when things don’t go according to plan

Last week, I had a full day of work calls while home with my 5-month-old and honestly… if you’re trying to juggle work, relationships, healing, responsibilities, growth, marriage, parenting, friendships, or just LIFE in general, you understand the invisible mental load I’m talking about.

Your brain is constantly calculating….what needs done, what you forgot, what’s next, what could go wrong, who you didn’t respond to yet, all of it running in the background.

I’m a planner by nature, and I genuinely trust God deeply…because I’ve seen Him come through in ways I can’t explain away in my life. But I’ve also noticed something about myself lately: when things don’t go according to plan, it exposes a different layer in me that I don’t always see when everything is organized and predictable. I haven’t always been this way…….but lately I am realizing it’s the area God wants me to release.

Last week made that really clear.

We had hired a babysitter to help with Shiloh while I took my calls, and my first meeting was at noon. By 11:57, our sitter was still not here. I called her and it sounded like I had just woken her up…she had gotten the day wrong. I could feel my entire nervous system shift. There was urgency, pressure, immediate calculation; what do I do, and how do I hold everything together right now. It’s important to know that when I came back from maternity leave, there was a lot of turbulence with me working from home with Shiloh. So when it comes to dividing my attention, I feel more pressure than necessary.

However, my husband ended up leaving work early to come help me, but even that wasn’t really the point for me, because my first two calls ended up rescheduling anyway. WILD. One of those calls was a VIP member who NEVER has rescheduled for me but what that meant was that everything was already adjusted for me in ways I didn’t know it yet. I could have knocked out all my calls and my entire work flow without my husband coming home, yet in that moment…I had so much pressure and I felt incapable.

Here’s the thing about pressure though…pressure isn’t always just revealing weaknesses, but it’s revealing the internal patterns, the fear, control, striving and the belief that everything depends on how prepared and planned you are.

What happens when things don’t go according to plan?

Years ago, this would’ve taken me out for the entire day. This time it didn’t. It shook my nervous system, but I bounced back much faster than I used to.

And here’s the thing I am learning and relearning at that…..trusting God isn’t about never feeling pressure, anxiety, or doubt.. it’s about those things not being allowed to lead anymore.

Trusting God is easy when everything is going according to plan. Trust really gets revealed when things DON’T.

When the babysitter doesn’t show up, when the timeline changes, when the unexpected happens, when you can’t immediately see the solution, when life interrupts the version you carefully prepared for.

A lot of us think trust means “I believe God will come through,” but real trust is remaining anchored even before you see HOW He’s going to come through. I’m realizing how recently I feel peace as long as everything is organized, prepared, smooth, and predictable….but the second something shifts unexpectedly, it exposes how quickly my nervous system wants to grab control again.

Control is an illusion and the breakthrough isn’t God removing the interruption. It’s learning that even in the interruption… He is still faithful. You are still capable. He is still leading. You are still equipped. You are not abandoned left to figure everything out alone.

“The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.”
Proverbs 16:9

“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.”
Isaiah 26:3