You Can't Always Get What You Want.....

I got home today after a long day of being short staffed and stressed....of climbing on the bus and hurrying to the ferry.  When I got home and fed my girls, and mucked their house, and then greeted my sweet boys, I looked over my garden and saw how things were growing....including the weeds.

As I poured Sluggo along the perimeter of our garden, the thought was going through my head, "You don't get what you want....you get what you need."  The last couple weeks have been full of looking back.  Last weekend Gordon and I went to Winthrop to celebrate our 1st Anniversary.  While we were there we went on a drive to Okanogon, for no particular reason.  As I saw the sign for Omak I told Gordon that I used to go there for choir tours....he said he had gone too, and we remembered that we had been there together on a choir tour with our church.  It became a mission.

We drove through Omak and reminisced about our particular thoughts and memories.  We went to a church in Riverside where we had sung together  years ago.  That was the choir tour where Gordon had first had a crush on me....it's the time of our lives that the string started to weave our souls together.
I'm also 2 weeks from the 25th anniversary of my graduation from High School.
So, as I was feeding and admiring, I was thinking about how different my life is now from the life I imagined as I was preparing to graduate.....back then I didn't think I would be rich....I had a plan in place to become a Missionary.  I wanted to go to Bible College and learn how to spread the Gospel to Cambodia.  Or I wanted to marry a Pastor.  I knew that I would be in the ministry regardless.
Fast forward 25 years....I'm certainly not rich....I'm not in the ministry.  I'm a childcare worker at a center that cares for homeless and transitional children....it's a job that I love, but honestly sucks my soul dry.  I live on Whidbey Island....and I have goats and dogs....and I'm married to an amazing chef.  It's not the life I envisioned 25 years ago....but it's the life that fits who I've always been.I ...when I was little I loved animals, I adored "Little House on the Prairie" and wanted to teach.
Now I care about kids....my passion is dogs...and now goats....and I adore food and growing it and cooking it and connecting with the people who grow it and cook it.  We have found a beautiful church home just around the corner from our lovely little house on the hill.
And so....I am living the life I imagined as a little girl.....not as an 18 year old going on Choir Tour and getting ready to go to  Bible College.....I wonder if God laughs at the girl I was....or the girl I am....I know he smiles on us both.