"The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men . . .

. . . often go awry." Robert Burns had it right!

I’m an organizer, at heart. You should have seen my precise schedule of tasks and appointments for our upcoming move that were spelled out in a beautiful, bulleted, 2-page “to-do” list. I was happily ticking them off, one by one, including renting an apartment for the six months we will stay in Albuquerque, before moving on to Texas; scheduling days off from work for critical events in the process of packing/moving/closing on the house; arranging for movers to pick up our furniture and goods for storage until the big move; scheduling someone to help in the final cleaning of our house; and arranging for friends to help move us into the apartment. Maybe I was a bit too smug about my perfect organizational plan. Maybe I was relying too much on ME.

This weekend everything was turned topsy-turvy, when we discovered our misunderstanding of our buyers’ date of occupancy. For reasons that aren’t important to relate here, we thought they would take possession on August 6. Now we understand, correctly, that they get possession on August 3.

Three days doesn’t seem like such a big deal, but I have just spent almost three hours re-scheduling the movers; attempting to change our apartment move-in date; explaining to my boss that the days I had scheduled to take off have just shifted; and contacting the friends who have offered to help, to ask if they could come on different days.

After finding out our mistake, on Saturday night, I prayed the rest of the weekend that things would work out. The key issue was whether or not we could get the movers to come earlier. Everything else, we knew, we could work out, one way or another. Although the movers are pretty booked that week, they agreed, when I called this morning, to squeeze us in on August 2. Thank you, God! (And thank you Mayflower.) Although we can’t move into our apartment on August 3, the management is willing to let us move our “stuff” in, while they continue cleaning and preparing it for us. Dan and I will stay at a hotel for the one or two nights that we can’t move in.

It’s all coming back together, a little like a broken vase, reassembled with Super Glue.

I’ve learned my lesson. It's not that I shouldn't do my part, by making a plan and working it; I'd be foolish not to. The lesson that I've learned is that this move isn’t in my mortal hands, but in God’s divine ones. My faith needs to be in Him, not in my perfect itinerary or my hard work.

I knew that.

But I needed a reminder.