Confessions of a Planner

I am a planner.  I would like to think I am spontaneous.  Or spur of the moment.  But in all honesty I am a planner.  And like any planner does... I make plans.  Lots of them.  Plans for this blog.  Plans for the day.  Plans for the week.  Plans for my life...  The funny thing is you would think I would be good at making plans seeing as I make so many of them.  But that's where you are absolutely wrong.  Because when it comes down to life plans I seem to... well... fail.  

Let's take a minute to review my last "failed" life plan...  

I had this brilliant plan of going on a mission.  A perfectly great and righteous plan right?  Right.  And it became even more of a brilliant plan when I got called to serve in none other than Wellington, New Zealand.  Say hello to the DREAM MISSION.

Leaving August 27th.  I WAS STOKED.  Stoked was probably an understatement.  I was ecstatic. Initially I was actually a little disappointed with the date.  I received my call March 27th.  Giving me five whole months to wait.  And when I wanted to do nothing else but serve, five months seemed like an e t e r n i t y.  But as time went on five months began to fit perfectly into my plans.  

A whole summer to play.  A whole summer to NOT work because for once I didn't need money for school.  No job. No school.  No homework.  No worries.  A whole summer to do just about anything I had ever wanted to do.  Sky-diving included.  But sky-diving was about the time when my life plan really started going south.

Cue Andrew Menlove.  Exactly one month after I received my call, April 27th, this boy asked me on our first date.  And after our four-wheeling-double-date-gone-wrong I came home just a tad worried.  But as a determined planner I knew nothing could ruin my plan.  

June 7th we went sky-diving.  And a few hours later I heard the fatal words "I love you."  I don't know which was a bigger adrenaline rush, jumping out of a plane or hearing those words.

We dated.  Went to Powell a few times.  And around mid-July, after much prayer, fasting, and countless temple trips, I decided New Zealand was going to have to wait.   

And I have never been 

h a p p i e r. 

Don't get me wrong.  I am still my usual stress case.  Back in school.  Broker than broke.  With no real job.  But through all of this I have learned something very important...  Plans, really rigid life plans are no good.  Because we can never really see the whole picture.  There's only one person who can actually see that.  But in order for Him to guide us in that direction we have to be willing.  Really willing.  

I thought I was willing.  I mean I had a mission call.  In my mind I was as willing as they come.  But I wasn't really willing.  It was all about what I wanted.  Luckily the Lord is super smart and knows what we need.  Not what we want.  What we need.  A mission call.  Perhaps not a mission.  But instead just a mission call.  A chance to prepare.  An eye opener.  And one of the most humbling experiences I have yet encountered.  

“The submission of one's will is really the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God's altar. The many other things we 'give' are actually the things He has already given or loaned to us.” -Neal Maxwell

I thought I was about to give so much.  Eighteen months.  What I didn't realize was those eighteen months were never mine to give.  The only thing that has ever really been mine to give is my will.  And finally I think I am starting to do that.  Finally.  But the craziest part is I am still in debt to him... because by giving him my will I have been blessed immensely. 

And I have never been

h a p p i e r.  

-beth