November 28th || Plan A

As a writer, I am constantly having a love affair with words. I write little hearts in the margins of books when I find a sentence that touches something deep in my soul and I’ve been known to cut phrases out of magazines and carry those little shreds of paper in my wallet to meditate on until they deteriorate. I write words and prefixes on my body (some more permanently than others) and I soak them in.

Sometimes the Lord strings the words I hold dear into sentences and stories on this site. But sometimes, He tells me to hold them close to my heart– a little gift just for me, a reminder that He sees me and knows right where I’m at.

~~~

On November 28th, 2015, I went on my first hike with both Abbey and Katie; it was on that day that I came to know these beautiful women on a heart level as we got lost looping our village and poured our souls out to one another, word by word, story by story.

We covered a lot of (literal and metaphorical) ground that day, and while I remember the jist of the stories told, the only words that stayed strung together in the recesses of my heart were Katie’s incredibly wise trail-ponderings:

 

“You know what I’ve been thinking a lot about lately? 

Jesus dying was God’s ‘Plan A’.

That makes me uncomfortable to think about, ya know? Because I think I’m realizing that means that God’s ‘Plan A’ involves a lot of pain and death and suffering sometimes… But I think that also means His ‘Plan A’ involves a level of love and grace and goodness I can’t even fathom…”

 

~~~

Last year on November 28th, 2016, I sat in my living room in Denver and drafted this blog, typing out Katie’s words for the first time. At the time, as I reflected on her wisdom, I felt a story brewing inside of me. I considered writing about that hike and the way those two beautiful women and their stories have forever impacted my life. But as I tried to spit out words, none of the stories my heart ached to tell felt quite right.

I wrote and deleted a handful of stories from 2016– each of which had taught me a heck of a lot about suffering and the agonizing learning curve associated with joyfully submitting my heart to God’s Plan A. And yet I knew none of those stories were the one I was meant to tell.

So I refrained. I wrote Katie’s words in my journal and this blog post remained a draft– a scattered graveyard of half-finished stories and confusion for another year.

Today, in relative hindsight, I can see that Katie’s words were a gift for me– both when she said them initially and when the Lord brought them back to my mind a year later.

On that year anniversary of our grand hike, the Lord was preparing my heart, not to write, but to soak in the truths discussed on those trails. By bringing Katie’s words back to my mind and allowing me to meditate on the Truth in them, He was preparing me for the story that He was writing for each of us– one that included the news that brought each of us to our knees a week later when we found out that our loved ones’ plane had disappeared on its way to Anchorage.

None of us with our limited, earthly perspective could’ve foreseen that the flight with Katie’s “adoptive” family (Scott, Kaitlyn, & Zach) and Abbey’s fiance (Kyle) would leave Port Alsworth that morning and reach it’s perfect destination in the arms of Christ, rather than Merrill Field where we thought it would land.

In all honesty, even a year later, this story is not the story that I would’ve written for any of us. (Oh the number of times I’ve arrogantly and pridefully thought to myself If only (insert situation here) were different over the last few months– as if I am somehow a better author than the Creator of the Universe…) The words that each of us have strung together over the last year as we have grieved and grappled with the loss of those close to us are not the words that I (in my ever-lasting desire never to be uncomfortable or to endure pain) would have chosen as dialogue for my own or my loved ones’ stories…

Yet, each of those words holds purpose as the Lord is constantly combining them to write a story that will ultimately bring Him more glory than I could ever imagine. Over the course of the last twelve months since the accident, Jesus has graciously allowed His Plan A to unfold before my eyes.

Has my stomach turned inside out at times as I’ve heard and read the words of my dear friend who lost her husband and two littles in that plane crash? Absolutely. Did I bawl my eyes out in Cambodia as I watched her second oldest son proclaim the goodness of God over and over again, even after losing his father and siblings? Oh, the term “ugly cry” doesn’t even begin to cover it. Did I trail run/scream/cry my way down the side of a mountain on July 15th– the day that “should have been” Abbey and Kyle’s wedding day– like a lunatic? You betcha. Do most of Abbey and my phone calls still involve the same tears that her blog illicit from me every time I read her words? Yes.

But through it all I have seen more of Christ’s relentless pursuit of each of my loved ones and His grace in our lives than I ever thought possible.

Since my first November in Alaska, the words of Isaiah 55 have been written into my heart and story through Andrew Peterson’s “The Sower Song”– a constant reminder that  “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9, English Standard Version).

The flight plan to Anchorage that I so desperately long to somehow still see fulfilled will forever serve as a reminder to me that our plans are not necessarily God’s plans.

His Plan A is infinitely more grand than mine. His Plan A, while occasionally painful(ly sanctifying), is higher than mine; for surely I (as I said before, with my aversion to pain and death) would never be Just enough to sacrifice my own Son for the salvation of the world. (And in the moments when I find myself on my knees, crying out tears that my heart could easily mistake for blood, I am thankful that I have a Savior who can empathize with me from the Garden of Gethsemane.)

In the searing pain of loss, Jesus has shown me that Katie’s words from November 2015 are exactly true:

This is His plan A.

Jesus dying to lay death in its own grave was and is Plan A.

The events in our lives that leave us at the end of ourselves, begging Christ to come in, nearer to our aching hearts are a part of Plan A.

While there are moments that the truth is incredibly difficult to swallow, it remains Truth.

~~~

In this season, as we celebrate an anniversary of sorts in our friendship and simultaneously draw nearer to the anniversary of the crash, Christ continues to teach each of us that perhaps it’s not (entirely) different stories that our hearts desire, but rather more of Him.

“Since then we have a great high priest who passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

(Hebrews 4:14-16)