According to Plans

A FEW NOTES: Please come back tomorrow when I’ll I feature a short interview with Mary DeMuth on her new book Thin Places; A Memoir. Then Thursday, I’ll offer a couples ‘basket-in-a-box’ giveaway in conjunction with a marriage devotion I’ll have running on our Proverbs 31 site. Please join us!

What a weekend! I thought I was facing a calm and ordinary three days–Friday night boys basketball games, a lazy Saturday to work around the house, get a little writing done, catch up on reading the comments left on Friday’s post about multi-tasking (with so many of you commenting, we’ll definitely talk more about that subject this year!) and finally a Sunday supper at my mom’s to celebrate four of the grand-kids birthdays. Instead, these last few days turned into a weekend I won’t soon forget.

Our daughter Kenzie was headed Friday from her home in Charlotte, NC with my P31 sister’s Melanie Chitwood’s family, to meet her dear friends, Cameron and his beautiful bride-to-be Chelsea, who both live in the Nashville area. They were planning to meet in the middle near Pigeon Forge, TN and was she ever excited.

With national TV and features like the weather channel, I’m sure many of you know where this is headed. (I couldn’t believe the vast number of you who left comments over the weekend saying you were snowed or iced in and loving it since it gave you a much needed break from your activity-overloaded lifestyle!)

I won’t tell you the entire story, as Mackenzie shares her thoughts below in a guest post, but I will give God the glory and give a shout out to my other P31 sister Whitney Capps for her quick thinking and decisive action. I’ll fill you in as to why after you read Kenz’s words.

Here is our 18-year-old daughter Mackenzie’s thoughts about her venture and adventure in the mountains of North Carolina this past weekend written Friday night near midnight :

Things don’t ever go according to plans, do they?

When we want our chicken to be grilled, it comes out fried.

We plan to go to the mall, and we get called to work instead.

You plan a lunch date, and your friend forgets.

You plan a long weekend with two of your best friends, and 8 inches of snow decides to fall and accidents surround you.

Let me explain.

About 3 weeks ago I received a text from my good friend Cameron. He told me that the last weekend in January was his weekend off and he and his fiancé, Chelsea, who I am also close with, wanted to meet me half-way between Charlotte and Nashville for a fun weekend get-away. What a perfect idea!

So, I checked with my school and my boss and began to work things out. We found a town, a hotel, fun things to do, and some movies to watch. Everything seemed to be going perfectly. Before we knew it, the weekend was here!

With bags packed and excitement in the air, I started my day. First, school. Second, work. Third, Cameron and Chelsea….here I come!

School went well and work was great. I packed my “girls” (aka. Lysa TerKeurst’s daughters, whom I was helping out with on Friday afternoon) for a weekend at the Great Wolfe Lodge with their dad. Then I hopped in my car, a half hour earlier than planned.

Things were looking good for me, and despite the fact that the weather man was calling for a “blizzard”, I ventured out. Me being a small-town, northern girl, I knew I could brave ANY storm. And I’d seen what southerners call a snow storm. I call it a ‘dusting’. :-)

Well the snow began to spit. Nothing much, just a few flurries. As I made my way to the mountains, nothing was going to stop me.

The further I drove the worse it got. The treetops began to be feathered with white fluff, and the road became damp. I assumed that it would get better.

However, it didn’t.

About 30 minutes later, the trees were white, the ground was slick, and the southerners around me began to slip and slide and honestly, I began to laugh a little.

As traffic came to a crawl, things began to get worse. Soon we were stopped.

After sitting still for about 15 minutes, I got out of my car to see what was going on. About four cars in front of me, there was a jeep stuck in the snow. As these now-cold southerners sat in their warm new BMW’s, Mustangs, and Jaguars, I saw this one poor man who was struggling to get his SUV out of the ditch with the help of his passenger.

Being the northern girl that I am and observing their spinning wheels, I knew they were only making it worse by digging themselves into this ditch. I threw on my leather jacket, grabbed my fleece, and headed out to help. I rigged a little “Yankee traction” under the tires, taught them how to “rock” the vehicle and helped them out. I chuckled under my breath as I got back into my 1998 Buick.

We actually began to move again. However, it did not last long.

Suddenly things were dead. With 8 inches of snow around us and no sign of movement, people were getting impatient and finally emerging from their cars. There were so many accidents that the interstate and all exits were now completely closed until morning. Many were abandoning their cars to try to get to safety.

With my gas gauge almost to empty, I decided the best thing to do would be to abandon my car too and walk.

Walk with ALL of my belongings for the weekend to the nearest hotel. Mr. Scott (Chitwood–my southern dad) called and made reservations at a hotel at the next exit for me. (Thank God!)

So, I began my hike.

I met a girl on the way and we got to talking. But then as our fingers began to go numb on our nearly 3-mile walk and our chattering voices fell silent.

However, my thoughts piped up.

You see, in my head I was going over all of my many complaints: my feet were cold, I couldn’t feel my hands, my nose was running, my shoulder really hurt, I might not get to meet my friends, I was hungry. The usual self-centered ‘I’ and ‘me’ statements.

But suddenly, I began to think about all of the things I was carrying.

My coach purse my parents got me for my 18th birthday; my MacBookPro laptop I bought with my graduation open house money; my Nikon camera; my clothes; my cell phone; my movies. And as I did, a picture popped into my whining and complaining mind.

I thought about all the people in Haiti.

They were in the same boat as me, only worse.

You see they don’t even have any of those nice things to carry.

They can’t walk a few miles to a waiting, warm bed.

They don’t have clean water.

They can’t even pay $10 for an over priced salad at the hotel restaurant.

I began to realize that I was blessed.

We are all blessed.

Even when things don’t go as we planned.

Even when we have to walk.

In the cold.

In a half-foot of snow.

For three miles.

Still, we are blessed.

To put an end to my story– a nice family who hardly spoke English gave both the girl I was walking with and me a ride the rest of the way to the hotel. I got checked in and am now waiting out the storm. They say it won’t be until Sunday that I can get my car and leave.

Right now, I am taking this time to be still; to pray; to think about how blessed I am and the way God works things out.

Things may not always go according to our plans, but they are always in line with God’s plans.

___________________________________________________________________________

Okay…..Karen here again. Now let me tell you, Paul Harvey style, the rest of the story.

It was nearly midnight Friday.  I had just sent an email out to my personal prayer team and all of my P31 sisters asking for prayer for my baby girl who was stranded somewhere alone a few hours west of Charlotte.

So, I asked Kenz to please look at the hotel literature and tell me what town she was in.

“Fletcher, NC” she said.

“Okay honey. Good-night. I love you.” I hung up the phone and switched on the weather channel.

JUST THEN the weather man, when giving news on the now-strengthening storm, declared, “The eye of the storm is centered over the small town of Fletcher, North Carolina.

For the first time, I began to cry.

And panic.

And let my mind wander.

And plan a funeral for my “stranded-all-alone-in-a-winter-storm-in-a-strange-hotel-and-kidnapped-by-a-bad-man-never-to-be-heard-from-again” daughter.

(Have you ever noticed how we moms can plan an entire funeral when our driving-aged kids are 15 minutes late?)

All of a sudden, the ringing phone startled me out of my mental fog.

It was fellow P31 speaker Whitney. She lives in Atlanta. When I saw her name on caller ID, I assumed she was calling to pray with me and I welcomed it.

But it was even better.

She was calling to say that she was speaking next week at a church event in the Asheville, NC area (where she thought it sounded like Kenz may be). She had texted Kenz to see exactly where she was. Then, she had bravely called the event coordinator, a deacon at the church, getting him and his wife out of bed. She told them of Kenz’s plight and asked just where in the Asheville area they lived. Perhaps they were within driving distance.

Oh sweet Jesus……they live in Fletcher!!!

Whitney gave each of them the other’s contact info and this sweet young couple and their darling two-year-old son rescued Mackenzie early Saturday morning.

They fed her; gave her a place to stay; helped her track down her car the next day which had been towed and which the state police had no idea to where. They loved on her, made her a part of their family and made her homemade pancakes to boot!!! Sunday they got her back to her car and back on the road headed home.

I may never meet this angelic family this side of heaven but you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be hugging on their necks the minute we all three are inside the pearly gates! For they perfectly lived out this truth. The scene is heaven:

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'” Matthew 25:37-40

I marveled once again at our God. He is always in control. Kenz’s right….everything may not be according to our plans.

But according to His plans.

Oh…and He is quite comical sometimes too. As I sat in my home church Sunday morning with Kenz’s end to her saga nearly in view, the special music ensemble sang these words loud and clear…

“Keep me safe until the storm passes by…” :-)

What about you? Have any storms you are currently smack-dab in the eye of? The same God who rescued my Yankee girl, using a few of his sweet southern saints to help, can do the same for you if you will follow her lead.

Cry out.

Accept help from others.

Stop the “I” and “me” statements already and instead, learn the lesson He’s trying to teach you in the midst of it.

I plan to follow my daughter’s example this very week in the midst of my own personal storm. How about you?

____________________________________________________________________________

Congrats to the winner of Friday’s organizational giveaway. She is:

Marcie Kay

Timestamp: January 29, 2010 at 2:53 pm

Send your mailing address to me at [email protected] so I can get your prize to you!

Storm-surviving Blessings,