Nothing is Predictable
How to adjust when things don’t go according to plan
Recently we sold our 10-acre farm in Texas and moved to an apartment in Colorado. Free from the constraints of caring for animals and mending fences, we had plans to travel.
This would be the start of something new, an unshackled life where we could use our worked-hard-for Marriott points, buy a camper and visit the National Parks with our park pass (bought as a Christmas present from my son and his girlfriend) and take advantage of work or family trips by adding on extra fun days.
Last year I had decided that I would no longer buy birthday gifts and anniversary presents, we would instead take trips for these special occasions. I was able to deliver on one son’s birthday last summer as we road-tripped from Texas to Colorado. This solidified my decision to sell the farm and begin a life of more adventure, more exploring.
After getting settled here in Colorado, I planned the first adventure. March would be my oldest son’s birthday (his girlfriend shares the same special day so two birds with one stone!). I carefully crafted a plan to use all my airline miles to fly them from Ohio to Phoenix and work around my husband’s work schedule to get us to Arizona with a few days to spare for visiting family and friends. I had plans to look up a long-lost friend that I have been wondering about for a few years and reunite with a few colleagues too.
I bought my hiking boots for hitting the trails in Scottsdale and Sedona (look out vortexes, here I come!) and packed my Cleveland Indians gear for the spring training games in Goodyear, AZ. First on our list was a trip to Tuscon which I had not been to and then my favorite Mexican restaurant, Aunt Chiladas.
In the works was an extended work trip to Florida in April where I would zip over to Cocoa Beach and meet my friend who would fly in from Austin for a long weekend at the beach.
We had our eyes on the camper of our dreams and another work trip to Arizona in the summer that I was certain I could extend for added fun.
But 24 hours before my flight to Phoenix, life went haywire. We hastily cancelled our flights after Major League Baseball cancelled the remainder of spring training and my husband grew increasingly concerned about flight travel amidst growing warnings about how contagious the coronavirus is.
The Florida trip is now cancelled, the camper is on hold, even road trips through the mountain passes are no-nos since the only travel permitted here is with the letter my husband carries that allows him to go to work in Denver. The other day the Florida work trip was nixed and I cancelled my hotel on the beach. It’s looking likely that the trip to Arizona in June will be axed as well.
It’s the not the first time things didn’t go according to my plan. 26 years ago, after reading What to Expect When You’re Expecting, I dove into every first-time parent’s bible, What to Expect the First Year, but quickly discarded that book when we found out our experience as first-time parents would be anything but typical.
My son’s life (and ours) would be nothing like the textbook first year of an average newborn. Hospital visits, social distancing to keep him from germs, and learning to bake a dairy-free cake for his first birthday party were not part of the plan. Neither were monthly home visits from nurses, mediports, yeast rashes from the onslaught of antibiotics, surgeries, IVs, and liver enzyme reports.
What should we do when things don’t go according to plan? When our life takes a sudden and unimaginable turn?
The first thing we can do is grieve
It’s okay to grieve the loss of what isn’t, what we dreamed so long for, and what might have been. That doesn’t make you selfish or ungrateful. It will help you let go and move on so you can tackle what is and find your new normal.
I grieved the fact that breast-feeding was basically thrown out the window. Stress didn’t bode well for my milk-producing abilities and when your weeks-old child is in surgery and recovery for several days, unable to nurse, it’s really hard to keep that dream alive.
I grieved that he didn’t “look” like other newborns. While his cousin was growing up chubby and pink and full of life, my son was stick-skinny with a yellowish cast to his skin. He eventually caught up but there were no cute baby pictures from professional photography studios for quite a while for us. We celebrated when he reached a milestone of 10 pounds at 6-months of age.
Yes, be grateful
People said strange things to me during the time my son was ill. Things like, “I wonder why God allowed this to happen to you.” It was hard to patient with these types of comments but somehow I managed to adopt a philosophical attitude toward his illness. “Why not me?” I asked them in return. After all, the world is full of sorrow and who am I to think I am somehow immune to it?
When my son was not in the hospital I was grateful that he wasn’t one of many children who cannot leave their hospital beds. When he learned to walk I was grateful that he could. When he was tempted to complain about foods he could not eat (as he got older) I reminded him that some children live via feeding tubes.
Being grateful does not make our current reality disappear or transform our pumpkin existence into a royal carriage but it will help us see all that is right and good in our life.
Today, as I feel sad about not being able to take those vacations I had planned, I am deeply grateful that I am safe, that my husband had the wisdom to cancel our travel plans when he did, and that I can take walks along trails and creeks under the almost always blue skies of Colorado.
Use the time to focus on what matters
When I began writing full time a few years back, I asked God what He wanted me to write about. His response, “The harvest is ripe but the workers are distracted.”
It’s a twist on Matthew 9:37:
Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” (Matthew 9:37, NIV)
Fancy birthday parties and professional photos didn’t matter much when my son was fighting to keep his liver or fighting to breathe during a major asthma incident.
I learned about self-care in those days (long before it was a buzz word). After a stint in the hospital, we both would be exhausted, so I instituted pajama days. We stayed home, stayed in our jammies all day, took the phone off the hook and rested, watched Barney, and read The Lion King as many times as requested.
It’s quite possible, in my mind at least, that all our cancelled plans — no matter how good they may have been — are God’s way of telling us all to stay in our jammies and think about what really matters in life.
Consumerism and self-indulgence, over taxing the planet’s resources, and working ourselves into exhaustion are rampant in western society, and yes, even in the church.
It’s funny (or at least it was up until a few weeks ago) for Christians to post memes about how much they spent at Target when they only went shopping for some toilet paper (couldn’t resist that one!) or how the UPS driver sees them more than their husband does because they order from Amazon day and night.
When our plans go awry it’s a perfect time to re-evaluate what we’ve been living for.
While it feels like this strange new existence will never end, the truth is it will. And when it does, will you be able to say that you learned some things during this crisis that prepared you for meeting the unpredictable and taught you how to adjust when things don’t go according to plan? Will you be able to tell your children and grandchildren that the pandemic of 2020 was when you realized what really mattered in life and you adjusted your course?
My sincere prayer is that we all cast off the distractions and commit to what matters while learning that life is unpredictable. Although God laughs at our plans, He is not moved by anything and we can, armed with His wisdom and grace, course correct and adjust.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. — (Isaiah 55:8–9, ESV)
This story is published in Koinonia — stories by Christians to encourage, entertain, and empower you in your faith, food, fitness, family, and fun.
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