{"id":11263,"date":"2019-10-30T05:18:54","date_gmt":"2019-10-30T10:18:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=11263"},"modified":"2019-10-30T05:19:04","modified_gmt":"2019-10-30T10:19:04","slug":"when-gods-plans-are-way-better-than-ours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=11263","title":{"rendered":"When God’s Plans are Way Better than Ours"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 1986, we moved to Canada on a ministry mission. It was a 100% faith-venture for all of us, including my mom. We had no idea what the future would hold, but we knew Who held our future. \u201cFor I know the plans I have for you,\u201d says the LORD. \u201cThey are plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.\u201d Jeremiah 29:11<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll limit the adventures of the next seven years to this one story that helps explain that scripture in our lives and, perhaps, in yours. Our daughter had a huge Oklahoma basketball career ahead of her and was chosen for the Junior Olympics BB team. In Canada, women’s basketball was not quite there yet, so good-bye basketball. (FYI – the girl’s still got game!) ?? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We realized this girl needed grooming after having been a basketball \u201cjock\u201d for many years. On the bench, she would sit with her legs spread apart. I would hand-signal her: “Close those legs!” We put her into modeling school to help with poise and stage presence. Someone noticed this bubbly, outgoing, singing-machine girl and recommended that she try out for the local Miss Teen Winnipeg Pageant. She did and went “all-in”! Within days of the pageant, the directors deemed she would be the sure winner so they disqualified her from the competition. The reason? Her southern drawl just didn’t epitimoze a girl from “the Great North”. Though she was a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada because of her dad\u2019s Canadian citizenship, the ball dropped on her aspirations\u2026again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Her daddy (her coach and number one promoter) was steamed at the bias and prejudice against his girl. He was on his way to getting legal counsel when God reminded him of that scripture above. It was heart-wrenching at the time, but \u201coh the plans God had for her\u201d. Not long after, an aunt called us and recommended that she try out for the David Foster Coca Cola World Chorus that would represent many countries at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics. Staci was one of 8,500 Canadians chosen by David Foster to represent Canada. She went on to be a soloist at the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. The next year, at age 18, after training her voice to be less \u201csouthern\u201d, she won the Miss Winnipeg Manitoba Pageant and won the talent portion of the Miss Canada Pageant, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I could go on and on about the doors that opened to our girl. Who knew that a huge step of faith would open so many doors? God did. It\u2019s been years since those seven years of \u201cCanadian plenty\u201d, but I often find myself thinking about those years when my plans don\u2019t unfold as I\u2019d hoped. When I\u2019m praying for open doors, yet they remain closed; when I\u2019m pleading for a \u201cyes,\u201d but the answer is \u201cno\u201d; when I\u2019m asking for change, but everything seems to stay the same. I remind myself of the truth that my daughter once learned: A frustrating \u201cno\u201d may be setting the stage for a forthcoming \u201cyes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We have a loving Father who knows things we don\u2019t. And sometimes, He needs to \u201cwreck\u201d our agenda in order to render His. It takes faith to believe that promise when life isn\u2019t going as we\u2019d expected. But I\u2019m learning that we don\u2019t need to know all of God\u2019s ways to accept His will. We simply need to trust His heart. God is for us, not against us When we remember who God is, we can better embrace what He\u2019s doing, even if He says \u201cno.\u201d Someday, when we look back at our lives through eternity\u2019s lens, we\u2019ll want to throw our arms around our faithful Father and say, \u201cThanks for spoiling my plans, Dad. Yours were even better!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1986, we moved to Canada on a ministry mission. It was a 100% faith-venture for all of us, including my mom. We had no idea what the future would hold, but we knew Who held our future. \u201cFor I know the plans I have for you,\u201d says the LORD. \u201cThey are plans for good…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15335,15338,15336,15337,15339],"tags":[10981,12661,3539,1210,15341,15348,15350,10983,2319,39,271,15345,15343,15347,15351,7499,15344,5132],"class_list":["post-11263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1988-calgary-winter-olympics","category-cant-you-feel-it","category-coca-cola-world-chorus","category-david-foster","category-gods-plans","tag-1988-calgary-winter-olympics","tag-all-in","tag-basketball","tag-blog","tag-canada","tag-coach-bias","tag-coca-cola-world-chorus","tag-david-foster","tag-future","tag-hope","tag-jeremiah-2911","tag-legal-counsel","tag-miss-canada","tag-miss-teen-winnipeg","tag-miss-winnipeg-pageant","tag-pageant","tag-prejudice","tag-step-of-faith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11269,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11263\/revisions\/11269"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}