Releasing the Need to Plan

My time writing for Barclay Press has come to a close. As I wrote my last entry, I realized it relates to this blog as well. And so I’m double posting (I know: inexcusable for ‘professional’ bloggers, but hey: when you’ve got why-bother-crawling-when-you-can-walk 8 month old, you’ve got to make the most of your profound thoughts). ;)


I like to plan. Not big things, like where I want to be in twenty years or how to buy a house or ways to invest my retirement account - this humanities major says, “Uck! Tooeytooey!” But I do like to plan for the little things, like how my day is going to go. I plan for lovely little things to happen in an organized and reasonable fashion, but oftentimes the whirling dervish known as my life throws kinks into the plans. When that happens, life and I often have words, and they do not exactly follow the Quaker peace testimony.

For example, I planned to slumber peacefully through the night, waking refreshed and excited for the day. In reality, I woke up to screaming at 5:45am, gathered the noise-maker in my arms.

I planned to fall back to blissful slumber, but in reality became a human punching/grabbing/poking toy (I feel like a walking activity mat).

I planned to have a delightful breakfast of toasted low-carb eggos while listening to a book on tape. In reality, my eggos were consumed in a cold state having put them in the toaster oven, then hearing a *thunk* *SCREAM* as Judah rolled out of our bed onto the floor (I swear, I’m not a negligent parent - nobody gave me the instruction booklet for a wanting-to-walk eight month old), so I dressed, fed, and pampered him while the waffles were neglected. As for the book on tape, Judah likes to compete with the stereo to see who can be the loudest - it’s a reality show I’d rather use the mute button on.

I planned to dress Judah in a pair of adorable red overalls with matching onesie of trucks and construction vehicles given to us at a baby shower: it’s the first time it’s been warm enough to wear it, but his torso’s almost too long for it already. In reality, he wore it for a short while until I noticed a giant growing wet patch on his back where his diaper leaked: joy.

It’s kind of like my opportunity writing on this blog. This open venue is a prime place to advance ideologies, causes, agendas near and dear to my heart. Initially I planned to hit certain topics:

– the importance inner healing
– wonderful resources such as the Journey to Wholeness and New Works
– examples of folks gathering for church in ways that are different than the typical Sunday morning style
– what it might look like to be incarnational/missional
– the blessing and vitalness of connecting with folks in and around your life
– ideas of why young adults no longer attend most church gatherings

In reality I find myself not posting because the idea of blogging about these pontifications . . . well . . . bores me. For the moment, my life is completely grounded in the practical: the “deciding on a restaurant not based on what I want to eat but if they have decent high chairs and fast service”, the “choosing which service to attend not based on attenders but on Judah’s nap schedule”.

But maybe that’s exactly what I needed to focus on. Instead of talking about concepts and lifestyles and theology, I’m actually living it out in my daily moments. I’m so used to classroom learning, regurgitating facts, that I don’t realize that I’m still learning - only it’s *experiential*. I thought that being missional and incarnational, living an intentional life, would involve a lot of thought and planning and . . . well, intention: knowing exactly why I was doing what I was doing.

Maybe it’s best to simply be present in the daily moment, willing to hear God’s whisper of direction, not needing to know *why* I need to do things like go to the store with Judah everyday, but rather letting Him use that for His plans.