Follow the Breadcrumbs

My counselor told me about a saying her daughter uses: "Follow the breadcrumbs".

The breadcrumbs that are the slow unveiling of your life - one crumb at a time.

I want to know where all of this is headed. What is God's plan for my life? What am I supposed to do? Should I keep doing this? Where is all of this leading? But he doesn't give me the 30,000 foot view. The future is not mine to know. I have today. I may have tomorrow. And slowly, breadcrumbs may appear, showing me the next step.

It's hard to even look back at what brought me here. But along the way there was college and picking a degree. Deciding on a roommate. Sending an email to get into a Bible study. Going bowling and meeting the people that would become my closest college friends. Including the friend who a few months later would introduce me to G. There was allowing him to walk me back to my dorm and saying yes to lunch before studying with a friend (the lunch that G was at when he went back to his dorm and told his best friend and mom that he'd met the girl he was going to marry). There was deciding on a roommate for Sophomore year and deciding not to request a specific dorm. Baking brownies for the girls on our dorm floor and taking the extra upstairs to G's dorm room. Saying yes to lunch and him pursuing my heart. Saying yes to going away for two summers and having a long distance relationship. Saying yes, I will marry you and sticking by his side when he collapsed and was life-flighted two months later. Saying yes to our missionary work and yes to moving. Yes, Yes, Yes. All these little choices that one step at a time turn into a life and a decade and a half later here I am - a widowed momma of a 7 year old boy who is back at square one

.

I told my counselor that I feel like I am 18 years old and 60 years old at the same time - and nothing in between. My life experience, my widowhood, my having been caretaker for a husband for over 10 years makes me feel like I'm 60. Yet, I'm young and figuring out who I am and what I want from life and what I'm supposed to do - like an 18 year old.

But I didn't have all this figured out when I was 18. I just went to college in my hometown and chose a major that sounded interesting. And then only little decision at a time (email, bowling, lunch), this story unfolded. The biggest blessings of my life - G and P - started with an email, really.

So maybe right now, my future is unfolding. Maybe right now, when I don't see a breadcrumb to follow so I'm just staying put, God's plans for me are coming to fruition. I can't see it. It's hard to believe it. But I am choosing to trust that he is working even this - this lack of direction- for his will.