A Lot can Change in 10 Years:

This weekend I went to my 10-year class reunion.   It was such a good time.  It was only a handful of us, but it was a good time to get together with those I hadn’t seen in a long time.  It was nice to see where life has taken each and every one of us.  Some of them were married with children, others had a few kids but were single moms, some were newly engaged or in other relationships. Some finished college and got the job they had always wanted, and some changed careers and positions recently.  Some moved to a new town or a new state they never would have imagined in high school. 

A lot can change in 10 years.  There are a lot of things people can accomplish.  There were so many wins to see and hear about from these past ten years.  But there were some sad stories.  There were some things that did not go as well planned as others would have liked.  There were some things people could not have predicted.  However, they got through it, and we were able to have a fun evening. 

Besides just having a fun time, being able to go to my ten year reunion was a great reminder that we are not in control of our life and our decisions.  When we all graduated, we all had slight plans and thoughts of what would be in our future.  Maybe we expected to already be married by a certain age or to have a specific job in the future.  Maybe some of us thought we would be living somewhere in particular and we are somewhere completely different.  Things change, people change, circumstances change, but I believe most of us from the reunion wouldn’t change completely where they are right now.  A lot of us were in happy places, even though we all had to get through low times.  

I even realized all of the great things I have gotten to do these past ten years.  I went and graduated from college, where I learned a lot about Cedar Falls and Waterloo.  While being a college student, I got the chance to work at a nonprofit, where it gave me the love of nonprofit work in general.  I studied and received my teaching degree.  I then had the opportunity to be a Spanish teacher for four years.  My original plan when graduating from college was to continue teaching, moving from Spanish to Social Studies.  However, I now have a new role at a nonprofit and I am an education coordinator back in my college town, which I would not have predicted originally.  I also had opportunities to learn to write and published a devotional book.  The Lord has really truly been with me every step of the way in this 10- year journey.  I am so happy I have been able to have the experiences I have been given.  I am so glad I was able to reflect on these ten years with the 10-year reunion party.  

There are a lot of verses in the Bible that bring up ways God plans for us and our futures.  Psalm 32:8 says, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.”  This is a good reminder that God has great insight to what we should do and where we should go in both our present and in our future.   He will be guiding and helping us every step of the way.  Another verse is from Proverbs 16:9 which says, “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.”  We can make the plans, but God is the one who will establish the final direction of where we will go.  I am not saying it is wrong to make plans or it is wrong to schedule anything, but it is important to realize that we can only have so many plans because God is the one who will ultimately be the plan maker and decision decider.  The Lord can establish the steps and the Lord can fulfill all the dreams we want to do. He has certain wonderful and beautiful things in store for us.  

The challenge for this week is to reflect on these past few years.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be the past ten years.  It could even be the last one or two.  There are a lot of changes that can happen in a short amount of time.  There are a lot of things that go the way we expect, and yet there are a lot of things that do not go the way we plan or the way we expect.  It can be great to reflect over how life can change in ways we expect or in ways we don’t expect.  I believe this is important to notice, because then we can be more grateful for the ways God has continued to lead and love us.