Madison J. Caplinger

Getting engaged has spurred a time of reflection for me. How did I possibly get to this point in life?! Wasn’t I just in high school yesterday?!

Part of that reflection has taken the form of reading old journals and old blog posts. In the two years or so I have maintained this blog, I have written about the far-off possibility of marriage and spousal roles, battling my pride in regard to my path in life, and the scary possibility of being a pastor’s wife, among other things. The thread of these posts forms a very clear path to where I am standing now.

So what is my point, other than to share my nostalgia? At the time, all the things I wrote about were scary and new. They were an abstract lesson God was teaching me. But I couldn’t see the next step, the next lesson, for the fog of uncertainty. I couldn’t see why I would need to carry these lessons with me.

I want to directly address my younger readers, be you younger in age, or just in your walk with Christ: whatever you’re going through right now, whether it is painful or joyous, is leading to something bigger – something good. Trust me. There is pain in my past. In the middle of it, I doubted whether it would ever get better. But now, I am set to marry the man of my dreams and graduate from college in a little over a year. God’s plans for you are far better than the ones you make for yourself.

Man plans his way, but God directs his steps. The difficulty is that He only seems to show us one at a time. Even in my happiness, I struggle with that. I haven’t the faintest clue where Josh and I will be in five years, or what either of us will be doing. That scares me. But I am out at ease when I see His faithfulness in my life the past few years. To take the next step, I don’t have to see the destination. I will simply trust the one who plots the course, and know that it is good.