It never fails. I spend hours and hours putting together schedules and charts and all that ridiculous pinterest-y type stuff in an effort to “get organized” and “make things a little easier.”
I go at it for a week or so and yes, things do tend to go more smoothly and I even begin to see some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. I begin to feel a spike in my energy. I begin to feel good about life again.
And then while I’m feeling good about life it has a way of sneaking up on me. Someone gets sick and throws off my perfectly organized schedule, a meeting runs long there goes the plans I made for later in the day, or classes begin again and the homework is a bit more than I bargained for causing me to feel overwhelmed.
And then it all goes down hill from there. I loose my drive. The consistency I was working so well with just the week before begins to falter. The schedule begins to collapse in on itself. And my world shuts down.
All my life I have been a planner. If I didn’t (or don’t) know what is going to happen next I tend to loose my mind. I am not good at spontaneity. I take days to make a decision, agonizing and stressing over it until I get sick. I like goals, and steps that need to be taken to get to those goals. And if that isn’t an option then I freeze not knowing what to do first or where to go once I get there.
I think that is one of the reasons why being a wife, mom, and homemaker is such a life challenge for me. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE being home with my kids. I love being the one to teach them and train them and be part of their constant lives. However, it is the hardest job I have ever taken on in my life.
There is no real way of planning life. Sure I try to set a basic schedule for naps, meals, appropriate play time, and bed time but no matter how hard I try that schedule never seems to stay on track. I don’t have set sick days (ha! I don’t have ANY sick days), and I can’t schedule snuggle time. I have to take those things as they come. And for me that is a very hard thing to do.
As we continue down our road through Seminary I am realizing that the one thing I am going to have to learn more than probably anything else is going to have to be flexibility. No matter how well I can plan, and organize, and stress the importance of a situation thing are never going to be truly in my control. The Bible tells us in Jeremiah:
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
So with January coming quickly to a close my goal for February is to learn to let things be. I know God has His plans and when my plans to go, well, according to plan I am going to try and focus on what God may have planned for that moment of the day. When that staff meeting at church runs long and Dusty comes home later than I had scheduled I am going to trust that God was working through that meeting to make our church the best it could be and sometime that means things have to go a little long. And when I don’t get everything done on my well thought out and well designed schedule for that day I am going to trust that those 30 extra minutes I spent playing with the kids or reading the same story for the 1000th time was exactly where I needed to be and the chores that go put off will not break my day.
Are you good with spontaneity? Or do you like things lined out and planned?
A Wise Woman in Progress 
I have become a member of LinkedIn and was reading a question that was put up by a business person. The question was how do you organize your day. This is one of the answers that struck me. Always.. ALWAYS start your day with the following question: What can possibly go wrong? The way you ask yourself that question will dictate how your day will follow. Ask it like a CNN news show, or as they do on “Mythbusters”. If you ask like CNN.. and complain and fret about the problem? Or like the latter and say “this is a new problem.. awesome!” The choice is completely up to you. I found it interesting and thought provoking
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I suppose it all really does come down to the choice we make. I am making the choice each day to let the unscheduled events ruffle my feathers rather than making the choice to roll with the punches. Even if I don't see it that way in the moment.
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You are such a good mama, Elizabeth! Even though your day is haywire, you are still reading to, training, teaching, and loving your kids. You really do inspire me. I pray the Lord continue to guide you and give you wisdom and peace as you go on this journey for flexibility.
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