A Made for More Story: Why We Can Trust God's Plans

My plans for maternity leave included learning conversational French and teaching myself how to play the guitar.

Let that sink in for a moment.

As a new mom, I honestly believed that I might get bored because caring for a newborn might not fully occupy my time. This is insanity. This is me.

My Plans

I did not grow up counting down the days until I could be a mommy. Don’t get me wrong, I loved baby dolls and Barbie dolls just as much as the next girl. I was not opposed to motherhood. I didn’t really think it was good or bad. I didn’t really think about motherhood at all.

I grew up, went to college, got married, became an accountant, moved to Florida, worked for a public accounting firm, and lived my life. My husband and I always said we were on the five-year plan. When the five years had come and gone, we stuck to the pre-determined schedule and got pregnant. Type A much?

The baby came and my maternity leave arrived. I quickly realized that boredom would not be an issue in my life for at least the next 18 years.

Despite not accomplishing my plan to learn a foreign language and teach myself how to play a musical instrument, I enjoyed the time with my sweet baby boy.

As the time neared for me to return back to work part-time for tax season, I looked at my plan to work part-time and stay home part-time and thought, “This will be just lovely.”

Turns out my plans for returning to work were about as accurate as my plans for maternity leave. When I was at home, I felt like I should be working on work. When I was at the office, I felt like I should be mothering at home. It wasn’t totally horrible but it was definitely not lovely.

In those moments when I felt like I was getting the worst of both worlds, I thought about what it would be like if I didn’t work outside the home. I found the thought equally appealing and terrifying. Appealing because this feeling of being torn between work and home would no longer exist. Terrifying because this was not the plan.

I never dreamed of being a stay-at-home mom. I didn’t even know what that would look like for me.

Change of Plans

One late afternoon as I was getting ready to leave the office, I remembered that I needed to call a client. I glanced down at my scratch paper and dialed the number written by the client’s name.

The phone rang and a lady answered. I said, “Hey Patricia, this is Emily from Suplee & Shea. I just had a couple of questions to wrap up your return.” The voice on the other end replied, “Emily! This is Marita, dear.”

Somehow, I had dialed a wrong number. Not just any wrong number but a wrong number that led to one of my clients I had not spoken with since before my maternity leave.

“Marita? Oh my goodness, I am so sorry. I was trying to reach another one of my clients and some