I took this picture when we were packing up to leave Texas. I was hurriedly boxing up books when I came across these and it stopped me dead in my tracks. I paused, flipped through the empty pages, and was suddenly back to the last time I saw these last February.
These are Catholic planners I bought for Brandon and I as an anniversary gift last January. I bought one for me and one for him, and we were both so eager to start using them and to start focusing more on our spiritual lives. We loved that these planners would help us to streamline our day-to-day agendas and include our spiritual goals. We loved that we were going to be intentional in carving out time to focus on growing deeper in our faith. And we loved that we were going to do this together.
I guess, because life is busy, by February, we hadn’t started using them yet. Brandon and I had planned our first budget meeting together, and I thought it would be a great time to start using our planners so I brought them along. At this first budget meeting we got a lot accomplished, but it took both of us bending and compromising, and it left us both feeling…frustrated. We had faced some ugly truths about the state of our finances, and we took some big steps to start addressing those ugly truths. But by the end, honestly, we were left feeling deflated. When I said I had brought our planners so we could start to use them, neither of us wanted to and so we left to go home. We put the planners away, and that was that.
Those deflated feelings and frustration quickly went away, and we continued to work toward the goals we set that night. Even without the use of the planners, we planned our next budget meeting, and then the next, and then the next. With each passing month we found ourselves moving closer towards our financial goals and found our original sense of hopelessness replaced with a relentless pursuit to keep moving forward. That renewed hope led us to start dreaming, and that dreaming led us to imagine what we really wanted for our future.
As we continued to work hard and reach our goals, we were praying like never before. For the first time in years, we not only prayed hard, but we prayed with each other. Praying with one another led us to want to pray more with our kids. For the first time in our lives, Brandon and I attended an evening bible study class at our church. For the first time in our lives, we went to confession as a family on multiple occasions. For the first time in our lives, we all prayed together in a way we had not quite done before—sharing the most special intentions we held deep in our hearts.
Month after month, week after week, and day after day, we worked, we budgeted, and we prayed. And when the hard work and the careful budgeting and the intentional prayers all came together, we knew it was something that we could have never planned. By the end of 2020, we were debt free with the exception of a 15-year mortgage, we had a renewed sense of faith within our marriage and our family, and we made the decision to leave the busy life of the suburbs to a slower-paced simpler life in the mountains.
Today, I unpacked these planners and thoughtfully placed them on a bookshelf next to our bible. I thought of all the hopes and answered prayers bound within these blank pages. I realized that even though the pages remained empty, our days were very much filled. While we didn’t know exactly where we where headed, we knew when to allow our faith to take over. And while we didn’t have a plan, we knew He had a plan for us.
The truth is, I have learned faith and surrender is where the miracles can happen!
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