It doesn’t always do to make plans. At 8:00am, my thoughts on a plan for this beautiful early-summer day were to go on a walk, water the garden, practice music for church tomorrow, read, and clean church this evening. But all of that sort of came to a screeching halt about ten minutes later when I had a clumsy moment and gave myself a nice ankle sprain. And I don’t even have an exciting story to accompany it, unfortunately. I blame it on the dog, even though she really didn’t have anything to do with it.
So judging by some reading I’ve done and the fact that I can’t bear weight on my right foot at all, I won’t be doing much of anything for the next…well, for the next couple of weeks, minimum, but more likely  longer than that. Trying to be optimistic here. Bummer. And yesterday was the first day of a 13-day vacation! Oh, and did I have plans! Devil’s Tower, the Badlands, photography and hiking, gardening, working on getting cards in some local gift shops…Not to mention the necessary things that require being able to drive a car or just get around in general.

What comically and ironically and appropriately came to mind was Proverbs 16:9: “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” While some might say this is just hard luck, I know I serve a God who is good and gracious and all my steps have been established for me for a purpose, even in something as frustrating and relatively minor as spraining my ankle. He must have something to teach me. Things like patience, optimism, graciousness in accepting circumstances I don’t appreciate, self-discipline…
The up side to being immobile that I should be able to be terribly productive, getting caught up on photography stuff, reading, and writing, and maybe even some sewing. When the weather is lovely, those things all tend to fall prey to my wanderlust, the desire to be out seeing God’s glorious Creation.

So I’ve been given a few lemons and I guess the best thing to do with them is make lemonade. Lemonade is better than lemons. And anyways, I could have been given lima beans.

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