plans.

Life is a whirlwind. OK, I should clarify: my life has been a whirlwind. After a quick and exhausting (but totally smooth!) move in the dead of prairie winter (not highly recommended), we're back home from the Winnipeg Adventure of 2010. Short-lived, yes. But long-lasting effects? Most definitely.

In some ways, we're still reeling from our time away - so much happened that challenged us, angered us, frustrated us, and drew us closer to a faithful-though-everything-fails-us God. It was hard, but it was good. Kind of like exercise or eating cooked carrots. Not the most pleasant of experiences, but good-for-you-anyway. The most predominant thing on my mind as I process it all, though, has been the re-realization that life sometimes just doesn't go the way you plan. "Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails" is a verse in Proverbs that has been swimming around in my head for weeks. Our plan when we arrived in Winnipeg was so logical and practical and dare I say, boring. We thought A + B = C, but in reality, time proved us otherwise and we were stumped and stupefied. I believe with all my heart that God is loving and faithful, so I can now look at the disappointments and what we might falsely judge failures in our lives with a sense of hope, purpose, and gratitude. Of course I still sometimes wonder why certain things happened when they did, detail for detail - but I'm satisfied knowing that God remained constant to us in the midst of it all and that deep things were and are happening in us still because of what we experienced.

A teacher I really respect once said: "Never trust in what God is doing - always trust His nature." Isn't that just so true? We can never predict what God is going to do in our lives - and, as David and I learned during the past few months, this is true even when we act in faith and obedience to His leading. My circumstances will change; that is a sure-as-hell inevitability. But God never will. He's always good, always faithful, always patient, always driven by love, always unpredictable. I guess that's the risk we take in loving Him and letting Him love us, isn't it?

So here we are, back home, back into the swing of things, excited and grateful and wondering how God is going to move in the next few months. I think it's safe to say, though, that I'm quite content to just bask in His goodness for a while, enjoying the good things He's given us, but even more, the promise of His fierce and unpredictable love - regardless of the details.