Today as my daughter and I spent time in homeschool praying, reading, and listening to God, He told her something pretty neat. You see, every. single. morning. she says, “What are we doing today?” And every. single. day. she says, “What are we doing tomorrow?”
She wants to know. She wants to know specifics. She loves writing things down and having things planned, though she is mostly flexible when plans change or shift.
Thing is, I have no idea. And I HATE to disappoint her, telling her one thing and then it not happening. Sometimes I have a clue as to what’s on the agenda, like the staples of meals and homeschool and bedtime, but in this time of complete uproot and total transition, to give my children concrete answers about concrete plans would convey I know anything about anything…and I’m not a fan of pretending OR lying.
In the past what has worked is to simply deliver life in a series of surprises (even when I had planned it all along…), like one morning when Emily was two months shy of 4 years old and I was pregnant with Noah, she woke up to a packed suitcase and a plane ticket to accompany her dad to California for a long weekend while my best friend, Molly, came into town from Kansas City, and she and I remodeled Em’s room into a “big sister” room. Not only didn’t I tell Emily about the trip ahead of time to save myself from millions of questions about when she was leaving, but she didn’t know she would have a surprise when she got home, either.
Win, win!
She had a weekend away with her father, one who loves her and whom she loves, and that was enough for her. At least when she was 4…lots of life has happened in the 8 years since then, and it’s NOT A FAULT of hers to want to know. Heck, I’d love to tell her and on some days I’m able to lay out a general plan, but with our impending season ahead, I can only tell her a month at a time, even knowing the sheer audacity of stating plans more than a day in advance is foolishness to God.
So we wait. And we trust.
And this is what He shared with her this morning during our 5 minutes of quiet listening:
Em said, “He told me that I don’t have to worry about today or tomorrow or try to plan the future and know every detail, but to let Him take care of it and let me enjoy what He has planned.”
And then she read this in Proverbs 27:1, since it’s the 27th day of the month: “Don’t brashly announce what you’re going to do tomorrow; you don’t know the first thing about tomorrow.”
This picture was from when the trip was over, hence the sad face…
Upon entering her new “extreme room makeover” digs…
One happy kid, who never even knew it was coming!
None of us may know the first thing about tomorrow, but we can know the One who has tomorrow in His hands.
2 Responses
I surfed in on you from looking up somethings on pinterest. Isn’t it funny how things can come about. And then I found this cool website. I’m bookmarking you! God Bless You my sista.
Hi Q! Thanks for the “follow.” I love that you found Noah’s gingerbread while searching for “Rainbow” things!!! Thanks for pinning it (it was SOOOO fun to make!) and thanks for heading over to the blog to introduce yourself! xoxox