My mind is a jumbled mess. I will be doing the laundry or laying in bed when random words pop into my head. Existentialism. Sesquipedalian. Dogmatism. When my mind is empty, these words fill it up. And it’s exhausting. I used to be an educated woman, once upon a time. Maybe I still am. But all I feel is tired.

If I take a step back, I still know what those words mean. I don’t really believe in existentialsim. I have the potential to be a sesquipedalian but I am way too tired for that now, and it really seems so pompous anyhow. And dogmatism is some theological thing I suffered through back in college that I found extremely boring at the time.

As I sit here folding laundry the words keep coming and I can’t shut them off. Words that taunt me. Words that make me feel like I should be doing something else with my life. But that’s not right, is it? Because, I believe God has placed me here.

We make our own plans for ourselves sometimes, don’t we? Amazing and grand plans that we have for our life, but when it eventually unfolds life is nothing like we expected. If your life is actually how you planned it, that’s amazing and you are one of the few. “People may make plans in their minds, but the Lord decides what they will do.” Proverbs 16:9 (NCV).

That verse makes me smile because it is so my life. I had so many grand plans to just do and be. Do things that I thought would make me great. Be someone successful. God had other plans, and so I sit sorting and folding laundry and thinking of words from my past.

Because there is peace in knowing you are living in God’s planned path. There is peace in doing that, and in being that person. That is more freeing than existentialism. That is more important than being like a sesquipedalian shooting smart and educated words around. I am sure that is better than dogmatism too, because you’re doing what God wants for your life and not concerning yourself about being right without evidence or concern of circumstance. It’s just being with God. Listening to and obeying His divine appointments.

My divine appointments? They are so simple. Making a cake for my family to enjoy after I’ve seen them out shovelling our driveway full of snow, and the neighbours too. Looking around at my tidy house and noticing the children have done an exceptional job on their chores. And that little whisper that says bake the cake. And so I bake it.

My divine appointments can be blessings. Like working in a job that is below my experience, because God handed it to me. That job? It’s the perfect fit. I can leave in a flash to go and deal with my children should need be, without consequence. There’s really no job like that.

My divine appointments can be complicated too. When I got married, the plans I had made was to work in a job that would make me a career woman. Instead, we had a blessing pregnancy – immediately. Unplanned, but perfectly planned by God. That whisper of stay home, stay home was so difficult to listen to. But oh, how I needed to say home for the unexpected things that were to come. The autism diagnosises. The heartache. The need for a mother to be a focal point, to be available, to be as reliable as the rising sun.

Sometimes, my mind can be a jumbled mess of words from my past. Words from my present. Words. But when I hear those words and they taunt me, evoking regret – I stop. I pause and remember those divine appointments of the past – those whispered words I have listened to and the path they have taken me on. So I pause and pray and am thankful and ready for the next ones.

Until then, I’ll be folding laundry. Cooking dinner, sweeping floors, baking cakes. Doing something mindless because that’s something I’ve been chosen by God to do.