When I was young, I imagined life happened in a path-like, straight-lined, linear kind of way.

I imagined I would grow up, go to school, work, get married, have children… and live happily ever after, like all the love stories, rom-coms, and Hallmark movies that I would stay up past midnight, to soak into my impressionable brain and heart.

But my life has not followed a path that I had mentally pre-designed for myself, based on teenage dreams.

I did grow up, go to school, work, get married, and have children… but my “happily ever after” has not been the one I had always hoped for as a dreamy-eyed youth.

When Charles died… everything changed.

My linear dream-life path was demolished by a destiny of death.

My Prince Charming was taken before my ideal timeline, leaving me wondering what I was supposed to do with myself and my altered universe.

Since that time (more than ten years ago), I have been all over the place searching for a new kind of happily ever after. I have been searching for a new dream… a new straight-line path to follow.

But life is not a straight path… it is an eternal plan.

According to Miriam Webster Dictionary, a plan is: a strategy, a method worked out in advance for achieving some objective.

Some synonyms for “plan” are: blueprint, program, project, design, idea, procedure, intention, plot, purpose, stratagem, map, formula, layout, pattern… project.

None of these words invoke the feeling of a straight line path.

Life isn’t just a road we travel… it is an entire MAP!

Thinking of my life as God’s purpose for me, or blueprint, or stratagem… that makes me feel like my life isn’t about a timeline at all, it is about PURPOSE.

It is God’s purpose that my life has been what seems a little wonky to me… but it is not at all wonky to Him.

God sees the entire tapestry of life in a completely different way than my mortal mind can comprehend.

I see threads, He sees the full quilt.

One thing I have learned is that life is not linear, or a predictably perfect life-line back to God… it is an ALL OVER THE PLACE ADVENTURE back to Him!

One darn thing after another, until we return Home.

After Charles died, I remember thinking that should be IT. I hoped (naively) that experiencing death should be the end of big horrible things to happen in my life. But it was not the end. In some ways, losing Charles was like a portal opening to new bigger challenges more extreme than I could ever imagine for me, and my family. There have been tests and trials that I would have never considered a possibility to have to endure… and fight against.

Divorce and additional difficulties, have almost broken my already wounded spirit. And it is additionally hard, because I cannot write about it like I have written so openly about my grief, from death and being a widow. Being silenced on the subject is its own kind of pain. (Please do not speculate on divorce details… because the speculation would be just that, and would likely miss the mark. The details are far too complex to make assumptions that would land anywhere near the reality of the situation.)

Sometimes, it just doesn’t feel fair that there is compounding pain, after the original gut-wrenching blow of death, and the loss of my normal beating heart. Sometimes I wonder how I haven’t crumbled under certain pressures and experiences. But then I look and see that the pressure has only made me more powerful — with Jesus — to handle subsequent trials. In fact, some pains from right after Charles died, have dissipated completely. I thought they never would. Of course, there are new pains in place of old ones; but let’s not focus on that right now.

I still often ask God, why was I chosen to experience this life in such a lonely grief-filled way, at such a young age, with young children? Did I do something wrong? Are there eternal lessons I am too dense to learn, without experiencing such intense pain and loss?

I do not know why any of these things have happened to me and my family.

I have no clear answers for some of my big questions.

But I do know that life is not meant to follow the path I originally thought would be mine to travel.

This life that I am living now is my life, it is the plan for my life.

It is NOT my plan.

It is God’s plan… His purpose for me.

And I have to trust in Him and His vision of who He wants me to BECOME.

I do trust Him.

This does not take away my fear, pain, or sorrow.

But it does help me to keep my head and heart up reaching to heaven, through all of it.

When I was young, my dreams were just that… dreams.

Now that I am not-so-young, I no longer have dreams for what my life will be.

Instead, I have faith.

I have faith that everything I have experienced, has somehow, been for my good. (I shutter as I write that comma-filled sentence.)

I have faith that good things are still to come, in this life, not just in the next.

I have faith that the Lord will be, and has always been with me.

I have faith… that every little thing, is gonna be alright.

So, to my young girl heart that still surfaces sometimes, to see how this old girl’s heart is doing…

Even though life has not been linear, or the dream I dreamed… it has still been lovely.

The adventure is not over… and it never will be.

Hope still rules in my heart.

I may not believe in Happily Ever After anymore… but I do believe in Faithfully Ever After.

I will keep moving forward, sideways, backwards, up and down… and I will keep my face pointed towards the Heavens, even when my life plan seems like a jumbled-up mess.

I take comfort in the fact that, I cannot mess up God’s plan and purpose for me.

All I have to do… is keep going… with Him.