worrying about what the next step was and how it was going to happen with the $200 I had to my name. I thought I had everything worked out – I was going to live with a friend in Michigan and get a job at the local children’s hospital…then that fell through because of the economy. So then I was going to move to Colorado and live in community with other race alums…and that fell through too. So the next plan was that I was going to move to Colorado and live with one of my squadmates and get a job a a certain hospital and be part of a “house church” with some other random race alums and AIM people…and guess what – pretty much everything I had planned for my life in Colorado has since fallen through or not happened in the (almost) year and a half I’ve been here.
Now don’t get me wrong – some great things have happened in my life because other things didn’t go as I had planned them.
Had I gotten the camp job I wanted in college I never would have been online searching for summer mission trips, and I never would have gone to Jamaica with AIM.
Had I not gone to Jamaica with AIM I wouldn’t have heard the amazing testimonies from the team that went to India that summer and I probably wouldn’t have ended up spending the next summer in India ministering to hundreds of orphans.
If I wasn’t exposed to God’s heart for orphans in India, I may not have listened to the other ways God was revealing His heart to be throughout the rest of college and I might not have been so passionate about kids.
Had I not listened to God reveal His heart to me, I probably would have never even considered something like the World Race, let alone pack up my planning self and set out for an adventure into the complete unknown for almost a year of my life.
And had I not gone on the World Race I definitely wouldn’t have come to such a point of brokenness and desperation that lead to the most wonderful freedom I have ever experienced. I wouldn’t have had community all over the world that I can talk to any time of day or night.
Had I not moved out to Colorado on faith after the race, I wouldn’t have gotten the amazing job I have at an almost-new, state-of-the-art hospital, and I wouldn’t have met any of the great people I work with. And I wouldn’t have met the church family that I have out here, the close friends that our small group has become.
Had everything worked out how I had planned, I have no idea who I’d be right now or where my life would be headed. Thank God that He chose to step in and intervene, to put His plans in front of mine and to teach me to trust that His way is and always will be better than any little plans I could make on my own.
And now I’m at a crossroads again. I feel like it’s time for me to move on – this intense period of learning how to trust Him in a whole new way is about to wrap up, and I have no idea what’s next. Sure, I’ve made a few tentative plans (such as moving my stuff back to my parents house in Michigan, attending the World Race Awakening conference in Ireland at the end of August, and visiting a friend who’s been serving in a closed Asian country for a few years…as well as a few other quick tentative side trips – remember, I have friends all over the globe), but nothing after that is set in stone. I do know that my last day of work (as of right now) is August 18, that I have to be out of my house by August 31 (but it will be sooner), and that after I travel in September I have no idea what’s next.
I’d like to be able to sit here and say I have my life all figured out. I’d like to know exactly what I’ll be doing 5, 10, 50 years from now. But, as I’ve learned, only God knows what’s next. I can tell you that I’ve started the application process with a missions organization that goes in to areas with unreached people groups, but I don’t know yet if that’s where I’m called or if there’s something else. I know that the possibilities are endless, that I could go any of a hundred different places, and that God would be with me wherever I go…but I want more. I want to be blessed in whatever I do. I want to have His assurance that I am exactly where He wants me. And part of me still wants to have all the details worked out before I move – but as the old children’s song says, “He’s still working on me…”
