I’ve painted a picture of what I want my life to look like. I want to wake up every morning and open my devotional with the sun gently shining through the window and a cup of coffee at my side. I want to be the one with a constant smile on my face, who doesn’t care about how much of a mess my hair is or how little makeup I have on. I want to be the one who does what I want to do, rather than what I should or can do. Most of all, I want to wake up one day and just know what God’s plan for me holds -- every bit of it.

“Where will I go to college? What will I study? Will I be happy with what I’ve chosen so far? Will I marry the one I’m dating? Will I lose someone?”

Thing is, the game of life just isn’t played that way. For example, I don’t open my devotional every single morning; I wake up with ‘more important things to do.’ The sun isn’t always shining because sometimes we need a little rain. I don’t even like coffee, no matter how hard I try to. I don’t always have a big smile on my face and I definitely do care about how messy my hair is or how I look without makeup on. I often do the things I should do or can do, rather than the things I want and love to do. To top it all off, we’re not supposed to know the plan; we’re meant to trust it.

I am a control freak. For those of you that struggle with this, you understand how hard it is to just ‘let go’ and trust that everything will work out without your every move to determine that. Lately, I have learned how not capable I am and how capable God is.

For ten years, I played softball and loved it. One morning, I woke up and all the sudden, I didn’t want to play softball anymore. Yes, it was an overnight thing. God didn’t tap me on the shoulder and say, “Now Abby, I think it’s time to move on.” I just had this undeniable feeling that what I had been doing for so long was no longer what I was being called to do and a pull as strong as that one was couldn’t have been from anyone else. He also didn’t tell me all that was going to happen when I quit, or whether or not it would all be OK.

I had so many questions: “What will I spend my time doing now? What is it that You are wanting me to do? What will my parents think? What will my friends think? When will I figure this out? When will this make sense?”

I was being told to crazily drop something all the sudden for an adventure I knew absolutely nothing about; who in their right mind would do that? Through the support of my friends and family, God let me know that the plan He had for me was much more satisfying than any plan I could create for myself. During the time of intense confusion when God shot me that little message, a dear friend reminded me of something that was the sole force behind me finally giving up what I loved for something I was clueless about:

"Then Jesus told his disciples, 'If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?'" -- Matthew 16:24-26

That was all I needed to know to be assured that the little hankering I had inside was not some foreign thought, or an accident: it was God. Almost two years later, I still am not completely sure what it is that I am being called to do; what I do know, is that softball wasn’t it. We often stray away from the path God has placed us on whether it’s because we’re busy, we’ve lost faith or because we’ve got another agenda. God has a way of gracefully and perfectly picking us up off of our own path and placing us back on His, and I can assure you, it is for the better -- the way better. Trust is difficult, but trusting Him is worth everything in the world and so much more. He presents us with a new adventure every single day. Will you go on His or yours?