“You make your plans, and you hear God laughing…Life changes, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.” – Life Changes by Thomas Rhett

Love, LOVE, L O V E this song!  It is real life. It is so true.  We make plans all the time, and it (life) doesn’t always go according to plan.  This happens and all we are left to do is shrug and move on… or dwell on it, and be unhappy.  Make plans and change plans. We just need to be flexible. 

A real life example happened this week.  Without much advance planning, the two of us found ourselves planning to attend a teacher educator workshop at the University of Michigan.  That was our plan as of last week anyway…

Wendy’s story…

Waking up in an airport motel…(not a college dorm room, Mr. Thomas Rhett 🙂 ). Plans were in place to fly out of Sioux Falls on Monday to meet Dr. V. at the Minneapolis airport at 6:30 a.m. and then we would be on our way together to the educator workshop in Michigan. I had an early flight so stayed in the airport motel. My alarm gently woke me up at 3:00 a.m. and by 4:30 a.m. I was boarding the airplane. My first thought was, ‘seriously, who flies at 5:00 a.m.?’  Well, I discovered a lot of people do. This flight was full with over 100 people on board. 

The plane was pushed back from the gate at 4:55 a.m. which made me smile and think this was going to be great…5 minutes ahead of the planned take off.

Ain’t it funny how life changes (it sure does, Mr. Rhett). Plans changed. About 15 minutes after we were pushed away from the gate, the captain came on the intercom and announced there were some engine ignition problems but that it should only take about 15 minutes to correct. He also announced that we’d have to be pushed/pulled back to the gate to take care of the issue. So we waited. We were finally pushed to the gate about 15 minutes later.

Meanwhile, I’m texting Dr. V. and my husband. He is behind the scenes trying to find flights and seats, which were limited. Maybe one that would get me to Michigan late. Bummer.

Forty minutes later, the captain came back on and apologized with more bad news. The mechanics team wouldn’t be able to arrive to fix the problem for at least an hour maybe more so the plan was to deplane. All passengers were allowed to get off.

Ya make your plans and ya hear God laughing. (Yes, indeed, sir. Proverbs 16:9 says it this way “We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.” Can I get an Amen?). Because this was a mechanical issue, I was given full refund of my flight ticket. No questions asked. My plan was to join Dr. V. in Michigan. I guess God had a different plan.

Have fun, Dr. V. Can’t wait to hear all about it. 🙂

We don’t always know why our plans don’t work out, but that’s life.  So keep making plans… Just don’t get too disappointed when they don’t always go the way you had planned.  Great thought for all of us – especially for educators. 

Stay tuned for more on Practice Based Teacher Education….

Stay Calm & Plan On!
Profs Dr. Wendy & Dr. V.