Best Laid Schemes (Plans)

"The best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry"

This is from a poem by Robert Burns but I first heard of this in my secondary school days from reading Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. It was one of the books we had to study for english literature. Very unlikely that I would read it on my own will.

Anyway, what I meant to say is that things in life don't always go according to how I plan it or how I would like it to be. For example, during the beginning of the year, my plan was to submit my PhD thesis by end of March, get it examined and submit a final archival version by June; but in reality I only managed to submit my thesis for external examination in June and I only recently received the examiners’ reviews. So it will probably be mid or end of September that I will submit a final archival copy. Also, I thought I would be able to land myself a job in June/July and of course that didn’t happen.

On the other hand, something else did happen that I was not fully expecting – a second baby that will be arriving end of the year. We were planning to have a second baby but we just did not expect it to happen so soon. A little unprepared but still, it is all good.

Anyway, to be honest, I am not one who makes very detailed plans in life and I usually like to go with the flow. It is probably a personality thing.... Alright I am lazy. Which makes it a bit easier for me to accept changes in life and adapting when I really have to.

However something that is a bit of a shock and sudden is my dad’s health condition. It is in such a bad state that he has to be in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU); and when my mum called me, I could sense that she feared the worst. Actually it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise because my dad has battled with Lymphoma for over a decade and the whole family is well aware of his condition. He has been in (warded) and out of the hospital many times this year and the gap between each stay has become shorter. But I still wasn't expecting it. Or maybe I was not ready to expect it. We had a different plan in mind, one where my dad will be able to visit us in Melbourne and see the arrival of his second grandchild and to do so much more things for the glory of God. Now that this has happened, I am not sure if that plan is still possible.

I know that God has a better plan for my dad and for my mum, His ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:9). But I still pray that He will extend His grace and mercy and grant us a miracle healing, if not the ability to submit to His will.