If The Lord Wills

Plans...we all make them.  Our busy lives demand we make plans so we can fit everything in.  On August 18, 2012, we had a lot of plans.  I was in the process of training for a half marathon.  My husband had just completed a bike race that morning and had plans to do more in the fall.  We had just started a new school year.  My daughter was beginning her senior year and final season of cross country.  Along with all the other smaller plans we made in just living out our everyday lives.  That afternoon, our plans met our new reality.  When Timothy fell in the shower, fracturing his skull and cutting an artery, our lives turned completely upside down.  All the things we thought we knew, turned into question after question.  How much brain damage did he suffer?  Will he be in a wheelchair?  Will he know who we are?  Will he have to go back on a feeding tube?  Will he...?  So many questions that led me to the same conclusion- God is in control.  Did anything happen that day outside of God's knowledge? No.  Were we facing anything that He couldn't handle? No. 

Three years ago today, James 4:13-15 became very real for me.  It says, "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit'; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow.  For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.  Instead you ought to say, ' If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that."  I don't really know what today holds, so should I really trust in my own abilities?  I'd rather trust in the One who does know what today and each of my days hold.  He knows what will happen and how He will work through it. 

Knowing that I don't have to be the one with all the answers is very comforting.  We looked back on that day and realized all the things God orchestrated to prepare us for what was coming.  Some simple, others meant the difference between life and death.  My children are blessings from the Lord but, they don't really belong to me.  I'm more of a steward of all that God has entrusted to me.  My days are not my own.  They are from the Lord.  He knows what they hold and how many there are.  He's not some puppet master, pulling the strings for His own entertainment.  He's the loving Creator who knows how to bring beauty from the ashes of living in this fallen world.  He's the Holy One who brings peace in the midst of chaos.  He gives strength in my weakness. He's my comfort in the midst of sorrow.  He's my heavenly Father who gives me refuge in the storm.  So, as I live my days, I do so with a tight grip on the truth of His word and open hands on all He has entrusted to me. I still make plans, but I make them and say, "If the Lord wills."