Plans????

Ok, so to start off, I want to share my new music obsession here. I absolutely love this song!  It may seem idealistic, how in the song he talks about not having much, but they have love and that's enough...but I'm beginning to learn that is the truth.  Because when you have love, you're willing to do what it takes to make things possible.  You're willing to sacrifice for one another and for your future.  As we've been up here in Logan, I can definitely say that I've been learning that lesson.  And after a little while of pondering on it, you realize that things that you "sacrifice" from your original plan aren't really a sacrifice after all, it's just different than what you had imagined or planned.

My mom was involved in our Young Women's program at church in North Carolina, and she said something about plans to all of us when we had found out our family was going to be moving again after just three years there.  She said "things don't always go the way you plan."  I know that's a pretty common saying, but when she said it that day, I totally felt it with her. To put it in to context, we had moved to North Carolina in hopes of my parents being able to retire there--including going through building the house they'd like to retire in--and then things just went south and we had to move.  It was very hard for everyone in the family to accept the fact that we had to change our plans, but looking back now, we're all grateful for the blessing in disguise this was.

I had planned to attend BYU's Provo campus to continue my education after high school.  That was all I had ever wanted.  My parents had met there, my brother and sister were attending there, and I had been accepted!  But after our situation changed in NC, I knew the best plan would be to go where I could get a scholarship, which I had not received from Provo's campus.  So, my plans changed and I accepted a scholarship to BYU-Idaho.  That "sacrifice" turned out to be one of the decisions that most shaped how my life has gone since that point.  I'm so grateful for the things I learned during my time there.  Even now, I think back to them often as some my favorite memories! Yet another reason to be excited for when things don't go as you planned.

I had also planned to marry someone that was done with school.  How'd that plan turn out? haha!  I'm so happy that one didn't come to fruition.  Scott has been the answer to so many of my prayers and he's so good at dealing with plans that don't work out. :) He's able to make it seem like what ended up happening was the plan all along.  And though our current plan is for him to be in school for a while longer, I can't wait to see what else comes up during all that!

I guess the point of this whole post is to say that I know that no matter how well we plan things out, something will get in the way eventually.  And when that happens, if we have an optimistic attitude and realize that our Heavenly Father will help us make the best of every failed plan we may have, things will work out for the best!