This day last year I published a blog post about how our plans to go to Jamaica had gone awry and that as a result we were left feeling hurt, lost and unsure of the way ahead.

It’s been a long twelve months, with several more twists and turns along the way, but eventually through the mist a plan began to emerge. It didn’t happen all at once, like miraculously finding a piece of long lost treasure, but rather bit by bit, as though gathering together the parts of a puzzle and seeing how they might fit together until eventually you realise you have something forming in your hands.

All being well, two weeks today my husband and I will be flying to Jamaica to work with a project that is actually a much better fit for us than what we were going to do last year. There is still a lot that is unknown and uncertain but the fact that we are filled with peace tells us that we are on the right track. God has been faithful and kind in the process and we have been surrounded by extraordinary love and generosity by friends and family, both in this last year and as a way to make the path ahead possible.

I have been reflecting on these events in the last few days and drawing out the lessons I have learnt along the way.

1. Talk is cheap. Real love shows up in times of crisis with messages and prayers, offers of help and places to stay, coffee and cake.
2. Generosity comes from surprising places. When you humbly lay your need before people, they step up and bless you in ways that blow your mind.
3. My plans are not His plans.

This last one is significant. I’m a planner. I like to know what is happening and when. Previously I would lay out for people what we were going to do in Jamaica and when, and then the goals would shift a bit and I’d slightly adjust those statements but still state clearly what would happen and when. Until it all was taken away and we had nothing happening for an unknown and indefinite period of time! At that point we realised that we had a choice. We didn’t know what lay ahead. Maybe God would bring us a Plan B for Jamaica, or maybe we’d never go back and we’d never know why. But our plans are not His plans and the question was: would we trust Him regardless?

At the end of last year’s blog post I wrote these words:

The list of things that I don’t know right now is significant. I feel disorientated and lost.

And so I will remind myself of what I do know.

God is good.

He will never leave us or forsake us.

He is before all things and in him all things hold together.

It’s a short list, but significant. It’s what we hold on to as we wait.

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I don’t know what the future holds. I’m much more open-handed with my plans now. I don’t talk in definites or absolutes. The list of things that I don’t know is still significant. But I no longer feel disorientated or lost. Because I remind myself of the things I am even more sure of now than I was a year ago.

God is good.

He will never leave us or forsake us.

He is before all things and in him all things hold together.

It is a short list. But it has everything we need for the way ahead.