The Best Laid Plans,
Part One, Growing up

It’s tough for Mom to grow up and let go of her grown up babies. When your baby has a mustache, surely he should be allowed to make up his own mind. Still, it’s not easy getting an opinion from a mustachioed, challenged son named Bud. He cannot write a sentence nor can he easily verbalize an answer a direct question. But a few weeks ago, I felt he could discern the plan for an upcoming week.
The trick was to present the choices and let him select a plan without his Mom using directed wording.

Sure we’d planned a year ago to return North, sweet, North, to help our friend Ms. Sue with her vision of a Vacation Bible School week. This time Ms. Sue envisioned 200 kids kerchief-tied and boot scootin’ in the Arizona painted desert. Over the year, in stores Bud pointed to cowboys and cacti for Ms. Sue’s theme. He had me buy a small resin stagecoach for Ms. Sue. Plus Southwest garden flags. A year before Bud even figured out the perfect song for the desert theme,

“Blessed be Your Name, when I’m found in the desert place..”
Two weeks before VBS My Beloved Hubby concocted a way for me not to chauffeur the arduous trip yet use our minivan during VBS week. He’d drive Bud and I north, leave us with the minivan, hop on a plane, go to work, then in a weeks time fly himself and our daughter back north so that he could drive us home.

“How sweet,” the vicar’s wife remarked upon hearing MBH’s idea. Meanwhile, Vicar thoughts were on the upcoming vacation Bible School he had to manage since the pastor was on a Brazilian mission trip. Usually VBS week occurs early June. This year our deep South church changed the dates to the same dates of VBS week up north.

So Bud and I had two plans from which to choose. As believers we had one will to discern, God’s singular direction for us. Meanwhile, Bud heard from a friend an hour and half away from us and in need of a break.

How did I find a way to let go and allow Bud to discern and express God’s will?
Monday before VBS my son was holding our Deep South church bulletin . . . Neon orange and pink inserts glowed like dewy fleece in the morning.

God hinted a way . . .

30 July 2009

The Best Laid Plans
Part Two: In The Land

Providence approved the best laid plans two Mondays ago. I told you how MBH engineered a way to get me to hang out with my Northern pals and still have use of our minivan. It's so cool driving around with friends you haven’t seen for a while.

One close friend, however, did come deep South recently. She took up our offer of a private suite and bath with meals and optional sightseeing jaunts.

My gal pal, Bud, and I came home from one of those jaunts with Georgia peaches and pecans. The bag of ready-to-eat peaches scented olfactory wonders, which wooed our tummies to desire. So I pulled Chinese rice bowls from the cupboard and set a free stone peach in each. Bud watched two moms dribble juice into the bowls as they sighed and savored each chew.

It’s a gift to live near abundant orchards and the largest, hand-packing peach company on the East Coast, especially when the fruits are peak-season plentiful. It’s a gift to share such delights with a special friend. And what a gift having the men-folk cook fresh peach cobbler that night.

All great visits seem too short. Bud waved as Mom shed a few tears as our friend backed out the driveway. Earlier that friend tried to dissuade me as I told her I’d see again her at the Cowboy Vacation Bible School. As that planned trip neared, two divergent travel plans rested on neon papers, each with large, printed letters so that Bud could comprehend the choices.

He held each paper in his hands. Usually I spouted directives at my boy,offering too many options. He'd then copy what I said, glancing at me repeatedly to nudge a response from me. But this time Providence muzzled my mouth, my control urges, as Bud looked to me for the answer to the Jeopardy question:

Where did God want us to go and serve?

From a high window sunlight beamed a bright square onto the floor. I told Bud to drop one paper like a decisive fleece into that square. His dark eyes stared into mine as he let flutter one paper a foot or so away from the sunny spot. To ensure the answer was "The Answer," I told him to place the right paper into the lit area. He moved the same paper and it glowed peach.

The day before we were to travel, Bud turned on the minivan radio to K-LOVE. Mommy’s eyes grew misty as did her son’s over the quiet guitar intro. The song playing was the very selection Buddy chose two years ago for the boot-scooting Cowboy Vacation Bible School.

How we yearned to boot scoot to the space we called “sweet home,” that land with friends who were closer than biological kin. Instead we had to drive home with groceries to feed Bud’s visiting pal. After the weekend visit, Bud was an aide at a Ride the Wave VBS, working the water slides and sports.
Don’t y’all know how soaked he got!! ;)

In the land just as sweet, I learned, better plans lay ahead . . .

Blessed be Your name
in the land that is plentiful.
Where Your streams of abundance flow,
Blessed be Your Name.