If You’d Asked Me

There’s a question that people like to ask, sometimes at an interview, sometimes in an icebreaker, sometimes just in casual conversation:

Where do you see yourself five years from now?

When presented with this query, I’d generally take the opportunity to be brilliantly vague and answer with something really deep and mind-blowing.*

*Or not deep or mind-blowing at all.

And if you’d asked me a year ago today what I’d be doing in just one year, I probably would’ve said something like “I’ll be teaching.”**

**Mind=blown.

But all of that changed a year ago tomorrow: it was the day we found out that I was pregnant. And suddenly the “year from now” future looked different than it did the day before.

As I mentioned in my announcement post, we hadn’t been planning a baby. We weren’t doing anything to avoid it, either, but our entire awareness of the possibility of pregnancy only began the day I took the test. That night, Rick and I stared at each other, trying to comprehend the news that was surreally settling over us, that little plus sign between us. Some people might call this careless, but we call it a blessing; a blessing that now only grows with every passing day. Literally. I mean, babies these days just seem to have a perpetual need to outgrow cute outfits.

So if you’d asked me a year ago today where I saw myself today, my answer wouldn’t have included anything about a sweet little face, warm sleepy snuggles, glad-to-see-you morning grins that melt my heart.

I wasn’t planning on soft fuzzy hair or midnight I need you tears or the heart explosion that it is to watch your husband fall in love with your daughter.

A thousand yesterdays ago I wasn’t planning any of that for my today, and I know well that I can’t say for certain that I have a thousand tomorrows to soak it all in. So today I am thankful for every little bit of this blessing that, just one year ago today, I didn’t see coming.

Does your today look like you thought it would?

“There are many plans in a man's heart, nevertheless the Lord's counsel--that will stand.” Proverbs 19:21