For as long as I can remember I've been someone who loves to stay busy. I live for the schedules and the lists that I use to fill up my free time. The girl who plans everything out: that's me.
Just ask my two color-coded agendas (both of which have different purposes and are used every day.) I thrive off of the many, many bullet points that make up the long to-do list that is my life.
There are a lot of people who might see me as organized, on top of things, someone who has it all figured out.
So why do I struggle?
Why doesn't everything go exactly according to plan ? And when it does, why is my life not perfect?
I've spent a lot of time wondering these things. And I've spent too much time trying to fix the imperfections of my life by planning out my days minute by minute. You would be amazed by how lost I can get even when I'm following the exact directions that I have created for myself.
But I think I've figured out why living life plan by plan isn't working 100 percent of the time.
I've forgotten what the meaning of spontaneity is. I've lost the idea of living in the moment. And I've fallen into this color-coded, highly-caffeinated pattern that runs my life for me.
Unsure of what else to do when I came to these realizations, I turned to prayer. I'm finding that the more I pray for peace and spontaneity and stillness, the more I'm learning about myself.
I've always liked to keep busy because I've always been afraid of slowness. You see, my mind has always been tricked into thinking that slowness means loneliness, and that was my biggest fear: being lonely.
I'm becoming more aware of the way the Lord is taking control of my life, and for a control freak like myself, it's terrifying. But I'm loving every second of letting Him take over. I feel the weight of this constant need to be perfect lifted off of my shoulders.
And the fear of being lonely is dwindling more with every step I take in the Lord's direction. He's fixing me in the way I wasn't able to. He's replacing my flawed plans with His flawless ones.
It's easy to get lost in the things that we think we can control. I will always be a planner. I don't think I'll ever stop looking forward to the future or trying to make it what I want it to be.
But I will stop letting myself believe that what I plan is more real than God's plan. I will stop focusing on the things that haven't happened yet, and start looking at the moments that God has placed right in front of my eyes.
