Not What I Imagined

When I think about my life, over the past year or the past forty years, a theme that arises over and over again is: It's not what I imagined.  As a youngster in sixth grade I wrote an essay (class assignment) about "Where I'll be in 20 years."  I wrote that I would be 32 years old, married with 2 children, living in Australia, working with my husband as missionary doctors.  The reality was very different.

At the age of 32 I was married with 2 children.  But I was neither a doctor nor a missionary nor living in Australia.  Instead, I was a stay-at-home mom, married to a maintenance man, living just outside Detroit, Michigan.  And a dozen years later I was a divorced mom of teenagers, trying to start over as breadwinner and sole parent.  Not what I imagined.

This story is not a story of woe, however.  Many things in my life have been better than I could have imagined.  I went to seminary and earned a masters of Divinity degree with all my tuition and books paid for by gifts and grants from individuals who believed in me... or believed in what God was doing in me.  My dream to be a pastor of a church by the time I was 50 was met with six months to spare.

As I think about my life, I find the theme of "not what I imagined" brings a wry smile to my face as well as hope to my soul.  The visions of my future never included the pain of divorce.  But neither did they include the joy of preaching every week as pastor.  They did not include teaching my two children for nine years at home.  They certainly never included teaching 91 children as a middle school teacher (which is my current occupation).

Perhaps this is the message that God wants me to hear:  God's plans for me are "not what I imagined."  They are what God imagined.  God knew the surprises -- good and bad -- that were waiting for me in life.  God knew the decisions I would make -- good and bad.  And God knew the plans that he has for me.

When the road of life takes a turn that "I never imagined" I can be sure that God is not surprised.  The Master Imaginer is steering this vehicle.  Detours are part of the plan.  The journey is the plan.  I don't have to fret that the route has changed.  I don't have to jam my right foot through the floor board trying to stop the ride.  My job is to relax; enjoy the scenery; let God guide.  Even if it takes me along a path that I never imagined.