Last August I hit a breaking point.

Long story short, I had a plan for how this 22nd year of my life would go (grad school, graduating, getting a job, all the adult things) and in a matter of days it got totally derailed. My timeline was completely trashed and I felt 100% out of control. This led to a bit of a breakdown and a crucial realization that I couldn’t rely on my own plans, that it was okay if everything didn’t fall in to place exactly the way I want, and spending some time thinking more short-term might do me some good.

---

Which brings us to February of this year when I wrote a lengthy blog to tell you all about this journey I’ve been on over the past 6 or 7 months learning to let go of my own plans, letting God do his thing, and really being okay operating in the unknown.

Seriously, it was typed up and ready to post. But it was pretty late at night, so I decided to wait until the next day just to be sure I didn’t want to tweak it any more. Over the next few days, though, something about it didn’t feel right. I couldn’t bring myself to post it, and I didn’t really know why.

All I wanted was to share with you my struggle of relying on my own plans and needing to know exactly what was coming next, and how I was working to overcome it. Truth be told, I really thought I had finally overcome it.

I’ve realized since then that I couldn’t post it because it wasn’t true. Was I working on those struggles? Yeah, for sure. But had I really overcome them? Turns out, no.

Do you wanna know how I tricked myself into thinking I’d overcome it? In the midst of being in limbo, I was still. making. plans. I’d plotted out a new academic timeline and I had applied, interviewed, and was only days away from a potential offer for my dream job. I was figuring it all out, so I started feeling better. It felt like I had done my part by being okay in the unknown for a few months, but it felt like time to get back on track.

---

Cut to today, April 10.

Thanks to coronavirus, all of those plans I made over the past 3 months? Gone.

The dream job? Gone.

Any hope that the rest of 2020 would look anything like I hoped or imagined? Totally gone.

It’s no secret that COVID-19 is infiltrating each of our lives and wreaking havoc everywhere it goes. I know I’m not alone in this, I know there are people in this country and around the world who have lost far more than a few months of time and the prospect of a job. I know this, I understand this, and I respect this.

But I do also feel like we all get to be disappointed for the things we’ve lost, ourselves, no matter how small or insignificant they may seem. And to know that all of sudden, by no fault of my own, this summer I will not be working at the Happiest Place on Earth and I have to abandon the plan I’ve spent months getting comfortable with? Well, it’s wildly disappointing. It’s not “fair” and it’s not fun.

However, beyond this disappointment is a level of perspective that I think is imperative for us all to have these days. The perspective to know that this is not the end of the world. That I am healthy, that I have been given the luxury of time this year to finish school a little earlier than expected. That there is a light at the end of this tunnel, and life will be infinitely sweeter when we reach it.

So today, like we all have for the last month, I’ve spent a lot of time bouncing between disappointment and perspective. I’ve thought a lot about what I could learn from all of this. I’ve wondered what, in this last month, has been my greatest lesson?

Based on the first half of this blog, I imagine you can probably guess.

My greatest lesson in this crisis is that I absolutely do not have it all figured out, even when all signs point to the idea that I might. I have not overcome my desire to plan my life, and I very well may never fully. But I’m learning more every day that I can’t live in my own rigid world where everything goes according to plan. I’m trying my best to rely on the idea that God’s plan for me must be infinitely greater than the plans I have for myself.

Of course, there’s literally no way to get through life without making plans. We need them in order to operate. But, what I’m having to learn is how to not revolve my whole world around them, and how to not completely fall apart when they don’t work out.

And you know what? I’m tired of learning these lessons. I’m exhausted of it, actually. I don’t want to learn patience or give my plans away or be out of control, and yet, here we are. Doing it anyways because of the promise that through these struggles and lessons I want no part of, God is working and doing everything for my good. And without that truth, this life would feel impossible.

I think these days, we’re all a little lost. Our plans have all gone to waste. No one knows when or how the world will go back to normal. Or if it ever will be the normal we knew before. There was no plan that could have accounted for the chaos we’re living in, we’re all getting a crash course in just figuring it out.

So, on this Good Friday, the darkest day in history, let’s remember those who mourned having no idea that God’s plan was to bring the light of the world back to them just three days later. We have the luxury of knowing how that story ends, and I pray we keep that in mind in time like these when it feels like our lives and our plans are in such shambles there’s no hope of resurrection.