Plan A

It's a shame fresh starts are only officially once a year. They're really my favorite things, I think.

Maybe it's part of my OCD. I love clean slates like I love clean rooms and organized drawers. Fresh starts are the clean lines of life. They make the mess go away. At least, they're supposed to.

And since I'm a big fan of self-discipline, they usually do. I can stick with a diet, I can stick with a running schedule, I can stick with a clean kitchen and rules and plans. But I feel like there are just some seasons of change that don't come on January 1.

My fresh start already started. My new job, new post-grad plans, new pet. My hair is already on its way to blonde, I already went vegetarian, and I'm already increasing my running mileage each week. They are good changes. I don't have trouble making changes, really.

It's just not on January 1 this time.

This New Year's Eve I'm not dreaming up new ways to change for the better. I'm thinking about all the ways I'm already changing. 2k12 was a wonderful, deep, full year. I ran/biked/swam something like ten races and was injury-free all year. I went to Russia, went to weddings, went camping, turned 21, saw ballets, read books, learned to mountain bike. I was vegan for three weeks. Started my senior year of college, too. There were lots of fresh starts and I loved most of them. There were lots of tears and a few crises and I remembered what I told Sarah freshman year: "The thing that's so exciting about a crisis is you can go anywhere from here."

Anywhere from here.

I've been talking to God the past few days about best and second-best. Specifically, when life feels more like my plan B than plan A. That's what happens sometimes when your fresh starts are given to you rather than chosen by you. I suppose I'm young enough to never have experienced this before, but right now for some reason I feel like I'm adjusting to plan B. It's a combination of multiple small things that have pushed me to a bigger fresh start than I was looking for. Not that plan A was destroyed, but it was altered, and I'm pursuing things a little differently now.

And I've been praying for the passion to pursue things hard and well, to believe in my life like it's my plan A and I know what I want. No one runs after second-best. In order to run ahead I have to believe this is best. I can't pursue things out of a feeling of emptiness.

I've been praying that I wont get to the end of my Master of Divinity, my fitness career, my ministry, or whatever I get to the end of, and think, "that was a decent second-best."

And what I'm starting to believe is God doesn't work that way. He doesn't lead us into fresh starts that are plan Bs. He has no plan B. But the thing is, his plan A looks a lot like our plan B, almost always. Just read any page of the Bible. If Israel has taught us anything, it's this: he promises restoration, but we got kicked out of the garden, and his plan for us always looks like "best" got messed up.

I'm starting to believe my image of best is an illusion. And I believe this is best - this, whatever we are going through right now - because God says so. Best ultimately. In the last days.

I believe it because that's what it means to be faithful.

So start fresh, my friends. Make newness and clean slates and betterness in your lives. Pursue what you can and what you feel, like it's the only plan in front of you. If you don't, you're believing the lie that your life is what happened when "best" got messed up.

It's not.


Happy New Year.

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