Just Roll With It, Baby

When I was a girl, I had my life mapped out.  At five, I was going to grow up and be Lynda Carter.  After all, she was Wonder Woman and who has a cooler gig than that!?  After I realized that Lynda Carter got to have the job of being Lynda Carter (and wasn't actually Wonder Woman in reality), I decided that I wanted to be a police officer.  That more realistic goal lasted into my college years when I met my husband, and his wonderful, godly, homemaker mother.  My desires changed, yet again.  A homemaker's role was what I craved.

Even in my Wonder Woman years, which were complete with WW Underoos under my clothing in case I was needed post haste, I wanted to be a mother. I could easily fly them around with me in my invisible jet, no problem.  I had plans.  I would live near the water that I loved so much, teaching my babies to waterski and crab, like I had been taught.  There would be five of them (check!) running around my cottage-style-arts-and-crafts-cape-cod house mansion. We would have dinner together every night, recalling amusing stories of our day and, It. Would. Be. Awesome.

Zoom through the Wonder Woman years, through the "almost a police officer" years, to present day homemaker status...

My eldest child ate a quick dinner this afternoon at 3:45 before we ran errands, which included dropping him off for five hours of jr. firefighter training at our local fire department.  Dinner consisted of three out of the seven of us around the table, as the beautiful spring weather had my younger children begging to eat outside on the driveway, in their chalk drawn home.  There were no rousing anecdotes around the dinner table to be had.  My cookie-cutter-builder-grade-style house is landlocked in Pennsylvania, so there is no crabbing nor waterskiing to be had.  My invisible jet was downgraded to a very visible minivan.  But here is why it's all good...

Throughout the years I have been led to just roll with it.  Some years I went kicking and screaming, but I still rolled with the flow.  You know what I got in return?  A life I could never imagine being without.  People and children that make this life full and wonderful.  No phenomenal sunsets over the Patuxent River, but a gorgeous view of the historic Reading Pagoda, when I am driving near my adopted city. Children who get to draw on my driveway on a warm spring day, and explore their interests in becoming a first responder.

Back in the days of Nebuchadnezzar those who were still in exile from Jerusalem received this encouragement:

"This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says to all the exiles I deported from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons and give your daughters to men in marriage so that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there; do not decrease. Seek the welfare of the city I have deported you to. Pray to the Lord on its behalf, for when it has prosperity, you will prosper."

And then...

"For I know the plans I have for you”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“plans for your welfare, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. You will call to Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you..."

I am in no way exiled here in Pennsylvania, like those from Jerusalem were in Babylon as described in Jeremiah 29, but my life has thankfully been taking the turns the Lord had planned for me, and not the ones I had initially desired.  Plans for my welfare, not for disaster, to give me a future and a hope.  Rolling with that has given me hope and longing for what He has in store for me, no matter my expectations.  No invisible jet required and, It. Is. Awesome.