When life is about to change...

We are less than a week away from adding a member to our family. 

This is no small step.

For months now we've been telling the girls about their new sibling - what life will be like with a new baby in the house, how they will have to be big helpers and be very patient, how things will be busy and different.  And over months, their excitement has waned a bit.  "Having a baby" has been down the road for so long now that it doesn't seem like it will ever really happen.

No one identifies with that feeling more than I do right now. 

But the fact of the matter is the big event is right around the corner.  That seems absolutely necessary and impossible to believe all at the same time.

I know life is about to change drastically, and I have some idea what to expect since we've been here before.  But still...

I'm a planner.  I like to have everything lined up and figured out and organized.

Nothing about having a newborn fits into any of those categories.

We don't always know when life is going to take those big turns and change completely.  Sometimes those shocks are good and sometimes they are painful.  The more unpredictable life becomes the more I try to get a good grip and plan and have it all figured out.

I'm trying to take a page out of Mary's book.  What did she do when she found out her world had been turned upside down?  She was thankful.  She praised.  She sang.  She celebrated.  And most of all, she trusted.  She didn't run like Jonah.  She didn't question like Abraham.  She didn't ask for a divine sign like Gideon.  She surrendered everything she ever wanted for her life and accepted God's will.  She trusted when she had no idea what God was doing or what was in store for her.

Oh.  Is that all?

I'm trying to be patient.  I'm trying to have peace.  I'm trying to trust that whatever happens is God's perfect plan.  I'm trying to let go of my "perfect vision" of the next several weeks.  I'm trying to release that need to be superwoman.  I'm trying to embrace the unknown and the unpredictable.  But it's hard.

Especially around the holidays there is extra pressure to "perform".  There are lots of things to which  I've just had to say "not this year".  The bottom line is my body is tired and I am simply unable to really do much beyond the day-to-day necessities.  And for a while, that will have to be normal.  My prayers have turned from lists of requests to a simple plea "help me have peace in the coming week - no matter what happens."  It's a scary prayer.  I'd rather list off all the things I want God to do for me just to make sure He gets the message.  Which isn't very Mary-like. 

God's perfect plan was to send a helpless baby to a hostile world that would not understand him, would hate him, would torture him and then crucify him.  By all standards, this sounds like an epic failure.  And then He turns it all around in a way that only He can.

And that's the God I trust for my life.  That's the One whose plan I want to follow even if it seems completely messed up and not at all the way I would do things.  So this is my surrender to Him.  This is me opening my tightly clenched fists and waiting to receive whatever He has for me.  I'm looking to Him for all my tomorrows.