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Have you ever gone on a zip line? People love those things! They want to ride zip lines in the jungle, at the beach and anywhere in between, and I cannot understand that for the life of me. I hate zip lines.
The summer of 2008, I decided I would be “brave,” and pack up and move to Sugar Pine Christian Camps to be a camp counselor for the summer. I wanted to find out what my true character was, and what better way to find out than to stick myself somewhere I’d never been, with people I’d never met, in the middle of the woods? I hadn’t ever been to a summer camp or any kind of camp for that matter, and I don’t think I had ever even gone camping before.
One of the things we had to do for team building was the ropes course. You know, the rope things way high in the trees? I didn’t think it would be that bad. I’m not afraid of heights and I’m tough I like to think I’m tough. I got through the whole ropes course without too much trouble or fear, and then I got to the end: a zip line. Until that moment I had no idea I didn’t like zip lines or that I was, under no circumstances, going to willingly throw myself off of a tall tree. Mind you, I am extremely competitive, and there may have been a boy there I wanted to impress, and yet I could not jump.
This was a team building activity, and people were starting to pass me. I was NOT embarrassed, and I was NOT throwing myself down. Finally my boss, with my permission, pushed me off the tree. Thank the Lord she agreed, because I would still be up there now.
I found out some stuff about myself that summer. Namely, I don’t like to feel out of control. Zip lines = no control. Once you let go at the top of a zip line, you can’t stop until you hit the ground. Why that is appealing to people, I do not know or understand. Luke tried to explain several times. It was and still is all lost on me.
God used that summer to show me I really, really don’t like to be out of control. (And on a completely different note, I am super indecisive. Those two go great together, in case you were wondering.) That has led to some good things, like never getting drunk or wanting to, but it doesn’t exactly put God in His proper place in my life.
Waiting is another thing we have no control over, at least when you are waiting for God’s go-ahead. During the last 10 years of waiting to adopt, I felt very out of control of my life. I hated waiting and not knowing when or if it would ever happen. Sometimes I felt it was taking so long that I might forget about the calling and drift into a life that didn’t have adoption in it. At times I even doubted if I had even been called at all.
God, of course, never faltered in His plan, despite my struggle for control. See, I am one of those people who has always (almost always) wanted to have lots of children. I am also a self-proclaimed realist. Luke calls it being negative or something. I knew we needed to wait to have kids and to adopt. That was the practical thing to do since we didn’t have any money or a house. So I tried to plan everything out. We would pay off student loans, buy a house and start trying to get pregnant the summer of 2016. The next summer we would get prego again, and then within a year or so of that, start the adoption process.
Don’t be fooled folks, the plan was way more detailed than that, but I will not bore you with the insane plans of a crazy detail-oriented control freak. Let’s just say God did not determine my plans. Let’s be real. Luke only knew like a third of the craziness going on in my heart.
In August 2015, God decided to start changing my heart and my plans, leaving me feeling less in control <insert horrified, ear-splitting scream here> and much more excited for what God was doing in our lives. His plan is always so much better than mine. Hopefully I remember that someday.
In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps. - Proverbs 16:9
Find out more of the story in Part 3.
Originally published on bacallburns.com. Used with permission.