My Life

I've likely written about this before, and I may write about it again, and that's the way it's going to be. Every now and then you'll get reruns of a sort as the same thoughts run through my head.

This is not the life I had planned.

I was going to grow up, go to university, become a teacher, get married, and raise a family. I was supposed to have children (many children).

So I got part of it: I grew up (mostly), went to university (for 3 degrees, so that was more than I had planned) and became a teacher.

The rest went off-script. Somehow I found my self in my mid-forties, still single, still childless.

Most of the time, I really, really love my life. I have a good job, I have family, I have a church family that fills in the spaces. I do really well living alone (I often wonder how I would cope with having people around all the time).

I have children, of course. Aside from the work kids (who come and go), I have all of my church kids. There are so many of them, and I claim all of them as my lambs. I teach them and play with them and boss them around (and when they're very young, they're pretty sure I run the church since I'm the grown up who takes care of children's ministries and also children). They come to visit me and I go to visit them. I have pictures that they've drawn on my fridge and little crafts that they've done for me scattered here and there. There are Lego creations that in the living room that I agree to leave together at least for a time, and since I have books and bins of toys for when they visit, it might almost look like children belong here.

Sometimes, though, it's hard and a bit lonely. I wonder what I've missed by not getting the traditional, expected life. I look at families and realize that I'm just a bit on the outside (or on the edge, where I belong, but not quite completely).

I don't regret my life, please understand that. I know that God has a plan for everyone, and this is His plan for me, and it's the best plan for me. I can even see the incredible rightness of His plan, how it fits my personality and my gifts (also part of His plan), and I rejoice in all that He has given me, including families (the psalmist says that He puts the homeless in families, and I realize how true that is when I see how many families claim me).

I think I'll always wonder sometimes, a bit, why this is what God chose for me. I'm not fighting His will, and I'm not wishing away that life that I have; as I said, it's a really good life.

On the hard days, when I'm not sure why things are the way they are, I listen to music that reminds me that it's all the way it's meant to be. This is my latest favourite (mostly for the chorus):