There WILL Be A Glitch

A friend whose daughter is getting married this weekend asked me for advice in navigating the wedding ceremonies.  The best thing that I could tell her was to have fun and EXPECT something to go “not quite as planned.”  There is a level of insecurity and frustration in expecting everything to be perfect.  And there is a peace in knowing that we (as well as the people who are working the wedding) are imperfect.  SOMETHING will go awry.  In my oldest daughter’s wedding, the flowers arrived an hour late.  In the next family wedding, the groom’s tux was missing.  I attended a wedding in Memphis a couple of years ago where – after months upon months of planning the perfect summer wedding– the air conditioner at the church was not working on one of the hottest days of the year.  And, at the end of the day, in all three situations, the bride and groom were married, which when it comes down to it is the whole point of the day, glitch or not.  Some things ARE beyond your abilities.  When our girls were little and plans were spoiled by sickness or bad weather or other childhood calamities, I used to tell them, “There are some things in my control, and this is not one of them.”

And through all of the things in life when detours, speed bumps, and dead-ends happen, remember that the situation did not come as a surprise to God.  Because in God’s economy, there are no glitches.  There is a reason and a purpose, even if it is something we cannot see and even if it is only to remind us that –surprise!-- we are not in charge after all.  Last weekend, the battery in our eleven year old truck died.  We were inconveniently stuck for awhile at the farmer’s market, but hey, at least we weren’t stranded on a lonely section of Interstate somewhere in a rain storm in the middle of the night.  My husband went to get a new battery at Autozone since that was where he had one replaced before about eight years ago.  When the clerk went to check their records, it turns out that the full-replacement warranty had 18 days left on it.  Eighteen days.   That “glitch” in our Saturday morning plans turned out to be a blessing.

Biblical worldview is not just what you believe.  It is how you see life through God’s eyes.

Many are the plans in the mind of a man,

but it is the purpose of the LORD

     that will be established.

                                  Proverbs 19.21