The Plan--what plan? me--plan? SS #172

I do make plans, often plans in great detail, but they are usually short range plans--decorating the bedroom, remodeling the kitchen, taking a trip to Pennsylvania or California, or even making sure that JR and I actually make the return trip to Europe that he promised to join me in taking. However, I don't think I actually make major long-range, capital "P" plans. I have general goals-sure; but basically, on the grand scale, I think I sort of just let my life evolve. I think I just figure that God has the grand Plan for me and He will show it to me in His good time.

I always knew I would go to college, get married, have a family,... I knew that at some point in my life I definitely wanted to travel in Europe, because Mom did with one of her sisters and she had such great fun stories of her trip. I really didn't have an occupational plan, because Mom was always a stay-at-home mother. I know she worked before we kids were born, but I never saw her go off to work. So, until JR & I met and fell in love at the university and he said, in my junior year, "Do you realize if you get out of here with a degree in literature, you will be an 'educated unemployable'?" I had never really thought about having an on-going occupation to help support a family. Silly me! Silly, short-sighted me!!

It was actually JR's suggestion that I get certified to teach. I had certainly played around mentally with the idea of teaching, was even in FTA (Future Teachers)club in high school. I loved school and most of my teachers and leadership and entertaining from a "stage", but I always talked myself out of any such serious plan because I knew I would hate the perpetual paper work. But by the end of college it sounded like a good plan and I embraced it.

Wow, was it a smart plan. When I did my intern teaching, I realized I really loved it! So that became my plan for the next 37 years. I did take half year segments off here and there--when they sent JR to war and later, after he returned safely, to have our daughter. Even eventually getting my Master's degree, which really did help shape my continuing career in education, was not a pre-made plan. One of the local private universities offered teachers a really good deal, to boost their own enrollment, and help us get advanced degrees without taking time off from actually working our day jobs. Several of my friends were doing it and, at that time, it was the only way to get a significant increase in salary in a short time; and we surely needed to get a significant pay increase. So I did it, and it opened new career doors for me that I hadn't even imagined much less planned. When I took the first administrative position that the new degree qualified me for, it was just a deal I made with a new principal so I could move to a school closer to home and still be teaching some of the "gifted" classes that I so enjoyed. If he would let me teach a couple of those classes, I would be his department head for language and arts to replace the lady who went to the "new" school.

I do believe in commitment! I stick with things. Is that plan or personality/ character? JR & I will have 40 years married at the end of this summer and I gave teaching 35 full years before I retired. Commitment is an important part of any Plan to me.

My "Plan"---if indeed I have one, I must believe is summed up in part of one of my daily prayers---originally created but from unoriginal, borrowed snippets from several sources: "Lord, make me an instrument of Thy will and Thy ways. Let my thoughts, words, and actions be governed according to Thy teachings. May Thy Love and Faith show forth in my life. And, please help me each day to become more and more nearly the kind of person You would like me to be."

It has been a good plan for me. I guess it is not a true Plan as many people would conceptualize one. Yet, it has stood me in good stead for many years. At this point in my life, I think I shall just stick with it.