Finding Comfort in the Uncomfortable

As a planner by nature, I like to have things figured out. I like to have a plan, an end goal in mind. I make plans for tomorrow’s errands, plans for new room layouts, plans for vegetable gardens, plans for everything. I even like to have a plan for managing all my plans! Just ask Ben about all my post-it note lists!

But what happens when a girl like me doesn’t have a plan? Or when the plan doesn’t work out the way she hoped it would? What happens when everything doesn’t fit into her neat, tidy, comfortable little box the way she likes it to? What happens when there are a gazillion unknowns and unanswered questions about life, about the path she’s supposed to pursue? What if, this time, she doesn’t even know how to make a plan? What does she do?

She panics, she researches, and she constantly tries to figure “stuff” out, all with unsuccessful results. She finally does what she should’ve just done in the first place – she gives it to God. She has to do this on almost a daily basis because her need to have everything figured out says that she can’t deal with unknowns, but she has learned that she can and she still survives.

She comes across Psalm 77:19, which says “Your road led through the sea, your pathway through the mighty waters – a pathway no one knew was there.” And it suddenly dawns on her that if God can make a pathway to part the Red Sea, a pathway that no one ever could’ve anticipated, surely He can have a plan for her that she never anticipated, a pathway she didn’t even know was there. She realized that she doesn’t always have to take the path that is all planned out, the one that is maybe more obvious or the one that appears to make the most sense.

And even though she doesn’t know exactly where this path will take her, she finds comfort in knowing that for right now, she’s doing exactly what she’s supposed to be.