This New Year will be one of joys, hardships, challenges, excitement, fear, and ups and downs. We’re only three days in and it already has brought a lot. I was not expecting to break my wrist over Christmas break, and having surgery was the furthest thing from my mind.
Yet God seemed to have different plans.
So often I find myself in that position, one of complete certainty of where I am going, and how things will play out; I have my reactions all planned out for how I imagine life should go; but then it hits, the curveball I never saw coming. And that is when I am presented with two choices – I can become upset, to the point of anger that life didn’t go my way, complaining and constantly looking forward to when everything is back to normal, or I can choose to live in the moment God has placed me in with joy.
Sure, it may be difficult, but in the midst of the hardships of life is when we see the beauty of the blessings of God shine the most.
We all make plans, and we all daydream — and personally speaking I tend to live within these idyllic scenes. As I spend so much time thinking about the perfect break from school at home (or really, any other situation), I miss the life God is laying out before me; I’m so caught up in my disappointment that things didn’t turn out the way I had planned that I completely miss the chance to revel in the magnificent workings of God’s plans! So, as I sit here on my couch writing, a day after having surgery on my wrist and three days before I head back to school for my final semester, I look back on my not-so-picture-perfect Christmas break and can only thank God that I didn’t have my way. By His grace alone can I only see His blessings through this.
So, I’m giving up.
I’m giving up my perfect pictures, my ideal situations, and all my plans, because in reality, God’s plans are more perfect than I could imagine. I’m learning not to have expectations about the details, especially for this coming year! My only expectation is that God will move, that He will completely break my life and put it back together to better reflect Him.
As I have been reading through John Piper’s book Let the Nations Be Glad, I am struck by the words he writes, “…God ordains in the lives of his messengers that suffering severs our bondage to the world. When joy and love survive this severing, we are fit to say to the nations with authenticity and power: Hope in God,” (p. 124). May I be filled with the joy and love in the midst of every trial that comes into my life.
