The Five Year Plan

It was five years ago on Valentine's Day that I gave one of my best efforts to celebrating a holiday that I typically approached with head-to-toe black garb and the bitter consumption of a Blizzard. I was working at IWU as a Financial Aid counselor, and since Valentine's Day fell on a Sunday that year, I invited some student friends of mine over for a home cooked meal - complete with iced sugar cookies and chocolate treats.

We had the best time together, and yet when everyone left and I worked to clean up the kitchen, the familiar questions set in: Would I ever have a Valentine on this day? Would I always spend this holiday somewhere between mourning and welcoming friends into my home?

How I wish I could have curled up across from my own self that day and said "Bekah...let me tell you how unrecognizable your life is going to become in the next five years."


It was that day...that very day...that the first stumbling steps of a relationship began. For me! Valentine's Day! How perfectly romantic is that? In mere weeks, I was glowing in love. I was planning a forever.

AND...a lifetime dream came true. Saw the ocean for the first time.

And then...the deepest heartbreak I've ever known before or since...when love walked away. The season I didn't think I would survive - and several others weren't sure either. But I did. I made it through with a stronger, deeper faith than I even knew was possible. And accompanying the heartbreak? A built in diet.

 AND...another lifetime dream come true: a published book!

And as I began to slowly put life back together after heartbreak...the biggest surprise of all: a new job, away from the world of math for the first time in my life!

The job brought with it all kinds of fun stuff - and some more chances to prove to myself that I was capable of more than I even knew, starting with the fact that I became a commuter...a pretty big feat for a girl who once refused to drive on an interstate.

I trained for and ran a 10K - pretty amazing for a girl who never ran...ever.

And right in the middle of all that? A first date...and then a second...and then a third...

And then, a surprise proposal:

Two months of whirlwind wedding planning, dress shopping, reservation making and picture taking culminated with a beach wedding:

 And the two years that have passed since have been full of crazy things I never thought I could or would do:

 And now here we are...five years later. Five incredible years later. Heartbreak I couldn't have imagined. Joy I couldn't have imagined. Excitement. Nerves. Elation. Devastation. Dreams fulfilled. Dreams dashed. And God has made it clear that five years is nothing to Him. Five years ago, while hosting those students, I couldn't imagine that things would take even one turn in the foreseeable future. But the truth was, He changed everything. He redeemed everything broken. He made the good things great.

I have as many questions about our next five years as I had on this day five years ago. And if the next five go anything like the last five, I better buckle my seat belt!

I say all these things not to boast...but to encourage you. If you are stuck in a spot today that leaves you wondering if life will ever change, just know that God can make anything happen. Crazier things thank you could ever conceive are completely within the scope of His limitless possibilities. His five year plan = amazing!