& sometimes we mess up.

Here sits in front of me, my new planner for the year. It's blank pages that have not been filled with plans and appointments and birthdays, usually give me a sense of excitement. Every year I go store to store searching for the perfect planner that will serve as my time organizer, a place to scribble down phone numbers, and shopping lists, something that gives me a sense of security knowing that in those pages, my year has had purpose.

 I like to look back through old ones and reminisce about the lunch dates I had forgotten about, laugh at my my side notes to myself such as "Jetta had a poo disaster today. Better luck tomorrow!", and know that in the midst of all of those appointments and schedules and daily struggles, there was LIFE in my days.

 I came across my planner from 2012 a couple weeks ago, and my eyes started to fill with tears before I even opened it. I knew that I would find page after page of hope and excitement and anticipation. I wanted to remember what that felt like, to be alive. I slowly flipped through the pages, smiling at baseball games, VPK graduation, OB appointments with the side note "glucose tests are the WORST!"...like I could ever forget that. And then came April. I nervously turned the page and saw "Isaiah's birthday! Be there at 5:30!!"  I even got my planner out in the hospital to scribble "my sweet boy was born at 7:54!" I not only wrote down all of his appointments, but I had gone ahead to each week and wrote how many weeks he was. I didn't stop at 3. I kept going, all year. And then the end of April came, and there was nothing. I don't remember shoving it in the corner of my closet, but I can see why I did. My year was filled with anticipations of him. 

I started to adapt the mindset that the root of all disappointment is expectation. If I didn't expect anything, if I didn't hope for anything, then I'd never be hurt again. Recently, I realized that this idea is stupid. Somewhere along the way I forgot that God works all things together for our good! I don't have to be afraid to hope or to plan as long as I have faith that God is in control, and even when something falls apart and I have to scribble out that whole rotten day, He's waiting for me with a clean slate on the next day. So today, without fear of the unknown, but with faith in God's perfect will for my life, I will happily hope again. I will write birthdays and anniversaries, appointments and milestones, and I will choose to give these 358 days to the One who first gave them to me! Happy New Year & happy hoping!