Growing up I had a perfect plan in my head. I would go to college, meet the man of my dreams, get married shortly after graduation, have 2.5 kids, and live in a beautiful home with a white picket fence. I’m pretty sure I’ve told y’all this already. Sound familiar?
My sweet friend Beverly (who was also my BSU Director at Ole Miss), she and I have had many discussions about this over the years. She’s approximately 10 years older than me, but our wait is strangely similar. Beverly dated a man 10 years ago that seemed promising and out of nowhere, everything changed. We didn’t ask many questions but knew she liked this man and it had not worked out.
Fast forward many years later, the romance between Beverly and this man was re-kindled—slowly, quietly, and beautifully. For two years, they worked through what their relationship would look like, sought the Lord, and ultimately determined that they would fight to be together, whatever that looked like. On New Year’s Eve, I watched Beverly and Warren walk down the aisle with the most beautiful smiles on their faces. It was a picture of God’s faithfulness, goodness, and perfect timing. It was the first marriage for both of them.
At their wedding we sang, “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” Have you ever truly paid attention to the words of that hymn?
Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not,
As Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be.
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided.
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto me!
Is it hard to trust in the faithfulness in the Lord when things don’t seem to be panning out as planned? When your plan is not God’s plan? When it hurts so deeply you just don’t know how you will go on? When you feel forsaken?
I am confident that as a woman Beverly felt lonely. She probably felt forsaken at times, not understanding what God was doing. But Beverly did not waver in her walk with Jesus. She fought, and remembered that great was His faithfulness, even when life might not have looked like she had planned. She was steadfast.
This past year I spent time questioning why the Lord had forsaken me. I felt abandoned. I didn’t understand why my circumstances weren’t changing. Why life seemed to be so hard.
I was reading one night in Isaiah and this was what he showed me in light of my questions:
But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me;
my Lord has forgotten me.”
“Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.”
He has engraved each of us in the palms of his hands. I don’t know about you, but that rocks my world. It certainly changes my perspective on being forsaken.
As you wrestle with this and fight through God being in control even when it feels like he isn’t, find rest in this verse. His purpose over our life is greater than our plans.
“Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand,” (Proverbs 19:21).
Be loved, beloved. He’s got you.