The Idolatry of a Well-Ordered Plan

thy will be done, unless it conflicts with MY will, please

I hope your heart finds grace + gumption in this free letter, but just a reminder that Letters From a Catholic Feminist is not free to create. That’s why it’s a reader-supported publication. If you enjoy our monthly free content, I’d ask if you could prayerfully consider upgrading your subscription. Full subscribers have access to our entire archives, our summer read-alongs, our booklists, our upcoming Zoom call on 9/16 with Erika Bachiochi, and so many other perks. Thank you so much, and peace be with you.

I’m not your typical type-A girl.

If you come to my house, you’ll notice an above-average amount of clutter, mainly books and the kids’ art supplies. (My sister dusted the baseboard at the bottom of her stairs the other day and told me she thought, “I wonder when the last time Claire did this was,” and I had to inform her that she didn’t have to wonder because the answer was never. I have literally never done that.) My poor accountant has to deal with me every April when I show up with random piles of receipts, including homemade ones on post-it notes. I would be very embarrassed if you looked in our medicine cabinets.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a thing for control. For me, it comes in that sweet, sweet seduction of plans.

Plans! Man, I love a plan. I’m obsessed with a routine. My house might be a mess but do I have a plan for it? Sure do! Here’s how our mornings are going to go, and here’s what I’m going to write at what time, and here’s which weekends we’ll go on what trips. I salivate at the thought of January, and my solo coffee date where I treat myself to a fancy latte and fill out my Powersheets. Our kids will do these extracurriculars, and I’ll clean the bathrooms on this day each week, and my life will go pretty much how I’ve always expected it to. (If you’ve ever blown money on a beautiful Kate Spade planner, you know this feeling well. It’s truly like Christmas morning to crack those babies open.)

Isn’t there a saying about how when you make your plans in marker, God laughs?

When I was in in my early-conversion days and Jesus still felt very much like a la-la-la ATM who would bestow joy upon me when asked, I found this image super comforting:

The reasoning behind it is sound. We’re clinging to smaller things that won’t bring us the fullness of joy that Jesus can. What he has is so much better.

But I took that to mean in this life.

I took that to mean: I got sent to the swampy south as a missionary instead of close to home, but see? I adored my team + there was probably a student there that ~needed~ me!

And: of course I didn’t get the internship I wanted, but I got this one instead, and see? It was actually so much better for my career goals!

And: of course it stunk that our first Catholic Feminist pilgrimage got bumped a year due to COVID, but see? There were people who signed up to come that couldn’t have come the year before, and now we’re really good friends, and it all worked out just fine!

I took God is for my good to mean God wants me to be as happy as possible, even though things are happening that SEEM like they’ll make me unhappy. There must be a silver lining in the New Plan. It will feel cozy + cushy, like a brand new teddy bear.

And sometimes those silver linings really are there, and they’re wonderful and to be appreciated for the gifts that they are.

But what if there is no silver lining, other than this was the permissive will of God for reasons I may never understand?

I’m slowly starting to relearn the idea of God’s plan, separate from the false one I was once taught (or allowed myself to believe because it was comfortable and convenient). That joy that Jesus has behind his back might not be a Better-In-My-Eyes Situation. Maybe the job you got instead of the one you wanted has you working way more hours and is ten thousand times harder. That teddy bear Jesus has might be uncomfortable, excruciating, or downright humiliating.

It may look like deep, unimaginable pain, until it doesn’t. Because instead of wandering around with my cross, talking about how heavy it is, I can, as Michelle Benzinger recently said on the Abiding Together podcast, carry it up Calvary and die on it.

Only then can we rise.

Only once we die to our plans and our comforts. Only once we die to our routines.

I’m still working my way slowly but surely through Abandonment to Divine Providence, and in it, Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade asks: “Why do you tire yourselves out by running after shallow streams that only increase your thirst while giving you but a few drops to drink?” I find myself doing this so often. I’m running after that sweet taste of control, thinking that I can just plan my way into peace. But the peace that comes from my own well-ordered plan is temporary and fickle; I’m wanting more and more and never feeling satisfied. I’m juggling balls that are falling to the ground, trying desperately to scoop them up and hold them tight.

But we don’t give up our plans because God has something that feels better for us in store. We give up our plans because God has something that actually is better for us in store.

Don’t mishear me: it’s a good thing to be an organized person who plans ahead. Proverbs 21:5 says “The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.” Moreover, Luke 14:28 says “For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?” We have a retirement account. We have childcare plans. We have a shared family calendar and it’s even color-coded.

But these plans can became an idol quicker than you can say “SMART goals”.

Last week at our parish church, the priest’s homily was so beautiful that I found myself taking notes. He was explaining how badly he had always wanted to be a biological father: it was his number one hang-up when becoming a priest. But instead of going into how he’s a spiritual father, and gets to be a father to many, and isn’t it all so much better this way?, he talked about how it was still an ache. But it was an ache that he’d offered to Jesus, like the boy with 5 loaves and 2 fish. And when he gave that desire to Jesus, he had freedom from it. Not because the desire was a bad thing—it wasn’t. It’s a beautiful thing, to want to be a biological father! But because when we desire anything more than we desire God, and when we want our plans more than we want God’s, we aren’t living in freedom. We’re slaves to those desires and plans. And Christ came that we might be set free.

God’s better might be an ache that you live with for the rest of your life, always sort of wondering why things hadn’t gone the way you hoped. But when you die on that cross and offer that ache to the Lord that loves you, it becomes much more bearable, if still unpleasant and painful.

‘‘If there is anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe, I know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me. But this was shown: that in falling and rising again we are always kept in that same precious love.’’ - St Julian of Norwich

That’s how St. Maximilian Kolbe could became a saint in a concentration camp. That’s how St. Therese of Lisieux could become a saint after a quiet life and a painful death. That’s how St. Peter could become a saint being crucified upside down. God’s teddy bear did not feel like a teddy bear, but when what you have to offer is offered with a surrendered heart, God can make our feeble attempts at love infinitely perfect.

My word of the year for 2024 was fiat, and I so badly want to be like Mary in that moment when an angel shows up on her doorstep and simultaneously ruins and perfects her life. I want to take a deep breath and say “Bring it on”.

I’m not there yet. But I’m working on it. Pray for me, as I do for you.

On My Nightstand 

• Now is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson: A really intriguing novel about a girl whose art accidentally contributes to a Satanic panic, and the aftershocks she feel from the incident throughout her life. Fair warning, this gets quite dark and just, like…uncomfortable. That being said, I couldn’t put it down and it was beautifully written. Do with that what you will!

• Poetry Doesn’t Need a Room of One’s Own: Continuing on this week’s trend of I-can’t-decide-if-I-liked-this-or-not, I’m not sure where I landed on this author’s message of creative women not really needing their own space to do good work. On the one hand, absolutely; on the other, is it so much to ask for a physical, tangible corner to produce good work in that is your very own? Read it + let me know what you think in the comments!

• Lastly, this isn’t a read but a watch. I’ve been going through the talks from this year’s National Eucharistic Revival and wow, they’ve been incredible. I want to hire Sr. Josephine Garrett to just follow me around and speak truth to me. If you, like me, didn’t get the chance to go in person, take some time to watch a few of the talks!

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In case you missed these Letters:

• 3 Things I’ve Changed My Mind About

• Does Legalized Prostitution Lower Rates of Rape?

• Kicking Fear-Based Parenting to the Curb

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