Our son Klaus is very good at making plans. Maybe that’s why he’s never lacked for friends. I’ve overheard many conversations among his pals that have gone like this.

Person #1: “So, what should we do tonight?”

Person #2: “Oh, I don’t know. Whatever you want.”

Person #3: “It doesn’t matter to me.”

Person #4:  “I’m easy. Whatever the rest of you want.”

Finally Klaus would say, “How ‘bout if I call and make a reservation at ________ and then we’ll text so-and-so to see if he wants to meet us there at 8:00. After we eat, we can go bowling at ________. They’re open till midnight. Let’s take so-and-so’s car, and we can all chip in five bucks for gas.”

Everyone would jump up and follow that lead. It’s enjoyable to be around someone who’s good at making plans and setting them in motion.

The ultimate Plan-Maker is God, of course. He was making and activating plans long before the earth existed. Although we’re drawn to him when his plans for us turn out well, we often turn away when his plans cause us pain.

A few days after Nate and I found out about his cancer, we talked about the great Plan-Maker’s plans for him, for us. In those early days of shock and disbelief, it was too hard to look forward into the storm of disease and death. Instead we looked backward to study the plans God had made for us, to see whether or not they had worked out well.

For example, it had taken four and a half years to sell our old farmhouse in Illinois, despite houses around us selling like hot cakes. While we waited, we’d had to lower the price six times, bringing it down to nearly half of where it started.

We’d made a plan, our own plan, to buy a townhouse with cash from the house sale and stay in the area until Birgitta graduated from high school. But real estate took its now-famous dive, along with a simultaneous dip in Nate’s law practice. The Michigan cottage was on the market, too, but nothing was moving.

Finally we decided to let God make the plan, and his idea was to move us full time into the Michigan house, an idea we hadn’t seriously considered. Right then our old farmhouse sold, and shortly thereafter, we moved. This was at the beginning of last summer.

Once we were settled in Michigan, pursuing permanent residency status, Nate clipped unnumbered articles about the glut of townhouses on the market and how it would be nearly impossible to sell one, once we owned it, with all the new town homes being offered at “used” prices.

It took all summer for me to unpack the boxes, fitting two homes worth of stuff into one. Nate commuted to his job in Chicago’s Loop by way of a train, enjoying the new variety of passengers. By the time we were acclimated to our new environs and fully settled, cancer had arrived. Was all this God’s plan? And the bigger question was, could it possibly be good?

The day Nate and I looked back, we saw the reasons behind some of those plans. First, by causing time to pass before the old house sold, he saw to it that Birgitta graduated from high school, so there was no longer a need for us to remain in the area. Had we purchased a townhouse, we would have been stuck with it.

Secondly, by having the summer to unpack and get settled, everything was in order just before our cancer news arrived, and we were set up to receive our crowd of children for the duration. Thirdly, after Nate died, the cottage was the perfect place for a grieving widow to cocoon with the Lord through a snowy winter.

I see all of those things now, plans God put into motion for our good. I still don’t understand why Nate’s death had to be part of his plan, and it sure doesn’t seem good. But because God planned it, and because I believe God took him to paradise with intention, I accept it. Maybe down the road I’ll look back and see the reason. But if I don’t, I’ll continue to believe God doesn’t make mistakes, and that he is still the best Plan-Maker in the world.

^“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)