The Event that almost didn't happen

    How well do you handle it when God completely derails your plans at the last minute, leaving you feeling rushed and stressed to develop a new vision? In this case, I didn’t handle it as well as I could or should have but, not that it justifies my frustration at all, I had spent considerable time planning, shopping and praying over the initial vision and was devastated to learn that things wouldn’t work out the way I had hoped. In the end though, as He always does, God worked things out and orchestrated it all to bring Him greater glory and bless a greater number of people which is the ultimate goal. 
    Originally, the Free to Hope Galentine’s Celebration was a brunch event designed to tremendously bless the girls at StreetlightUSA with a smorgasbord of breakfast foods, a few desserts, some fun games and cute prizes for them to take in remembrance of the extraordinary evening. Lots of excited planning led up to the weekend of the event. Thursday was shopping day so I went out and bought all the food, supplies, and decorations needed. Friday was going to be cooking/prep day but, instead, I woke up to an email explaining that, as a volunteer, I was not allowed to make food for the girls and, anything that I purchased to bring would have to be healthy snacks. Only one day before the event, I suddenly had to think of a Plan B. Since I felt like anything outside of the initial plan would be good but not great and I was raised to do all things with excellence, I thought about canceling the whole event. However, I had already told the girls I would be there so I wasn’t willing to let them down completely. As event time got closer, I got more and more stressed trying to come up with an alternative activity. In the midst of my tears, prayers and worrying, God gave me the idea to do homeless care packages with the girls. While I thought the idea was really cute, I didn’t know how the girls would like it but, with no other ideas, I went and bought an abundance of snacks and treats to go into gallon-sized bags with cards and lots of fun markers for the girls to write encouragements too. 
    Worrying about how the girls would handle the disappointment of me not having the pancake bar and fun foods I told them about, I shared the bad news and quickly followed that with the plan for making homeless care packages together. To my surprise, they were all on board, took it seriously and made a lot more bags than I expected them to want to. Afterwards, we played some games and I brought in more prizes than they knew what to do with. At the beginning of the event, I explained to them a little bit about Free to Hope Ministries and, at the end I showed them the t shirts to explain what it meant whenever they saw me wearing that shirt. Surprising me yet again, all of them, including their staff on duty, wanted one without me even asking! Fortunately, I had 2 boxes of them in my car so I was able to bless each of them with a free shirt! 
    They each walked away with fun memories, cool prizes, a Free to Hope shirt and the unmatched feeling that comes with being able to bless someone else and I walked away with about 60 bags for the homeless and the feeling of accomplishment that, despite the stress, it all worked out so well! When my initial idea was shot down at the last minute, I told God multiple times that I didn’t want to do the event anymore for several good reasons. I mainly didn’t want to let the girls down and didn’t want to let myself down when the event didn’t turn out as spectacular as I imagined it. Of course, when I was forced to let go of my vision and humble myself in submission to God’s plan, everything turned out way more incredible than anything I could’ve planned on my own!