God's Plan?

Do you ever wonder which parts of your life are God's plan versus which parts he's redeemed after your poor decisions?  Or maybe it's just me.  Because I sincerely believe that God has a plan for each of us.  But I also sincerely believe that he gives us the free will to screw it all up, and that we're often pretty good at that.

As I was busy organizing every spec of my house recently in order to get it "show ready" to sell, I came across my old high school diary.  I started reading it, and was reminded of a fifteen to seventeen-year-old girl I wouldn't recognize as me today.  My sophomore year of high school was quite apparently the year of boyfriends.  I had a few other boyfriends in high school, but my sophomore year I went from being "in love" with one boy one week, to another the following week, to another the next month, and sadly, I was the one who broke up with every single one of them (don't worry, another guy dumped me later on to teach me a lesson in heartache coming from the other direction).  Actually, I think one of them actually broke up with me but made me feel like I was doing the breaking up, smart guy!  But essentially, I was one flighty, fickle mess of a young girl.  It was also the year of the one and only B I earned in high school, probably not a coincidence now that I think about it.  I was even considering giving the diary to my own daughter, now a freshman in high school, but now think it might be best to wait until she gets through that phase herself, if she has to experience it.

All this to say, I don't think Darrell would have even been attracted to me then.  I was way too busy trying to act like a ditz to get guys to like me, and it was working out pretty well for me, actually.  When guys didn't realize I was a geek, they seemed to like me more.  I could never have planned for and met Darrell at just the right time all by myself.  I'm absolutely confident that God had the biggest part in bringing us together at just the right time.  And there are so many other things he worked out for me, like:  getting pregnant on virtually the first try after thinking we might not be able to; keeping that same little girl safe at two years old when a garage door closed on her torso (not even a bruise!); putting friends in just the right places in our lives; and so much more, even down to little details like a friend or family member calling at just the right time, or me calling them at just the right time when something was needed.

But there are things that I don't really believe God directly did for us, even though they happened just the same.  I don't think God healed Darrell from Hodgkin's Lymphoma anymore than I believe that he gave it to him in the first place.  Chemo and radiation healed him. 

I doubt that God's plan was for us to move so many times, but at the same time I know he's used each of those moves in our lives in a good way.  In hindsight, it always looks like a plan.  And for me, being a control freak by nature, that's important.  It gives me comfort not only knowing that God has a plan, but knowing that he can also "fix it" when we don't follow him as exactly as we should.

This life is about listening for the direction God wants us to take, but at the same time it's absolutely not about being frozen in inaction waiting for his direction.  My approach is to pray and listen, but also to keep moving forward with my life.  I don't live with regrets, at least not to this point in my life.  Sure, I've made mistakes.  I've caused countless hurts, some of which I'm sure I don't even know about.  But haven't we all?  So, let's keep listening, but also keep moving forward.