When Your Calendar Loses Significance

Some people live in the moment and some people live by the plans on their calendars. If the title of this blog post piqued your interest enough to open it, chances are good that you fall in the latter category.

I’ve always been totally in love with my calendar. By the time every January 1^st arrived, I had added all the important events to my new calendar and had planned the next few days in detail.

When I was a little girl, I usually found one of those checkbook sized pocket calendars with one page per month to start my new year.  All the better if it had a ‘Precious Moments’ character on the cover.

Then I grew up to the daily planner with the structure of goals and to-do lists and schedules. For the next few decades, I lived by my planner to manage my family and career.

The year I could finally afford a leather Franklin Covey planner was the year I felt I had finally arrived! Each year after that, I relished shopping for my annual refill pages with the excitement of a child at Disney World. Eventually my calendar tools caught up with the electronic age, satiating my planning appetite.

But a few times in life my calendar has lost all significance.

There was the time in my late twenties when I went into premature labor with my daughter and spent four weeks on total bedrest. My busy schedule at work and home came to a stunning halt in an instant. My schedule narrowed to eating, sleeping and reading. Nothing else mattered than trying to get her into the world safely. Nothing on my calendar was relevant.

There was the time when my high school age son was in the emergency room getting a spinal tap to check for meningitis. One quick phone call to my office cancelled everything on my schedule. My calendar lost all significance.

There have been a few times when an illness of a loved one or mine has put everything else on hold for weeks.  My calendar lost its significance for a season and then returned with changed priorities and a different kind of significance.

A scripture in Proverbs says                        :

Many are the plans in the mind of a man,

But it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand. [ESV, Prov 19:21]

When life throws us a curve and our plans lose significance, we know that the Lord’s purpose will prevail. His plans for us always keep their significance.

As we welcome the beginning of another new year tonight, we wonder what 2018 will bring. For many people, 2017 was a difficult year and they are ready to pack it away and open the new tomorrow, hoping for a better 2018. That’s what’s so wonderful about a new year. A fresh set of plans. New possibilities. Hope for the future. And trust that His purpose always outweighs our best laid plans and never loses significance.