Last week my plan was to be wrapping up some photo work, finalizing my packing and hitting the skies to Italy. We’d planned to join the Christian Travel Studies Program tour following in the steps of Paul. I had plans to introduce my husband to the country I’ve fallen in love with over the years. We planned to gorge on pasta and pizza and all the good, fresh Italian veggies. And we’d planned to get in a few extra fun excursions along the way including a day trip to the Amalfi coast where I stood awestruck exactly 20 years and half a lifetime ago proclaiming it my favorite place on the planet. / “We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.” Proverbs 16:9 / The Lord (and the Coronavirus) had other plans and our trip has been postponed, which honestly is a relief amidst all the Coronavirus unknown and quarantines these days. Rearranged plans, flight waivers and tour vouchers are a small thing and while they maybe disappointing and totally unexpected they come as no surprise at all to our Lord. Nothing is a surprise to Him. Which is the biggest relief all around especially in those harder "postponements" we’ve been walking these days. This season has been a difficult road of postponements and heartbreak all at once...
"What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light..." Matthew 10:27
Today we are standing in the fragile light of postponed parenthood. My husband and I have been walking in a 3 year long journey of delayed fertility. Then on this past Christmas morning our world's changed with a faint pink line on a pregnancy test. We were finally parents and we walked into the new year and new decade carrying our child, our future family and our hopes fulfilled. That fragile joy of the first trimester filled our every moment of every day. Then just at the end of January we got the news no new parents want to hear. We were losing our baby. Less than a week later our precious first baby slipped from our earthly embrace and into the arms of our Savior. Parenthood postponed.
Somewhere in the midst of all of that I turned 40 you guys. What was supposed to be a bday and pregnancy announcement (I may have already had the wording all worked out with something along the lines of “the best bday gift is coming Sept. 2020”) instead the celebration was something with a little less fanfare surrounded by my nearest and dearest and a few oversized balloons. The big 4-0 launches me into a new decade and into an entirely new stats bracket for fertility. Which I can only laugh at. The Lord has done crazier things and that’s what we are praying for with open hands and surrendered hearts just after our prayer for His will in our lives on earth as it is in heaven.
There is so much more to this story. So much to tell of the Lord’s goodness in the journey. Chance meetings, unexpected new friendships with refreshing encouragement, tiny miracles and opportunity after opportunity to share of the glory of the Lord along the way even if it’s been through unexpected tears and choked back words of questioning in the new unknown. Reminds me a bit (in a way more toned down, less persecuted way) of Paul’s journey. From imprisonments to shipwrecks (to viper bites!) his story was unexpected and I can only imagine didn’t go quite as he planned. And yet all along the way he preached Jesus. And in the wake of his journey were new believers and so much new hope. Kinda like it’s the way The Lord drew it up.
Today I pray that we have the courage to share Jesus and His story in our lives. That we have the eyes and maturity to not only frantically search out purpose in the postponed but rest in true peace even in the unknown. Knowing that we walk according to the plans of the all knowing Jesus. May our lives and our stories be fully and completely His and whole heartedly for His glory.
And for Italy, I have hope that we will see you again soon if the Lord wills. But in the meantime we will have to settle for Dominos delivery for dinner and reminiscing through old photos like this one of the Florence’s majestic Duomo at sunset.
xoxo, Caroline