The last couple of months, something has affected me. Is it my new almost-daily commitment to reading my Bible? Is it my recent weight loss? Is it my excitement for the future: first, a cruise with my sweetheart, and next, some trips to Ethiopia to adopt one or more children?
All I know is that suddenly I'm tired of sitting on the sidelines of life, watching other people dream big dreams and accomplish wonderful things.
I know. My life hasn't been at all devoid of accomplishment or blessings. I have three great kids who make me proud and keep me young, a loyal husband who proves to me every day how much he loves me, a plethora of dear friends who both hold me accountable and constantly make me laugh, and a couple of degrees that are currently just gathering dust (but hey, I have them).
My life has always been by the book—er, calendar—everything in its proper order: planned, executed, and delivered on time.
When the movie The Bucket List came out, I thought, Isn't that nice. I should plan a bucket list. I wonder how many things should be on it. Should I get a new journal to write it in? One of those nice ones with a leather cover? And then I had a frightening realization. I didn't have anything to go on that list. I'd been so busy planning every detail of my daily life that I didn't have any more big dreams for my future.
You see, I have a pretty crappy family history of Alzheimer's disease. My grandma died from it. My uncles died from it. My dad died from it. And the thought of all that can make a person awfully depressed, and it did sometimes. I simply disregarded my long-term future and focused on over-planning my present and immediate future.
And then something happened.
This would be the appropriate place to go into detail about what that beautiful thing was, right? But I can't tell you specifically because it was a shift in thinking. God revealed to me that He is with me—not in a God-looking-down-on-me way. Let me put it this way: God has my day in his day planner.
What about all of that worrying that I've done? What about those fears that have lingered in my mind as I have gone to sleep? What about those conversations I have replayed and over analyzed? They were simply a waste of time because God who created the universe holds me and all of my crazy situations in the palm of His hand.
Guess what? Being free (but not completely—working on that) from those extraneous thoughts has allowed me to start creating that bucket list. Suddenly there are all sorts of things I want to experience and learn. I can see beyond a hopeless future and that regardless of what happens, God's got my back.
You can call it anything you want to, but I know it is God's unmatchless love and grace.
You can call it anything you want to, but I know it is God's unmatchless love and grace.
"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" Jeremiah 29:11