A Place I Don't Know

My name is Nancy, and I’m a recovering planner.

With a flip of a page, my calendar tells me it’s time to get back to real life or something like it. On my way to drop off my car for servicing this morning, I saw naked, discarded Christmas trees lining city streets.  I stopped behind yellow buses returning children to school as adults resumed normal work routines. I’m sitting at my computer, trying to get back into my writing pattern, watching my cursor blink, and wondering what to say about the activities of the past few weeks or about my plans for the New Year.

Because I thoroughly enjoyed my break from blogging over Christmas. And I have no idea what to expect in the year ahead.

I like having a plan and knowing what to expect. Life, for me, slips into a sweet spot when I’ve got it organized with calendars, lists, and spreadsheets. When my husband takes me out on one of his death-defying hikes over and through mountain passes, I like seeing the map and knowing how much further the climb is to our destination.

I don’t really have a plan for this year. Most years I’ve had specific tasks to accomplish, goals to work toward, or milestones to commemorate: home schooling my kids, visiting colleges and filling out applications, celebrating graduations, planning a wedding. This year I flipped open my new calendar only to be greeted by a succession of blank pages. I think I’d like to linger a little while longer in the warm glittering joy of Christmas rather than confront the harsh, cold reality of blank calendar pages.

One of the highlights of the past few weeks, in addition to having my children home for Christmas, was seeing them reunited with old friends. My son and his friends compared experiences from their first semesters in college. They discussed the quality of the food in their respective cafeterias. Some reported that they loved their schools and could hardly wait to get back. Others said the first semester had beaten them up pretty badly; the transition was harder than they expected. Several, after choosing a particular school because of a specific major offered, found themselves intrigued by a completely different program of study. A few wondered whether or not they were on the right path and how their classroom experience might possibly ever translate into anything in the real world.

I want to tell my son and his friends that they’ll be okay; they’ll figure things out. Although life may feel uncertain at the moment, I’m confident God has created and gifted each of them for His purposes. I trust that, by His Spirit, He will equip them to discern His calling on their lives. But I don’t really live that way. I want a plan, a step-by-step, connect-the-dots, turn-by-turn GPS leading me to a certain destination by a certain date, world without end, amen.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. Hebrews 11:8, ESV

I understand the value of planning. I know I’ve been the recipient of many good things because my husband is exceptionally gifted at the whole long-range thinking and planning thing. But I also know how tempting it is for me to look for comfort and security in making and having a plan. I’ve witnessed enough of my own fears and frustrations when I’ve seen my plans go astray. Or completely blow up in my face.

So I’m entering the New Year, trying to make peace with uncertainty. I’ve got some ideas, some plans; some goals, but I’m trying to hold them loosely. I’ll keep writing, keep trying to respond to the blinking cursor. But in the year ahead I want to be open to where God is leading, even if it’s to a place I don’t know.

Rejoining Jen and the sisterhood: