Not My Plan
Get married. Have 4 babies. Turn 30. Raise kids and be a housewife. Live the dream.
Those were 21-year-old Alexis’ dreams and aspirations. And now I’m almost 30 (gasp!) and my life is a lot different than I thought it would be. At different times in my life I’ve looked back at “my plan” and felt a little bitter. My life was supposed to be “such and such”. It was supposed to happen in “this” time line. Well my dears, as you know, God doesn’t work that way. It grows more and more evident to me all the time.
Growing up, I never had some dream job that I wanted to accomplish, or a career I wanted to advance in. The only REAL thing I wanted to accomplish was to get married, start a big family, be busy raising babies and playing house. Lame for some of you. The dream for others. Maybe a reality for a few of you, too.
I started working for my parents straight out of high school. They owned a piping company that deals in medical gas (oxygen/nitrogen) applications. I started as low man on the totem pole, working out in the shop with the guys, cleaning, learning about what it is we actually do. At 18/19 years old I never imagined that I would stay. But here I am, 11 years later - the company has changed hands. Lots of faces have passed through, a couple have stuck it out. But I’m still here… not my plan.
I did marry my high school sweetheart - we’ve been married for 7 years. But it’s not what I thought it would be. We have fights sometimes. We don’t agree on everything. We’ve had bad struggles. We have debt. We’ve dealt with death and sickness. We have had to dig deep for forgiveness when it was the last thing we felt we could do. None of which was my plan. But here we are. Sticking it out every single day.
I thought in no time that I would be a mom. I was wrong. It took us 2 years to have Anna Kate. There was a lot of crying, a lot of money spent, a lot of infertility drugs used… nothing was working for us. I was pretty depressed, I felt like if my body can’t do the one simple thing it was made to do, then what good is it? What am I going to do for my entire life? This isn’t my plan. Then God gave us Anna Kate. He surprised us, completely. We had quit using the infertility medication and about 4-5 months later I was pregnant.
If you have followed these blogs, you probably know that after my pregnancy, my post-partum depression and anxiety were through the roof, as if it weren’t bad enough before. This was NOT MY PLAN. I was supposed to be an awesome wife and mother who cooked and cleaned and gave all of herself. Nope. I was an exhausted, anxious wife and mother who felt like she depended on everyone else to get through her day. Sure I was a mom… a barely functioning one. Not a great mom. Not even a mediocre mom. Not. My. Plan.
You know what though? It all worked out okay. The size of my family doesn’t determine anything. I still have a family. I may not be the wife that rocks her husbands world night after night, but I love my husband to the core. I take care of him and he takes care of me. We have gotten through some deep, dark sh*t together. And I love that man more now than I ever did before.
I may not be an all-star mom that is present in every moment. I don’t cook a wholesome breakfast very often… more times than not it’s a plate of scrambled eggs, or a pack of cheese grits, a pop tart or some mini muffins. I don’t spend hours playing in the floor. Regardless, my daughter is like the breath in my lungs. As crazy as the kid makes me, well that’s just it.. she makes me, me.
I may not be the stay-at-home mom whose packing lunches, doing play dates or dusting the mantle for the 5th time this week. That’s okay. I work at a job that I have grown to love, in an industry that is not well known. (at least by most folks) I take pride in my work, I take pride in my company, I take pride in being a female in a very male dominated industry and the fact that I actually know a little of what I’m talking about.
So all those times that my plan failed, or that it was changed, or prolonged, or cut short… it all worked out to be the RIGHT plan. It’s still unfolding. Things will change and then change again. And that’s okay. Even though it isn’t what I may have wanted at one time, it is now what I love and more than that, what I actually need. Thank you Lord for knowing my needs better than anyone or anything else!
If you feel like you’re failing or have failed - I feel you. If you feel like you are in a completely different place than what you wanted to be - I feel you. If circumstances have come into your life and made it feel like one huge mess - I feel you. Know that you aren’t failing. Maybe the plans you had aren’t nearly as amazing as they are destined to be.
Much Love, Virtual Hugs, Big Smiles - Alexis
“For I know the plans I have for you”, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” - Jeremiah 29:11