If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

I was thinking the other day about how every plan and every dream I ever had for myself has not or is not working out.

And I am completely okay with that.

I can vividly remember telling my “life plan” to my junior year English teacher with FULL confidence that it was going to work out. She smiled and simply told me to let her know when it all happened the way I wanted it, and I smiled and simply said “I will!”.

My plan in a nutshell (I am only okay with sharing this embarrassing information on my blog to further prove a point later. I find this hysterical!):

– attend UA and become a member of Capstone Men and Women my freshman year
– earn a degree in Journalism and become a primetime news anchor right out of college (because of allllll the “great” experience I would surely get in college… right!)
– find a great college ministry to get plugged in to, meet a great Christian guy from church second semester freshman year, get engaged spring semester junior year, and getting married at the end of May after I graduated in 2010 (I told you this would be ridiculous)
– Eventually live in the Hamptons in New York when I took Katie Couric’s place…

The outcome of these “plans”:
– I did not even get a second interview for Capstone, which was EXTREMELY humbling (in a much-needed way)
– Earning a Journalism degree would land me a job as a JOURNALIST, not a news anchor. In Fall 2007, I switched to Broadcasting, which would SURELY lead to a great news anchor job. Yeah, right. After painfully applying to five summer internships and never hearing back for ANY, I began to thinking twice about this high school dream. Everything I wanted in a career pointed to being a secondary educator, and after A LOT of prayer, God answered my questioning in one HUGE way at church one night. I quickly switched my major and went crazy catching up on required courses.
– I DID find an amazing college ministry, but did NOT find my husband there. My future husband was attending West Point and would be an officer in the Army one day. After watching my sister and my best friend Ashley’s military relationships, a military life was the LAST thing I wanted.
– I would NOT graduate in May 2010 because I was now behind on education courses.

I made one BIG plan in college, and that was to teach at my former high school. I planned on this until June 2010. I had what I thought was a verbal job offer, but I did not receive the OFFICIAL job offer to teach at Bob Jones until July 15th. I had already given up hope on getting this “official” word weeks before, and accepted a job at St. John’s Catholic School; a school I knew nothing about. I am also not Catholic and knew nada about the Catholic faith. Oh well. I just considered it a job and was happy with the security of it. I enjoyed July with Jamie stress-free of job searching. It made me a tad sick when I got the offer at BJ, but four months later I am so incredibly happy right where I am. St. John’s is the perfect fit for me right now. I could write another whole post with every reason I’m thankful to be there, but I’ll save that for another rainy day. 🙂

In 18 months I am marrying the military man I never wanted but always dreamed of. There are so many aspects of the military life I will thrive in, and I can’t wait.

The point of this post – God can dream much bigger dreams for you than you can dream for yourself. It’s incredible. I always think I know what’s best for myself, but God laughs and says “No, no, Erica. I know best for you!” I have shared this with a couple groups of friends this weekend, and they all agree that it’s so true – God knows best. Trust Him no matter how difficult it may be.

The job situation really was all the proof I needed that God is in control. I have the dream job I never dreamed of. He knows best. Bottom Line.

I hope someone reading this finds some comfort in this fact. Hindsight is always 20/20, and am thankful that someone else is, and always has been, in control.

PS: A recap of our amazing beach wedding