“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.
As a kid, my sister and I would spend hours planning and making decisions about HOW we were going to play, but when it came down to actually making our Beanie Babies talk, we were ready for the next adventure. I have to laugh because I think the rest of my life pretty much panned out in an all-too similar way. I had a plan that I thoroughly thought I would execute, but then God would grab the steering wheel and I’d be detoured on some new road with some new adventure. Growing up, if someone told me I would become a Lutheran school teacher I honestly would have laughed—not because teaching wasn’t something I considered, but because I was baptized and confirmed within the Catholic church. How about that for a surprise twist? My parents came from different religious backgrounds, so they decided that my siblings and I would be baptized Catholic and go to Zion Lutheran School in Harbor Beach, Michigan. So, if someone told you, a Catholic, that one day you would be serving God as a Lutheran School teacher, you would probably have a nice giggle or two, but that is the plan God so clearly had for me all along.
I actually declared my first major as a nurse—reroute. Then, I met my husband and became Lutheran—COMPLETE reroute. With his help and a little push from my mom, I changed my major at Saginaw Valley State University to Elementary Education. After graduation, I was hit with another detour when I heard a position was available at St. Matthew Lutheran School in Walled Lake. I was confirmed Lutheran maybe 6 months before my interview—talk about nerves! But with each step I took, God was planning the next. I feel extremely blessed to be serving at a Lutheran School where I can share and teach my students to trust God and have faith in Him, even when they feel like their life is being hit with one detour after another; to lean on Him during those construction zones, and praise Him during those music-turned-up-blue-skies-sun-shining-Sunday-drive kind of moments. “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord” constantly rings in my ears as I walk down the hallways, wondering what God has planned for each one of His precious gifts I am blessed enough to serve.
Vector art (c) wildpixel/iStock
