David McElroy

It’s another door slammed and bolted
It’s one more window locked
You were on your way back home and now you’re not
— Terry Scott Taylor, “I Plan, God Laughs”

When I was 24, I had a plan for my life. I knew exactly where I was going. What I was going to do. Who I was going to become. Then I changed. My life changed. I threw that plan away.

By the time I was about 28, I had a completely different plan. It was so clear and simple. But things went in a different direction. I learned more about myself — and then another plan was tossed.

Things were radically different by the time I was 32, then took another unexpected turn when I hit 40.

How many plans have I had? At least half a dozen major plans, maybe more. But I keep changing. And when I change, I find that the things which seemed so important before can seem more like grim jokes. The goal I had wanted seems pointless. The woman I had loved with all my heart is worth nothing to me.

My plans have involved careers, romantic partners and dreams of fame and power. There’ve been visions of money and success and art and love. Especially love. But every time I make a plan, God seems to laugh gently at me, because I can’t see what’s coming.

I keep changing. Unexpected things keep happening. And then my old plans seem laughable and naive. That seems to be happening once more.

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It’s been years since I’ve fallen in love. Ever since I lost that last relationship, I’ve wondered whether I could ever fall in love again. But I met a woman last week who’s given me hope. Just a little bit.

I was walking through a parking lot when I saw a woman get out of a car. Something about her face struck me in a way that hasn’t happened for a very long time. She was tall and strikingly beautiful, but it wasn’t that. Not really. I meet beautiful women all the time. This one was different.

I can’t explain it, but there was something behind her face — in her eyes as she glanced at me — that felt familiar. It was like recognizing someone who I’d never actually met. I had to talk to her.

I don’t remember exactly what I said, but we chatted as we walked in the same direction. I got to the door where I was going and stopped. She first kept going, but then she hesitated and turned around and we kept chatting.

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If you want to be like everybody else, just imitate the behavior of everyone around you. If you want to be an ordinary family, conform to what you see other families do. If like what you see in the culture around you — and you want to become a reflection of that — act in the ways the culture dictates.

You will become just like the people around you. And you and your children will end up just as dysfunctional as the culture to which you’re allowing yourself to conform.

But what if you want to become extraordinary instead? What if you want your family to have the love, connection and stability you don’t see in ordinary families?

You can choose to be extraordinary. You can be emotionally healthy in a dysfunctional world. You can make conscious choices about what your life will be. But that requires sacrifices. You can’t take the easy way of simply “fitting in.” You have to make hard choices — and it requires you to be constantly at war with a sick and brutal culture which demands mindless conformity.

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