Lately, I have been rather stressed out. I would say more than usual. I have been finding myself getting so worked up to the point of tears. Actual tears rolling down my face out of anger and sadness. Anger because my plans don’t always work out. Sadness because I am hard on myself.
I am the type of person who has a vision of how life is supposed to work out. I spend all of my time formulating new plans and ideas that I hope to carry out. I give myself timelines and dates that I must accomplish things by. I own several calendars and planners to keep myself organized wherever I am. I feel like I am doing everything right, until everything falls apart at once. My plan then gets destroyed and I start creating a new one over and over and over again.
This weekend I hit my breaking point. One little disagreement with someone put me over the edge. I found myself once again crying. Crying because I didn’t know why my life was unfolding the way it was. Crying because my weekend hadn’t stuck to my plan. Crying because I was so done with my day that I didn’t know what else to do. Crying because I didn’t understand God’s plan. Crying because that’s all I could do.
I lost control of my plan. My plan had a mind of its own-God’s plan in fact. As I found myself sitting in my car crying after work I decided that something had to change. In fact I screamed this at the top of my lungs as I sat there. Hands up in the air, screaming. Anger and sadness had returned to my body. Full of emotions, I got coffee and carried about my day. Later that evening, a migraine decided to come in full force. Again, I was annoyed with the situation. I let it bother me, because it stopped me from getting the work done I was stressing about. Looking back at the situation, I think it was God’s way of telling me to take a break. My migraine stopped me from getting my work done. But I also stopped me from thinking about it for a little while.
This morning, I woke up early to study for a quiz that I didn’t study for due to my migraine. I went to Dunkin Donuts to get yet another coffee. They had only been open for 20 minutes. The worker was quite cheerful for it being six am. I ordered my medium coffee and waited for him to make it. He came back a minute later with a LARGE iced coffee, and not the medium one I paid for. He smiled as he handed it to me and said, “Sometimes you just have to make people’s days, because you don’t know what they’re going through.” This time, the tears rolling down my face weren’t out of anger or sadness, but thankfulness and appreciation. God works in mysterious ways. That employee made the start to a hectic week truly unforgettable. That little act of kindness made my week start out so much better than I could have imagined.
So even though I have a plan that I want to stick to, I know God sometimes has a different one. I may not like it at first, but eventually I will understand why he made those changes. Sometimes we all need to take a step back from our plans and just live. Live and hope that everything will work out like it is supposed to.
