Good morning to everyone. Grace and Peace be with you.

I had a plan yesterday. I thought it was a good plan. It definitely was MY plan. So, when it did not happen the way I had envisioned it, I had to giggle. Nothing bad, really, just little things that were not part of my idea. I really only had two things, that’s incorrect … I had three things in my plan. 1) Sleep in. No alarm (got woke up by one of the kids having car trouble) 2) Retirement meeting (happened without a hitch) 3) Spend quality time with mom without a curfew to come home (got about an hour before I had to return home). All of this was completed by about 3 pm. So I took the rest of the day off and did not do anything until I cooked dinner at 630. All in all, a good day off.

Looking back at yesterday, it was a good day. What I really wanted to happen, happened. I had my retirement meeting, and my application to retire is on its way, and I got to spend some time with my mom. It was shorter than I had planned, but I will make it up to her this week coming up. I think that may be part of my problem here of late…I am not spending enough time with her. I know her time left here is shortening, and I do not want to miss any whimsical moments that she brings to the table of life. In just the little time that I was there, she told me how she got ‘called out’ at church on Sunday. It was true, and hilarious.

Here, let me tell you so you can giggle too. My mom is 80. Her inside voice is not always inside. This is important. Haha. The pastor was explaining how we all have this space inside us, and we try to fill it with worldly things (drugs, alcohol, sex, work, family, etc). He asked, I am presuming rhetorically, ‘Why do none of these items fill that space?’ My mother, oh how I love her, said … in her words … I was quiet, and no one was near me … ‘because they don’t fit’. She reiterated that she said it quietly. HOWEVER, the pastor looked at her and motioned in her direction, “Exactly. The worldly items do not fit. It can only be filled with God.”

In our lives as we grow, we make a plan for our success. We either want to be exactly like our parents, or we want to be nothing like our parents. The plan usually revolves around money. We don’t want to struggle, or we don’t want to be snobbish. But money is the central focus of our plans. So we try to fill the void in our lives with whatever we can to make us feel like a success. The world is out there telling us that we are failures because we are not rich, but money is not what is needed to have completion in our lives. God is.

So, when He disrupts our plans, it is because he wants us to be a success and rich beyond measure. Rich does not mean money. Rich means so much more. A richness in the quality of friends. A richness in a job you love. A richness in not worrying about paying the bills. A richness in empathy. A richness in love. A richness in His Spirit. True richness is inside where that space is.

What was your plan? Did God have a different idea? Most likely He did. What are you filling that hole with? If you are not filling it with Him, then it will never fill up properly. He is the only thing that will give you completeness. Something to think about.

Be blessed.

**Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out ‘Abba, Father’. So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. –Galatians 4:6-7