SCRATCH PLANS A - B - C - D - etc................

I had "planned" on starting my series today on my Arizona trip, and how all our plans changed, every day, we did nothing that had been "planned", but what we did was so much fun and rewarding, and we laughed so much.

Then boom!!!!  Today I did my normal daily routine - check e-mails, check banking, check facebook, read Rebecca's Slushpile Blog, read another friend's blog, then end up with my blog, all ready to write today's story.

The boom was my friend's blog (Sunny Serafino, a wonderful lady and author that I had the privilege of meeting in Florida at the Writers Conference two years ago).  I am quoting one paragraph of her blog here.

Well, that hit the nail on the head because I am a compulsive, obsessive PLANNER! In fact, here it is not even May and I'm planning for an October conference. There are some serious things to consider with regard to this event, but already I'm planning what might or might not occur. My plans usually are fraught with what I call my 'what if' syndrome. And, all this time I was wasting brain time. Oh, it's not that I haven't prayed about what I'm planning and I'm pretty sure that's okay but just taking over is not what He wants.

As I said. BOOM!  That paragraph fit me to a "T".  I seem to be the planner in my family, always looking forward, planning this and planning that.  I seem to have a plan for every day, every week, every month, every year, sometimes a year in advance. 

I believe that we are supposed to plan, to look ahead, not looking back and wondering why.  If we don't have some kind of plan, what is there to look forward to?  But what we plan and what we are actually going to do can sometimes be entirely opposites.  My week in Arizona was a classic example of plans going awry.  It all began with my planned "landing" in Arizona through my takeoff for home.

The funny thing is, even though not a single plan worked out, the "substitute" plans that were handed to us were some of the best, most fun, days in a long time.  It just goes to show, as Sunny so aptly indicated in her blog, that we ARE NOT IN CONTROL, WE JUST THINK WE ARE. 

Planning is a normal human trait.  We need a plan to have some sort of order in our lives.  But every so often it takes a knock alongside the head to remind us that we are not the ones in control, even though we think we are.

I really don't think my family in Arizona and I would have had the side-splitting, stomach hurting, breath-taking laughter that we shared for an entire week if OUR plans had come to be.

If you are a planner, keep planning, but just remember, just because YOU plan it, it does not mean YOU will do it.  Perhaps, just perhaps, there is really something better just waiting for you, and it takes the knock alongside the head to show us the right direction to take.

My plan right now is to start my Arizona series tomorrow.  I wonder what I will really be writing about?  Take care and God Bless.