When plans change… and I’m moving to Jersey.

What do you do when what you hoped would happen doesn’t happen?  How do you react when the plans you made and were looking forward to don’t see their fulfillment?  This happened to me recently and I just wanted to share about it.

Everything seemed to be falling into place.  My plane ticket was purchased.  On December 18th I would fly from San Pedro Sula, Honduras to LaPaz, Bolivia with a one way ticket serve there with the HOPE worldwide team and the LaPaz Church of Christ.  I had secured a place to live and the list was already growing long filled with all the projects I was going to take on and help out with.  I was so excited and grateful for the many prayers answered as this dream was becoming a reality.

And then, just a few days later, I got sudden news from my mom that my grandfather had just been rushed to the emergency room and was having some pretty serious health complications.  Fear struck me.  Was he ok?  What was wrong?  What was going to happen to him?  We all had a lot of questions and not many answers.  I felt so helpless being all the way in Honduras.

Below, a photo of me with my Grandpa from 2012

A few days passed and he seemed to be in rough shape… but stable, with a potential long road to recovery.  My mom asked me if I would consider praying about coming back to the States as a sort of ‘alternative mission’ to take care of my grandfather.  It was an idea I had kicked around in the back of my head as the years passed and I was living in Boston and he was getting older.  But now?  Now?  What about Bolivia?  I’ve got the plane ticket.  The plans are all set.  Do I really trade it all in to move to New Jersey to take care of my grandpa?

I prayed a lot.  I got advice.  I searched the scriptures.  I listed my options and the possible outcomes.  It became clear to me that for now, I needed to let go of my plans to Bolivia and instead help out my grandpa and my mom.

I’ll be honest, I cried because I was sad to let those plans go.  I wondered why God had let me make those plans. I felt like Bolivia for me was like a piece of cheese that hangs just beyond reach for the mouse.  So close.  If my plans simply had been to move back to Boston after my year in Honduras, making the decision to move to New Jersey instead wouldn’t have been that hard.  But now, NOW… I was deciding between 1. Bolivia = experiencing a dream realized or 2. Grandpa in New Jersey = which meant dying to myself and loving my family more.

I made the decision to move to New Jersey and I feel it was the right decision.  I feel at peace with it.  But it was still hard.  And I still cried a few more times as I thought about letting go of my plans.  I have continued wrestling with God, I keep handing it over to him.

And then, just the other day, I read this in one of the books I’m reading and it totally applied to what I have been going through and it offered me a great reminder of how God works and helped me to have a more spiritual perspective.

Excerpt from the book ‘Traveling Light’ by Max Lucado Chapter 15

A disappointment is a missed appointment. What we hoped would happen, didn’t. We wanted health; we got disease. We wanted retirement; we got reassignment. Divorce instead of family. Dismissal instead of promotion. Now what? What do we do with our disappointments?
We could do what Miss Haversham did. Remember her in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations? Jilted by her fiancé just prior to the wedding, her appointment became a missed appointment and a disappointment. How did she respond? Not too well. She closed all the blinds in the house, stopped every clock, left the wedding cake on the table to gather cobwebs, and continued to wear her wedding dress until it hung in yellow decay around her shrunken form. Her wounded heart consumed her life. We can follow the same course.
Or we can follow the example of the apostle Paul. His goal was to be a missionary in Spain. Rather than send Paul to Spain, however, God sent him to prison. Sitting in a Roman jail, Paul could have made the same choice as Miss Haversham, but he didn’t. Instead he said, “As long as I’m here, I might as well write a few letters.” Hence your Bible has the Epistles to Philemon, the Philippians, the Colossians, and the Ephesians. No doubt Paul would have done a great work in Spain. But would it have compared with the work of those four letters?
You’ve sat where Paul sat. I know you have. You were hotter than a two-dollar pistol on the trail to Spain or college or marriage or independence . . . but then came the layoff or the pregnancy or the sick parent. And you ended up in prison. So long, Spain. Hello, Rome. So long, appointment. Hello, disappointment. Hello, pain.
How did you handle it? Better asked, how are you handling it? Could you use some help? I’ve got just what you need. Six words in the fifth verse of the Twenty-third Psalm: “You anoint my head with oil.”
Don’t see the connection? What does a verse on oil have to do with the hurts that come from the disappointments of life?
A little livestock lesson might help. In ancient Israel shepherds used oil for three purposes: to repel insects, to prevent conflicts, and to heal wounds.
Bugs bug people, but they can kill sheep. Flies, mosquitoes, and gnats can turn the summer into a time of torture for the livestock. Consider nose flies, for example. If they succeed in depositing their eggs into the soft membrane of the sheep’s nose, the eggs become wormlike larvae, which drive the sheep insane. One shepherd explains: “For relief from this agonizing annoyance sheep will deliberately beat their heads against trees, rocks, posts, or brush. . . . In extreme cases of intense infestation a sheep may even kill itself in a frenzied endeavor to gain respite from the aggravation.”
When a swarm of nose flies appears, sheep panic. They run. They hide. They toss their heads up and down for hours. They forget to eat. They aren’t able to sleep. Ewes stop milking, and lambs stop growing. The entire flock can be disrupted, even destroyed by the presence of a few flies.
For this reason, the shepherd anoints the sheep. He covers their heads with an oil-like repellent. The fragrance keeps the insects at bay and the flock at peace.
Most of the wounds the shepherd treats are simply the result of living in a pasture. Thorns prick or rocks cut or a sheep rubs its head too hard against a tree. Sheep get hurt. As a result, the shepherd regularly, often daily, inspects the sheep, searching for cuts and abrasions. He doesn’t want the cut to worsen. He doesn’t want today’s wound to become tomorrow’s infection.
Neither does God. Just like sheep, we have wounds, but ours are wounds of the heart that come from disappointment after disappointment. If we’re not careful, these wounds lead to bitterness. And so just like sheep, we need to be treated. “He made us, and we belong to him; we are his people, the sheep he tends” (Ps. 100: 3).
Sheep aren’t the only ones who need preventive care, and sheep aren’t the only ones who need a healing touch. We also get irritated with each other, butt heads, and then get wounded. Many of our disappointments in life begin as irritations. The large portion of our problems are not lion-sized attacks, but rather the day-to-day swarm of frustrations and mishaps and heartaches. You don’t get invited to the dinner party. You don’t make the team. You don’t get the scholarship. Your boss doesn’t notice your hard work. Your husband doesn’t notice your new dress.  Your neighbor doesn’t notice the mess in his yard. You find yourself more irritable, more gloomy, more . . . well, more hurt.
Like the sheep, you don’t sleep well, you don’t eat well. You may even hit your head against a tree a few times.
Or you may hit your head against a person. It’s amazing how hardheaded we can be with each other. Some of our deepest hurts come from butting heads with people.
Like the sheep, the rest of our wounds come just from living in the pasture. The pasture of the sheep, however, is much more appealing. The sheep have to face wounds from thorns and thistles. We have to face aging, loss, and illness. Some of us face betrayal and injustice. Live long enough in this world, and most of us will face deep, deep hurts of some kind or another.
So we, like the sheep, get wounded. And we, like the sheep, have a shepherd. Remember the words we read? “We belong to him; we are his people, the sheep he tends” (Ps. 100: 3). He will do for you what the shepherd does for the sheep. He will tend to you.
If the Gospels teach us anything, they teach us that Jesus is a Good Shepherd. “I am the good shepherd,” Jesus announces. “The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep” (John 10: 11).
Didn’t Jesus spread the oil of prevention on his disciples? He prayed for them. He equipped them before he sent them out. He revealed to them the secrets of the parables. He interrupted their arguments and calmed their fears. Because he was a good shepherd, he protected them against disappointments.
Not only did Jesus prevent wounds, he healed them. He touched the eyes of the blind man. He touched the disease of the leper. He touched the body of the dead girl. Jesus tends to his sheep. He touched the searching heart of Nicodemus. He touched the open heart of Zacchaeus. He touched the broken heart of Mary Magdalene. He touched the confused heart of Cleopas. And he touched the stubborn heart of Paul and the repentant heart of Peter. Jesus tends to his sheep. And he will tend to you.
If you will let him. How? How do you let him? The steps are so simple.
First, go to him. David would trust his wounds to no other person but God. He said, “You anoint my head with oil.” Not, “your prophets,” “your teachers,” or “your counselors.” Others may guide us to God. Others may help us understand God. But no one does the work of God, for only God can heal. God “heals the brokenhearted” (Ps. 147: 3).
Have you taken your disappointments to God? You’ve shared them with your neighbor, your relatives, your friends. But have you taken them to God? James says, “Anyone who is having troubles should pray” (James 5: 13).
Before you go anywhere else with your disappointments, go to God.
Maybe you don’t want to trouble God with your hurts. After all, he’s got famines and pestilence and wars; he won’t care about my little struggles, you think. Why don’t you let him decide that? He cared enough about a wedding to provide the wine. He cared enough about Peter’s tax payment to give him a coin. He cared enough about the woman at the well to give her answers. “He cares about you” (1 Pet. 5: 7).
Your first step is to go to the right person. Go to God. Your second step is to assume the right posture. Bow before God.
In order to be anointed, the sheep must stand still, lower their heads, and let the shepherd do his work. Peter urges us to “be humble under God’s powerful hand so he will lift you up when the right time comes” (1 Pet. 5: 6).
When we come to God, we make requests; we don’t make demands. We come with high hopes and a humble heart. We state what we want, but we pray for what is right. And if God gives us the prison of Rome instead of the mission of Spain, we accept it because we know “God will always give what is right to his people who cry to him night and day, and he will not be slow to answer them” (Luke 18: 7).
We go to him. We bow before him, and we trust in him. The sheep doesn’t understand why the oil repels the flies.
The sheep doesn’t understand how the oil heals the wounds. In fact, all the sheep knows is that something happens in the presence of the shepherd. And that’s all we need to know as well. “LORD, I give myself to you; my God, I trust you” (Ps. 25: 1– 2).

Go.

Bow.

Trust.

Worth a try, don’t you think?

If you enjoyed this excerpt from the book, I encourage you to buy the book – it’s an awesome book!

As for me, I’m off to pack my suitcases and I’m heading to New Jersey on Monday!  I’m excited for this unexpected adventure!

Below are a few more photos of my handsome grandfather – because every post is better with photos.

Below: Me & Grandpa on his 88th birthday last year

Below:  Me, and my brothers, Russ & Charles with my Grandpa the weekend of his 88th birthday.

Below:  The video we made of ‘Operation Rescue Grandpa 2012’ when we went to Jersey right after Hurricane Sandy hit.