Plans

 I am a planner by nature.

I remember my friend in high school asking me my plans after graduation.

I pulled out a written plan that covered my next ten years in minute detail.

And my friend looked it over and started laughing! 

I was taken back by her response.  

She exclaimed, “Do you seriously think you have control over all of this?”

Defensively, I pulled my paper back and replied, “It’s a good plan!”

It was a good plan.  And the underlying important principles and events- temple marriage, college graduation, family, service - all did happen.  But not once in the way and time that 18 year old me had predicted.

Today is the anniversary of the establishment of the organization of Relief Society.  When Emma Smith and other women in Nauvoo met and organized the group using their current wisdom and knowledge, they took their proposal to Joseph Smith for his blessing.  He said it was “the best that he had ever seen” but that the Lord had “something better”.

That’s how my life has been.  I had a good plan.

But Heavenly Father had a better one.  

A higher one.  

A holier one.

One with a lot more challenges than I would have picked.  But those challenges have been transformational.  

It can be so easy to make a plan and defend it as good.  

But I need to do a better job of taking those “good” plans to the Lord with humility and patience and opening my heart and mind to the better, the higher, the holier.  

So He can do something extraordinary.