The Plan for your Life May Not be God’s Plan for You

By Lyssa Wanner
@lyssawanner
Lyssa Wanner Blog

Growing up as a teen in the Young Women’s program, I remember making a 5-10 year plan. I think all of our plans included marriage and family. We even wrote letters to our future spouses, and of course my plan included getting married to the man of my dreams and having children before I was 25. Okay, done!

The older I got, and the more my life didn’t go according to the plan I thought it should follow, I became discouraged.

Marriage and children were supposed to happen, they were in my plan…so why weren’t they happening for me? That’s what I was told would happen, so when it hadn’t happened (yet) when I thought it should, I was disappointed. I felt like I got the short end of the deal.

I’ve had a few experiences in my life, where I’ve tried to tell today’s teens that it’s “normal” to not have most things happen when they think they should. In fact you should count on it!

I didn’t tell them this to discourage them, I told them this only because I wish someone would’ve told me that so I could have had in the back of my mind, just in case marriage and family didn’t happen as quickly as I wanted it, that everything would still be okay! God hasn’t forgotten me and I’ve been living the plan He has had for me all along!

Our loving Heavenly Father has the whole eternal perspective. We only see a tidbit of the whole picture, so put your trust in Him! Keep His commandments and He will bless you. It might not be the way you think He should, but trust that He knows you, that He sees the end from the beginning, and that He loves you so so much. He has your best interests at heart and things are going to work out so much better than you could have hoped.

I’d tell my seminary students that It’s okay to be single. It’s encouraged to find out who you are and what you want before marriage. Am I grateful it worked out like that? You bet! If it didn’t work out like that, would I have regretted it? Absolutely not. Life doesn’t stop once you’ve reached 25… it continues on!

Am I discrediting marriage and family? Definitely not! It’s what I want someday.. in fact it’s what I want the most… but it hasn’t happened yet. And that’s ok!

There’s no recipe for life, as much as I wish there was. It doesn’t work like that. Yes we can have goals, hopes, and dreams- but some things in our lives, we just don’t have control over.

So my advice to you all, no matter your age or where you are at in your life, is to simply LIVE. Get to know yourself. Set an example. Take care of yourself. Be happy. Be sad. Love. Take risks. Go on adventures. But most importantly, ENJOY where you are.

We’ve only got one life. And my plea to you is that you don’t waste it away wishing for a different one because X, Y, and Z aren’t happening.

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