This past Christmas, our fourteen-year-old granddaughter requested a planner for Christmas. Not just any planner, this one offered about a thousand options to personalize it including stickers, pens, pencils . . . you get the point. Whether she ever really used it for planning or not, I don’t know. It may have just become another art project, but at the time, she loved it.
In the way of planners, I have a strong preference for a slender hard backed version, which comes in red or black. After many years of using this style, I thought I might switch to another one. Big mistake. I went back the next year to my tried and true. As much as I hate to admit it, I guess I do have a strong affinity for these volumes, which stack neatly on a shelf.
When quarantine hit, I took out my planner and wrote canceled across events more times than I can count. I could just have easily added “big disappointment.”
Singing with the symphony pops concert―cancelled.
Lunch with other clergy spouses at a yearly conference―won’t see those folks this year.
A book event I’d been planning―not going to happen.
That’s just the beginning of the list.
When quarantine hit, I like most everyone else around the world, had to regroup. If not those plans, then what? I prayed, “Lord, how do you want me to use this time? What are your plans?”
A very wise person once wrote, “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps” (Proverbs 16:9). Beautiful well-organized planners are great, but more than that, we need God to be in the details of our lives. He is the only one who can direct and make firm our steps.
I had originally had a goal of writing a Christmas novella, A Season for Everything, which I completed, and it has now been accepted with a release date this Christmas. But what I hadn’t planned is making over 200 masks for medical workers, a homeless shelter, family, friends, restaurant workers, and having the opportunity to help people in ways I never dreamed. When we surrender our plans to God, He is able to do far more with them than we ever could.
In my book, A Plan for Everything, the protagonist Connie Spencer is a planner, but then begins to see her world fall apart and her plans go up in smoke. How will she respond? Will she continue to try to manage everything herself resisting God’s help or will she allow Him into the process and perhaps see something beyond her imagining?
Whether you’re in love with your planner or not, it’s always a good time to invite God to help you set goals, and to think through your future. It’s never too late to let go those plans you’ve clung to and allow him to reshape your life.
Who knows what yet undreamed opportunity may be waiting for you?
Books by Beverly Varnado:
Connie’s Coffee and Cones is thriving, and owner Connie Spencer is right on track to realize her dream of expanding into a catering business. She believes she owes her success to her remarkable ability to plan. In fact, she has a plan for everything. At least, she thought she did—until Michael Cole appears in Worthville.
Michael has an agenda of his own—and a competing business—that threatens to derail everything Connie hopes for professionally. And if that isn’t enough, Michael carries a secret that could cause a backlash for both of them. So, why does she find herself attracted to him? When an accident on a rain-slicked highway leaves Michael temporarily incapacitated, Connie is presented with a dilemma she never saw coming—helping the man she’s falling for, or moving ahead with her meticulous plans.
As life spirals out of her control and Connie faces losing everything, she questions whether her plans are enough. But if hers aren’t, whose are? As she searches for the answer, she learns she must come to terms with her deepest hurt in order to embrace a higher plan for her future.
AMAZON LINK
When nurse practitioner, Dr Genny Sanders inherits her late-grandmother’s house, she moves back to her hometown of Worthville, Georgia, determined to leave her past—and her scheming ex—behind her with a new job and new friends. But during a meeting with her grandmother’s estate attorney, David Worth, she learns of a threat to her property. A local developer wants to buy her land and demolish her house.
Genny refuses to sell, but the land developer isn’t taking no for an answer. As if personal threats aren’t bad enough, a foreclosure proceeding looms, and a fire flashes in the night. Everything Genny holds dear is threatened. If she can’t find a way to save her grandmother’s house, Genny will be forced to give up the fresh start she so desperately wants. And to complicate matters further, she’s falling for David.
While going through her grandmother’s belongings, Genny finds a mysterious key with a red ribbon. What does it fit? Could it possibly be the answer to her problems? What do the messages of love and forgiveness she keeps hearing have to do with everything? As she searches for these answers, she learns more about herself and her grandmother’s legacy than she could have ever imagined.
AMAZON LINK
About the Author:
Beverly Varnado is an award winning author, screenwriter, blogger and artist who lives in North Georgia with her husband, Jerry. In addition to The Key to Everything, she has written two novels,and a nonfiction book, Faith in the Fashion District. She has a screenplay optioned for a film.
You can find Beverly at:
Website: www.BeverlyVarnado.com
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/VarnadoBeverly
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BeverlyVarnadoAuthor
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Beverly-Varnado/e/B00QQRRID8
Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5269585.Beverly_Varnado
Anaiah Press 
Such a worthwhile point we all need to remember during these uncertain times. Thanks for that Beverly! And congratulations on another wonderful release.