Lately, I’ve been having a sort of identity crisis. Only a few weeks ago, I had a very clear idea of what I wanted in life. I was going to be a writer and a homemaker, have two children (at least one girl), and be a homeschool teacher for them and for other children. Recently though, I haven’t been sure of much of anything. I’ve started to question whether I even really wanted to have kids. Between the childbirth, the 24/7 job of taking care of children, the potential for heartbreak when they mess up in life, and the difficulty of raising them well, I’m just not sure anymore. Which of course, puts a kink in my plan for being mainly a stay home mom.

Besides the whole motherhood debate, I’ve also been questioning my potential as a writer. Basically, it is very difficult to make a living as a novelist. It doesn’t provide a dependable salary, and you could very well write an entire novel and then not be able to get it published. Then, if you do manage to get it published, there’s the problem of selling it. There are so many books out there, and a lot of them are really good! Who on earth would even notice mine, let alone be persuaded to buy it? My fear is that nobody would.

Even if people did buy my books, I’m not confident that that could ever be enough to fully support me. Living costs a lot, and novelists don’t usually make that much off of their books. Thus, the ends don’t meet.

This train of thought has me deeply questioning what I am going to do with my life. After all, if my husband and I decide not to have kids and it’s not likely that I can make a living as a writer, then I can’t do either of the things that I’d planned on! And if I don’t know what I want to do, then that leaves me wondering if I’m making the right decision as far as college goes. Is it really smart for me to get an associate’s degree, which truthfully does not make you qualified for many jobs at all, if I don’t know what I want to do?

That was when I realized it. Or, I should say, I remembered it. I remembered how clearly God had told me to carry out my plan for school. When I was originally trying to make the decision about whether or not to leave my university in order to pursue an associate’s degree at the local community college, I asked God to point me in the right direction. And He did! He gave me four very clear (if not humorous) indications that it was ok for me to do just that. So the decision was made.

My recent confusion led me to remember that. That, in turn, let me to understand something very important; I am not making my life decisions based on me, I’m making them based on God. Sure, sometimes God doesn’t seem to have a preference about what I decide, and in those times I do decide based on what I want. But in this case, I had to remember that even though I thought that I was leaving my university because that is what I wanted, in reality I am leaving because God told me to. That is so comforting to me!

Even if my old plan is not so certain any more, God’s plan is. As long as I am trusting God’s plan instead of my own plan, I know that I’m in good hands.

So no, I don’t know exactly (or at all) what I want to do with my life. I don’t know if I want to be a parent or a writer anymore. I don’t know how I am going to make a living or support myself and my husband. I have some ideas, sure, but that isn’t very comforting when it comes to your financial security. But despite that, I’m not freaking out. I know that God has a plan for me and that He will take care of me. It’s all about whether or not I can trust Him. And I most definitely do.

My husband and I are on a journey together. Many couples get married later in life when they already know what they want to do, or are even doing it already. They often have a clear preference when it comes to having children, and in many cases they know exactly how many they will have and what their names will be. Funnily enough, this was my husband and I just a few months ago (well, except the part about getting married later in life).

Now, we are uncertain. He has a much clearer idea of what he wants to do than I do, but it is still somewhat uncertain whether he can succeed at it. Neither of us know if we want kids at all anymore, let alone how many. But we are together, and we are protected by the God of the universe. That is what a marriage is supposed to look like; two people who are tied together through everything and anything, following God’s leadings with contented faith. We have what we need, because God provides it. We don’t need to know the rest right now.

God wants me to trust Him, and that means letting go of my plans for my life and embracing His plan instead, even if I don’t know what that is yet. And you know what? I feel so much more secure this way. After all, this is God we’re talking about. He probably knows just a little bit more than I do.