In the spring of my senior year of high school, I came up with three rather bold plans for the future:

1. I was going to marry a millionaire. There were a lot of things I wanted to do and a lot of things I wanted to buy!
2. I would never have any children. Babysitting had taught me that children were a nuisance, and a lot of work besides.
3. I would never live in Poulsbo. Small towns were boring.

I announced these plans and, really, boasted about them to my friends. They were somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but somewhat serious as well. And so I went off to the University to pursue my dreams of career and success. I would do what I wanted from now on.

The wonderful job I found, living on a lake and working as a mother’s helper began to get in the way of having a good time. So I quit. After four quarters of school, I tired of the continual homework and quit school. I decided to get some job training instead. Unfortunately, I found that the second-year students in my dental assistant training class were very unhappy with the school’s program, so I quit that too. My mom had to come to Seattle to help me get my money back on that one. I decided to just get a job.

After six months of working for a large insurance company the typing job became tedious, and I looked for something more exciting. After a year of the glamor of a stock brokerage, I decided that what I really wanted was to go back to the University, so I sold my sports car and enrolled in school once again. I changed degree programs twice while there this time, and began to date a psychology professor.

One day, on the way to school, God gave me a look at where I was headed. Though I had received Jesus as my Savior when I was nine, I really hadn’t listened to Him much since junior high. Periodically I would come under conviction for the sin I was involved in and make resolutions to change, but I found that in actuality I couldn’t change myself. Now He intruded on my life, in His mercy, and opened my eyes to exactly where I was headed. I saw that the choices I had made in friends, activities and goals had led me on a downward path and, worse of all, in my searching for direction I now had no idea where to turn next. I had moved thirteen times in the last four years, changing jobs and plans like one would change her socks. Nothing satisfied. My relationships were wrong, and especially my relationship with God. I made my plans, but I never asked Him what His plans were for me.

The word “repent” means a change of mind, to turn from the direction you are going and go the other way. A 180 degree turn. This is what I did that day. I told God that I was sick of my choices and I wanted to go His way. Within a little more than a year I found myself:

1. Married, with both of us unemployed.
2. Pregnant.
3. And living in a tiny house in, of course, Poulsbo.

I have never had the opportunity to spend a million dollars, but I have been made rich in blessings that money can’t buy, like a husband who loves me; and we have never been in want.

And children? Why we have five of them, and the seventh grandchild is due any day now. I never quite got that University degree, but I have had the joy of homeschooling my kids, and watching them begin to teach their own children at home.

And you know, we have lived on that same piece of Poulsbo property for 36 years now. Our kids had the opportunity to grow up next door to their grandparents, raise all kinds of animals and play in safety. I never got to live in exciting or exotic places, but I got to travel to Siberia to get my youngest daughter.

“For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11

I have never regretted trading my plans for His.