My Plan

I’ve never thought I had much of a testimony. I grew up in church and never left. My parents divorced but they had an amicable relationship. I had wonderful, Christian friends who preferred movies and card play over drugs and alcohol. While I appreciated the fact that I’ve never had to go through any of the strife and turmoil that people with really “good” testimonies have, it is kind of boring to tell my story.


Well let me tell you My Plan. My Plan after high school was to join the Air Force, get stationed somewhere in Florida, get my education and get out after four years. Well that was almost nine years ago now. The only part that actually happened the way I planned was joining the Air Force. Just before they handed out our assignments, I was talking to my fellow trainees and said, “I bet they’re going to send me to some place terrible, like New Mexico.” So of course a month later I was off to the Land of Enchantment. After being there a year I had a chance encounter with a lovely young lady who I courted and then married. God’s Plan.

Ok, fine. My Plan revised; be married for two years, get stationed in Europe and have our first of 2-4 children while there. Well we got shipped of to Europe alright, but it was about 900 miles from the mainland, on the Portuguese island of Terciera. No biggie, it’s still Europe, right? So after being there a bit we started trying for our first child. We celebrated our first (though apart the day of), second and third anniversary while on the island and while we weren’t “trying” for most of it (at least I wasn’t aware we were) we weren’t not trying either. After three years of marriage and having never practiced any form of birth control other than Natural Family Planning there was no offspring. So we’ll go see the doctor at our next base, which is going to be Aviano Air Base, Italy. It’s going to be awesome!

After we moved into our house in Shreveport, Louisiana, you know, the Italy of the South, we sought about getting checked. After months of all sorts of uncomfortable, embarrassing tests, the doctor tells us we’re perfectly healthy! Which is great and all, but you can’t fix healthy. We were diagnosed with “unexplained infertility” which means that the docs ain’t got a clue what’s wrong. Statistically speaking there was a 20% chance of Holly EVER getting pregnant from now until menopause (normally a woman has a 20% chance a month). So, basic math, there’s an 80% chance that we’ll NEVER get pregnant. Well we knew that God wanted us to have children, His idea of how was just different than ours.

New plan. We didn’t feel like it was right to go down the medical manipulation path, so what do we do? We’ll adopt. But since we don’t have $30,000 sitting around in the bank, we have to look alternatives. We eventually decided upon getting Foster/Adoptive certified in Louisiana, which will make us eligible to adopt from several other states as well. But we only want to foster children that we will eventually adopt. Our first to kids were not up for adoption, they were actually only needing a home for “2 or 3 weeks”. A month later we got a third child whose fate was also uncertain. Plan’s not working! Two months later the first two finally go home and we have a two year old and new born come to live with us that ARE going to be adoptable…eventually. This past Fall, the third child whose fate was uncertain gets to move in with his brother and his foster family that plans on adopting them both. Very cool. Back to two. Ok well we’ll adopt Xander and Lorelei and next spring we’ll think about looking into what options we have for acquiring our third child in the coming year. Good spacing and all. Sounds like a Plan!

On April Fools day, Holly called me at work and tells me her Coffee Story which, since I was helping a customer at the time wasn’t making a whole lot of sense to me until she got to the part about the “two pink lines”. My first response was, “that’s not funny, I don’t care what day it is” followed shortly there after by, “I’ll have to call you back”.

So, let’s recap. According to My Plan, right now I’m supposed to be living back in Naples, Fl, maybe married, maybe living in my Mom’s house. If married we’d probably be working on our second, and final, kid right now. I’d either be in a dead end, crap job or unemployed. According to God’s Plan, I’ve seen 9 different countries, am married to the most intelligent, wise, resourceful woman that there is, have a job that has forced me to grow as a leader, I’ve gotten to be a Daddy to 5 wonderful children, have another one on the way, I’ve meet and befriended some of the coolest people on the entire planet, and have a greater understanding and appreciation for God and the amazing design that he’s woven into each person and things that he’s created. So, which is better?

I’m a planner. I’m always thinking logistics, what I’m going to say (I’ve been working on this speech in my head for three weeks now), what could happen if. It’s very hard for me to just throw my hands up in the air, close my eyes and go were The Wind (a.k.a. The Almighty) takes me. But it’s a learning process and the more I see God’s Plan, the more I learn to keep My Plan in pencil. So, know that when I talk about my Chazown, nothing is set in stone. Just help me remember that from time to time, ok?