When plans change...

On Thursday, I wrote about what’s most important and not getting so wrapped up in the busyness of life that you neglect your family or anything else that is important. This weekend, I’ve been reminded of that even more. We were supposed to go on a family camp out but due to the threat (and reality) of heavy rains last night into today, the camping was canceled. So, we were left with a weekend that we expected to be busy, and now was much more flexible. What to do?

Friday was different. Instead of me planning to leave early so that we could go camping, I was able to get more things done. I even got to have lunch with my family, because my girls had an early release from school and my wife had taken the day off of work because of the camping trip. So that was a huge win right there. Friday nights are usually movie night. We ate pizza, the girls picked a couple of movies. And once they went to bed, my wife and I watched Justic League.

Saturday, we were going to skip my youngest daughter’s soccer game because of camping....but she got to play. Then we had contacted our realtor that since we weren’t camping, we could look at houses. We spent the rest of the morning looking at 5 houses. One was a maybe and the rest were ok. Then we went and saw A Wrinkle in Time, because my oldest really wanted to see it and we had read her the book. It was a fun movie.

Today (Sunday), I’m off from playing for worship. It’s been a relaxing, restful morning. We’ll be going to a couple of open houses this afternoon and then a pizza party at my girls’ school. All in all, a restful, fun, good weekend.

Why does all of this matter? Our weekends (and weeks) have been busy. Our upcoming weekends (and weeks) will be busy. Having time to rest, relax and spend time together as a family has been what we all needed. Would it have been fun camping? Sure. But it would have been work and not really as restful as what we got to do this weekend.

When plans change, how do you respond? By nature, I am a planner. I have learned to be more spontaneous and go with the flow. Sure, I’d like to have a plan, a direction, a way to go laid out even before I begin. But I’ve learned that it’s in those times where you are spontaneous, where you have the change of plans that you can really have fun, make memories and get refreshing. Have you had times when your plans changed? How did you respond?