I’m not referring to physical flexibility. For I am far from flexible in that category, and the V-sit reach in middle school was the bane of my existence. (Can anyone relate?) Compared to some people in my life (looking at my husband, wink, wink), I’m pretty flexible in terms of scheduling and plans. I usually prefer a loose can-be-changed-depending-on-the-needs-of-the-moment plan for each day. If my daughters are really engrossed in the book section at Barnes and Noble, for example, we will skip doing anything else at the mall. Or we might push lunchtime back a bit. And if I am caught up in a good conversation or a creative pursuit, I will always lose track of time.

But then enters a two month stretch that will push even the most flexible of people (which, sad to say, I am not). I am not exaggerating about all that our household has experienced in the first two months of 2015:

1. A 4-week bout of continual illness from one person to another to another to another
2. Discovering (and then the expensive removal of) raccoons in our attic
3. Plumbing issues requiring a multiple-hour house call from our plumber
4. Snowstorm #1, then snowstorm #2, and finally (?) snowstorm #3 in a two-week period of time [which = more homebound time since my area isn’t quite prepared for snow and has about 4.3 plows for the entire city]
5. Cancelled and rescheduled speaking engagements
6. Quite labor-intensive work weeks for my pastor-husband, between leading/organizing our missions conference mid-January and then preaching and about a million meetings in between
7. Good news about getting a book contract, then see #s 1-4 above as to the limited amount of time available in which to write.

I’ve come face to face with the haunting truth that I am not flexible when I’m not the one in charge of changing the plans. My so-called “flexibility” when it comes to my daily schedule actually has more to do with my ability to change plans to fit in what I want most to do instead of a general proclivity to flexibility.

Where do I go from here? Well, back to the only place I know for hope and change: the grace of Christ. For behind all the shifting, changing plans, there is a Divine Planner – who is over it all, never surprised, and WITH ME THROUGH IT ALL. He loves me. That never changes, despite my bad attitude and my complaining, and my less-than-stellar parenting days lately. He loves me with a love that’s both inflexible (as in unchanging) and infinitely flexible (as in able to flex to what I need for each moment of each day).