Breakfast

I had planned the breakfasts for both mornings. I might not be such a great cook but I can do a breakfast best. The kids and their moms had joined us at the lake. We had done a couple of puzzles, checked out the finches that feed outside on morning seed, watched a few cartoons and it was time to get on with breakfast. I put on the sausage, put the sweet rolls that I had made the night before in the oven and got the frying pan down from the hanging pot rack, readied it on the burner....then.... grabbed the carton of eggs. I made it to the stove and somehow lost my grip and the entire carton of eggs did a nose dive straight to the floor....carton flew open and there before me was the slimiest mess of raw eggs ever....no survivors. I hope that none of you can relate to this for if you can then you too have experienced the feeling of not only a clean up that would take at least a half roll of paper towels..but also the immediate jump start thought to what is plan"b"...Those were gonna be some good scrambled eggs...scrambled they were, just not in the proper place.

I had a plan...it was running smooth....no glitches...and then the whole thing fell apart because of one mishandled bobble. Isn't that the way it is with life sometimes? You get a plan going and you carefully select the pieces that would bring it to completion and then something goes awry....and the plan falls flat. We are planners by nature... some of us short term planners, some long term ones... we make plans for all sorts of scenarios...from planning meals, and planning of everyday errands, to planning the dreams that we have for our children not to forget those we have for ourselves, to careers that we want to pursue to, or how we are to interact with health issues of our own as well as our loved ones. We plan for retirement, and special occasions, and what to wear to an upcoming event. BUT how many times do we include God in our plans.

This was just a breakfast gone wrong story...no need for God here...or was there? I know it sounds a little silly but I truly think God does want to be included in our every plan. Not that he wants to be the director..., though when I allow him that position he generally helps me to cover bases that I might ordinarily forget, or be more careful in things that I tend to rush through. But God I believe wants me to be so close and intimate with him in our relationship that he becomes embedded in all my thoughts, mind and deeds on an unconscious as well as conscious level.

OK, I dropped the eggs all over the floor...did God see that...yes...so how was he consciously or unconsciously involved? Well, by this.....if this would have happened years ago..I would have been furious...at myself, at the waste, at the accident that could have been prevented, at the inconvenience of coming up with a plan B, at the pain in the neck of the cleanup and my attitude would have been less than pleasant and probably remained that way till it finally would blow over, an hour or so later.
But instead I did make a couple of under the breathe remarks and continued on, with a smile and a good attitude no less.... looked at Jamie, my daughter, who was in the kitchen with me and said...something like "darn....those were gonna be good...and I can't believe I just did that...oh well we will just move on"....There is no use crying over spilled "eggs." And it was over...things would work out and it was no big deal ...after all we had sweet rolls and sausage...and now we were to add a little fruit...it was all good! I was really the main one who cared..everybody else was just fine with whatever...that is the thing about plans...too often it is more about the way I want things to work out and it is not so important to most of the other folks around!

In dealing with flattened plans...it has been a gradual process but I know that God is helping me to understand that sometimes, well... many times, things will not go as my plans intend...but God continues to work me through it when that happens...and I am learning to just move on...and not dwell over spilled milk....learn from my mistakes and carry on. God has to be the one making those changes within me.....for I have a tendency to "carry" those times and those attitudes, and those blunders....that I know I should leave behind..for they do nothing but weight down my heart and momentum....and slowly I can see he is dissolving thoughts of my failures and transferring them to thoughts of his victories in spite of them.

Another example that readily comes to mind is: I can't tell you how many times I have accidentally deleted an entire devotional...I used to cry and think oh that took so much time...but again God has taught me through his quiet whispers....to look at what is important...in all my plans....in all my endeavors.. it is not me or what I write...It is HIM and what he wants to be written and passed along. It is not about my plans.... but His plans! It is a reminder that I am not writing for my glory but for HIS!

God has his own plans and His will not go awry....I am learning, slowly, that my plans on the other hand have very little significance in comparison to his Holy blueprint. What is important to God is how I approach the fall of the eggs, or when my plan goes awry...it is about my attitude and being grateful for the things that He has allowed "to" work out....and trusting God to help me get through them when they don't.

It is a matter of choosing to "sweat the small stuff" or NOT! One of my mom's greatest mottos was to "Think BIG"...and really that is not too far off from what God desires of us...for God is the Big thought...everything else is relative to self... according to "our" own desires or "our" thoughts. When we plan...we should plan with expectation for sure but understand that if plans do not go as we expect...then that too is ok...the world will not stop spinning, life will go on and and God will help us, through his grace and mercy to restore what has been dropped or fallen or lost. Restoration takes time and it is also has to be embraced through our own hope and acceptance of what our gracious Lord has in store for us.

"RE" - "STORE"....is God's ability to fill in the gaps that have left us empty. It may be a plan that has gone awry, or it may be a loss that has left a huge hole in our hearts. But whatever it is God knows when our storeroom needs replenishing....and he will fill it first with his unconditional love and abiding presence and the rest will come to us at his appointed time. God is BIG....and though we set into motion our own plans....we have to be willing to let our "BIG" God teach us to not sweat the small stuff...and praise HIM if and when "our" plans fall apart knowing that he will restore them...and restore US through his grace. And as one plan succeeds and another doesn't....may we continue to trust him, knowing that if we faithfully put our trust in Him...he will work out any of our needs for a plan "B"! Our plan "B" might just be His plan"A"....we just may have been detoured a bit....by a perspective that send us down a tangent road.

1 Peter 5:10
And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.


Dear Lord, Oh how I long to have you so embedded in my thoughts that you are apart of my every plan....help me to trust you when things seems to be falling apart and praise you no matter how my plans progress....knowing that you will restore that which has fallen and fill me with your loving grace. Amen

--
Praise God wherever you are and whatever situation He has allowed you to be in . . . His glory will shine through!