Plan B

As I sat at breakfast with my son yesterday, I said, conversationally, "So, how are you feeling with the holidays coming up?"  Immediately, he answered, "Stressed."  I admit, I was a bit surprised.  Not because he's only 13, and doesn't have to worry about scheduling, shopping, traveling, budgeting, or any of the other things that usually bring stress to adults in the holiday season, but because this is our second year experiencing the holidays as a separated family.  I thought the second time around would be easier.  But as we talked, it became clear that, to him, this second year will still feel new, will still be full of uncertainty, discomfort, and his least favorite thing--change. He tells me again his oft-repeated refrain.  "I don't know what's going to happen."

I haven't talked or written here about the divorce.  There is not much that seems appropriate to share, that is ready for publication.  I know so many have their own feelings, experiences, beliefs in this area, and many of these are strongly held.  I have encountered them often in these last 16 months.  I have been surprised at what people are willing to say, ask, advise.  "Are you willing to wait?"  "Please tell me you're working it out."  "You should be trying harder to slow the process down."  Once I was even told, "Make sure you are crossing all your Biblical t's and dotting your i's."  Ah, yes.  Good marks on that heavenly checklist are of paramount importance in a situation like this.

But what I find most astonishing in these well-meaning responses is the certainty.  I'm ashamed to admit that at one time, I probably would have been one of these confident onlookers, would have said the same things, thought the same thoughts.  I suppose I could be described as my pastor, Randy Boltinghouse, identified himself in a recent sermon, "a recovering legalist" when it comes to divorce.  What experience teaches is that it's not so simple.

The question my son has struggled with from the beginning, that he comes back to over and over, is, "Is this, or is it not, God's plan for our family?"  He cannot reconcile himself to my answer, which is that whatever happens is God's plan for our family.  He wants something clearer, more concrete.  Why can't I tell him one way or the other, for certain?  But the only thing I can say for certain is that it was not my plan.

Only a few weeks before my husband let me know of his desire to end our marriage, we were having a conversation about my grandparents, who had been married for 73 years.  When my grandfather, who had been in failing health for several months, passed away at the age of 94, the two of them were alone together in their apartment; my grandfather, resting in bed, asked my grandmother if she would come and rest with him.  Lying there together, he said to her simply, "I'm dying."  She answered, "I know."  And they simply stayed together there until he quietly slipped away.  How enviable, I said to my husband, to reach the end of life that way.  No hospital, no drugs, no machines.  Nothing to separate.  To be able to go away peacefully, in the arms of the one you love, wordlessly sharing the memories of a long lifetime.  That's what I want, I told him.  Let's do that.

When cherished plans lie in ruins, as we struggle to make sense of our loss, I believe we often join my son in his question.  Is this the plan?  Or just a horrible mistake?  Is there a backup plan, a plan B?  And what, after all, was wrong with plan A?  Unlike my son, however, as we approach the Advent season, instead of anxiety and uncertainty about the future, I've come back to a thought I've returned to often this last year--God's plan B.

To fully appreciate God's plan B, we have to first think about his plan A, the Garden.  The Garden of Eden was a good plan.  In fact, it was a great plan--a perfect plan.  It was so good that the image of this Paradise has become an expression in its own right, symbolizing an idyllic existence.  It represents, in the collective consciousness, perfection itself.  And God created this Utopia, declared it "good," proceeded to act in good faith toward his creation, knowing all the while that this perfect plan would not ultimately succeed.  From the inception of time, even as plan A went forward, plan B existed.  Christmas was always coming.

Some important things I think I learn from this. One is that God's plans will come in their own time.  From the day Adam and Eve walked away with Eden at their backs, there was a promise of hope for the future; but history testifies to how long so many waited to see that promise fulfilled.  That famous passage on faith in Hebrews 11 lists faithful believer after faithful believer who labored for a lifetime with nothing but trust in a promise made.  Some, like old Simeon in the temple, lived just long enough to see it realized in their last days of life.  The perfect moment is something that only God understands, at least until it happens, and maybe even after that.

Another is that whatever God's plans are, they will be unexpected.  So many, even those who had been waiting for God's promised salvation, did not recognize the promise's fulfillment when it came.  And who could blame them?  Such an unlikely package--that tiny, poor, illegitimate baby; that odd, provocative, offensive man.

Oh, but when that promise came?  How amazing, how spectacular it was!  How far beyond anyone's wildest expectations!  Who could possibly have predicted it?  Incarnation.  Redemption.  Resurrection.  Not too shabby.

Anne Lamott says, "Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.  You wait and watch and work: you don't give up."  So this holiday season, we may be in the dark; we may not really know where we are going, or when and where we will see the plan, or even if we will see it.  But we wait, and watch, and work for God's spectacular plan B--we wait like those saints, kings, and shepherds of old, expectantly, with hope for the promise that we know will be fulfilled.