See, I had a grand plan and expectations from the bottom of my heart to the top: to go to Paris. It might seem frivolous, but it was a life dream of mine and as Audrey Hepburn famously said, "Paris is always a good idea." She wouldn't lie, not with those big glistening eyes! I set my heart right on my own plans that I crafted. I even did all steps to get myself there, save for one thing on which I hesitated...buying my plane ticket.
I had just begun attending my church, and returning to a life immersed in a community of believers after a year and a half of solitary faith. In hindsight, of course, it is so clear to me now - knowing all that I have learned in the just over five years I've spent at Mercy Vineyard - that I didn't even think to really see if I was supposed to go. Thankfully, God steered me in my conscience, and I could not manage to buy that plane ticket. The date edged closer, and though I constantly talked as if I was going, I never bought it. At a point of no particular consequence or significance in my memory, I came to the conclusion it would be irresponsible for me to go, and quite frankly a terrible decision. And again, in retrospect, I was trying to force something that just wasn't.
I didn't really express the disappointment I felt to anyone. In August, shortly following my decision to stay stateside, I went to a Vineyard conference in Duluth with some friends. Again, though insignificant in memory, something in the teaching or singing prompted me to go up to the front to get prayer (in my early months of Mercy every call to receive prayer was for me; I lived up front of the church getting prayer!) Despite what I asked for prayer for being completely unrelated, the woman who prayed for me, Amy (the older sister of my now best friend) having never met me or knowing anything of my life, she spoke right to the part of my heart that broke for my crushed dream. Even her words are lost in my memory, but the sentiment is absolutely not. I was rocked that a perfect stranger not only knew exactly what was on my heart, but took the risk to speak to it what she heard God saying.
Part of it was, God knows the huge disappointment on your heart, but He wants you to know He has something even greater in store. I didn't know the full weight of what that would look like, but in that instant the big dream broken into pieces and the unknown of the immediate future were peripheral. God just spoke to my heart, what I really needed to hear. And He wasn't lying.
To this day, I will say Paris was the best thing I've done in my life. It was far beyond what I could have imagined...just like God had told me through Amy. That time was not only a huge blessing for all it encompassed, but a great lesson in patience, trust, discernment, and wisdom. For me, it is one of the things in my life that exemplifies a characteristic of God that I firmly believe in: He is a good and perfect giver. Often, the reality of having been given such a great gift hits me, and it makes me cry. It's already come and gone, and I still can't believe it was given to me. My heart bobs at the thought; both sad that it's gone, and joyful that it was mine.
Now, when faced circumstances that go against the grain of my wants - though I may have to remind myself - this is the lens I view it through. I find peace in knowing that, whatever comes, He doesn't disappoint, rather He surpasses, and is lavish.
"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways...declares the LORD." Isaiah 55:9
