best laid plans...

I pulled out my quote notebook this morning (yes, I have an entire notebook dedicated to the quotes I find and love and just have to write down somewhere--doesn't everybody do that?). I was looking for a very specific quote, and I had a post planned that would fit nicely with it.

The thing is, my quotes aren't organized. Kind of like in my life, physics and writing and Bible verses are all jumbled together with no real rhyme or reason. I can usually remember which side of the page a specific quote is on, but that still means I have to scan through at least half the book before I can find what I'm looking for.

This morning, while looking for the Mark Twain quote I was going to write about, I came across this:

The LORD will fulfill His purpose for me;

Your love, O LORD, endures forever--

do not abandon the works of Your hands.

~Psalm 138:8

I've struggled a lot with not knowing what's in store for me. Here in just over a month, I'll finish my Master of Science in Education and Physics, which follows my Bachelor of Science in Physics...but I have no idea what I'm going to do with my degrees.

Teach? Maybe, but I've come to find out lately that to be able to teach high school I will have to go through an alternative license program (despite the fact that I've taught and that part of my degree is education--gotta jump through those hoops, though).

Write? Maybe, but I've come to find out that it doesn't go very far in paying the bills.

To be honest, I'm scared about the future. I'm not good at not knowing. I told my best friend that not too long ago, and she told me that apparently that's something God is wanting me to be good at since that's the lesson He's been trying to get through my thick skull for so long (those weren't her exact words, but when you've known somebody for 20 years--wow, that's a crazy thought--you know what they're really saying when they're trying to say it nicely).

The thing is, even though I don't know, God knows. He has a plan in mind, and He's working every little thing in my life to bring me to where He wants me. Maybe I'm taking the long road because I'm just so stubborn that I fight against Him trying to shape me into who He needs me to be, but no matter how many twists and turns there are in the road, it still leads to His purpose for my life.

Yes, sometimes--most of the time--I wish God would clue me in on His plan. I wish I had a road map, something to show me the whole path planned out nicely. But God doesn't work that way. He does, though give me a promise:

"...He who began a good work in you

will carry it on to completion

until the day of Christ Jesus."

~Philippians 1:6b