Jaci Velasquez's When God Rescripts Your LifeSample

Where are my girlfriends who like to plan? The ones who gather their ideas and pull out their calendars and create a mental model of how things are going to roll out, whether it’s a wedding, a baby shower, a job trajectory, a life?

If you raised your hand, we have that in common. We are the women who get things done. See a need and meet a need, whether it’s a project at our kids’ schools or a business idea that needs some fuel. While I love a good adventure and I sometimes find a thrill in not knowing exactly what’s around the corner, I usually like to see what’s around the bend. I want to know what’s on the horizon for my boys at school. I find reassurance and constancy in every Friday night being family pizza night in our jammies at the house. Sure, I want a little wiggle room for some creativity, but overall I like things to make sense, events to happen when they’re supposed to, and well-laid schedules to roll out just like I planned.

And every now and then, they do. . . .

Our plans become our scripts, and we like things to go according to script. We like knowing our “lines,” being able to anticipate how we think our lives will play out. So when things go “off-script,” as they say in the acting business, when life seems to go all improv on us, it can make us feel dizzy. Confused. And a little crazy. But those things that take us off-script, those challenges and unexpected messes, well, I haven’t yet found a paper planner or smart phone app, organizing blog or Pinterest pin that can remove those obstacles from my life.

But I have met a Maker who has some ideas. A Creator who is very, very good at taking the unexpected, the unwanted, the unwarranted, the unanticipated, the unforeseen and somehow changing them into the elements of an amazing story—a powerful life. He doesn’t promise convenience, preferred time schedules, or tidiness. Frankly, he sometimes reminds me of the cable or appliance repair guy who, rather than giving me a specific appointment time to make repairs of my life, just asks me to hang around all day and he’ll get there. Eventually. 

And he does.