I like to describe myself as a planner. I enjoy the process of getting organized and arranging my day just as much as I relish the routine and structure I can create through carefully laid plans. I strongly prefer being ready for anything to being caught off guard, so I often develop contingency plans for my original plans – just in case something were to go wrong. Some people might call this a “small” control issue. I choose to call it “being prepared.”
Lately, I’ve frequently found myself caught up in a frenzy of trying to be prepared. Life as I’ve known it for the last four years – with all it’s wonderfully comforting and terribly annoying routines – will cease to exist in a few months. I’ll move to a new home, graduate from school, launch out into a new career with a new job, develop a new social circle, and most importantly, take serious steps forward in a budding relationship progressing towards marriage… a fresh start in almost every way possible. In the face of absolute uncertainty as to the specifics of what these new starts would include, I started making plans. They sounded a bit like this: Plan A means living here and working at this place. Plan B would involve moving farther away and working in another location. Plan C entails a third living arrangement and a drastically different job opportunity. I factored in the possibility of moving to another state. I even imagined the worst-case-scenario and developed a plan for that situation.
I thought that I had figured out all the possibilities for the future and for this relationship. I prayed and asked God to show me which of these plans for me and my boyfriend was His plan.
But that’s when the rug disappeared.
The phrase to pull the rug out from under you means that someone or something upset your plans. Someone or something made your plans fall through. Someone or something caught you by surprise… leaving you confused, disoriented, and metaphorically laying on your back, staring at the ceiling, wondering what happened.
That’s what happened to me. My “rug” disappeared because it got pulled out from underneath me. God’s answer was that none of those plans were His plan. His plan is much different and does not include that man or that relationship in any way. Bewilderment and confusion washed over me for three weeks before I was able to start to verbalize my swirling emotions. They included sadness… anger… hurt… frustration… fear… anxiety… despair.
I went for a walk tonight, because I wasn’t really sure what else to do with myself. I’m exhausted. I want to start planning again and pick myself up and start moving, but I have no direction. Everything I thought was possible – and that I genuinely wanted with all my heart – was smashed to pieces.
As I walked, I thought about how God promises us in the Bible that he has a good plan for his children – a plan to give us hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). HE has a plan. HE has a GOOD plan. I don’t have to have the plan. His plan is infinitely better than any of my plans.
The problem with my plans was just that – they were my plans. I tinkered with my limited vision of an uncertain future, and asked God to tell me which option was good. The answer was that none of them were good compared to the awesome plan that he has for me. I wholeheartedly believe this is true. Time after time in the Bible, in the lives of my friends and family, and in my own life, God has worked out situations and circumstances with amazing perfection to bring about his glory and our good. I feel a little silly for sitting with my plans and asking God which one was the best – like he was limited to only the options I could think of.
I trust that his highest and best for me is beyond anything I could imagine. I know that the struggle will ease with time. I know that his grace will heal my broken heart. But from where I am sitting tonight, I don’t see the good. I don’t see the hope. I don’t see the future. I don’t feel the healing. I feel the excruciating pain. I don’t see the new path. All I can see tonight are the closed doors, the paths that God does not want me to travel. I’m living in the in-between.
So what are you supposed to do when the rug disappears?
To be honest, I don’t have a deep theological answer. I think you just tell Jesus. I think you run to him with your broken heart, shattered plans, and your confusion. I think you say, I have no idea what you are doing but I know that you are doing something that in the long run is good. I think you say, I was silly to think you were limited to what I could imagine for the future. I think you say, my heart aches and this stinks and I don’t like this. I think you say, Jesus I love you and I want to follow you and experience everything that you have for me, and I feel like the path is just really tough right now. And I think you let Jesus wrap his mighty arms around you and hold you until you are ready to get up off the floor, knowing that he understands your pain, understands your questions, and loves you unconditionally through it all. And I think once you are up off the floor, you take one step at a time into the amazing future God has designed for your life.
You, Lord, are forgiving and good,
abounding in love to all who call to you.
Hear my prayer, Lord;
listen to my cry for mercy.
When I am in distress, I call to you,
because you answer me.
degrees of brokenness 