This is Your Plan?

THIS Is Your Plan?

I launched my fist into the air with the force of a Scud missile and shook it with all the might my 5’ 2” frame could muster. Then, from the depths of my angry soul my accusing voice bellowed, “THIS is Your plan? This is YOUR plan? Pain…misery…tragedy… and loss? I think you have me confused with some mass murderer on death row! How could I possibly deserve this? What ARE You thinking? I thought You loved meee-e-e-e-e….”

I crumbled beneath the weight of my sorrow as my body began to heave and convulse in uncontrollable sobs. My thoughts surveyed my past and my present circumstances. This long hard road which I knew as my life was littered with the debris of hurricane proportion devastation. It did not make a bit of sense to me. There were too many broken pieces; too many broken places to believe I could ever be happy again. And to think, it was all a part of ‘the plan’?

I returned my attention to the One I held responsible for this mess and continued my tirade, “This ‘Plan’ of Yours isn’t working for me at all. Nope, not at all! I think it is time to consider Plan B, or Plan C, or any other letter of the alphabet! But Plan A? I’m done with Plan A…we need to move on. I just can’t do this anymore. Where’s that ‘wonderful plan’ I hear so much about? Maybe You got my ‘plan’ confused with someone else’s? How about checkin’ on that? ”

All I wanted was the ‘good life’. I suppose everyone has a different definition of what the ‘good life’ is to them. Mine was very basic, I wasn’t expecting much. My Plan: a simple quiet country life where I could raise my children and then, grow old with my husband and at last, become the chubby little doting grandmother who bakes cookies. I didn’t think my reasonable request sounded overly selfish or extravagant. To my unseen companion I implored, “Is that too much to ask? Is that too much to expect?”

I felt like God was playing ‘Duck, Duck, Goose’ with my life. The ‘Goose’ being the good life which I dreamed of having; however, I felt as if I was always the one getting skipped over. I eagerly awaited the tap on the head to signify I was the chosen one, the Goose, and the dismay of feeling I was never going to get that tap haunted me. The disappointment of my life and the betrayal I felt ran as deep as the Mariana Trench. “When will it be my turn for something good? Have You forgotten me? Have You abandoned me? Do You secretly enjoy making me suffer? If this is the way it’s going to be, I want out! How did I get to this place? ”

My thoughts flipped back through time, like a secretary searching through a rolodex for a contact, back to the beginning; back to my first stirrings of the question ‘Who is God anyway? Really.’