What Plans Lie Here?

   Mayre and I have been caught up in the "planning mode" these past few days. Plans for this week, plans for the Fall, and just plans in general..

   Not included in our planning was a spur of the moment trip last evening to look at some of the flowers that are blooming right now all over our island. We found more than just a colorful array of blooms.

   Situated across the street from the azalea covered Wesley Gardens is an historic church, Christ Church Episcopal..

   And the grounds behind that church contains a cemetery that has been in use for at least a couple of hundred years.

   The light was fast fading, but as I walked among the graves and got a few pictures of the setting, I thought about those folks who were buried there.

   What were the plans for those? What were their hopes and dreams?

   Dr. Robert Grant, born in Scotland in 1762, died at 81 here on St. Simons. Did he have more plans for his life?

   Hamilton Couper, died in his prime at Manassas in 1861. He had plans, I am sure, and his parents must have had dreams for him as well.

   A child who only lived one day in 1941. How his parents must have grieved for "what might have been".

   This morning I am brought full circle from that land of dreams that were cut short, back to the present. What about the plans that we make? Are we so caught up in those that we forget to live in the present and so miss what God has for us in these days?

   Am I apt to put so much store in what good is going to happen, that I clutch it strongly in my mind's hand, even so much that, if it does not come to pass, it is a tragedy. How much better to hold my plans loosely and trust that God knows better than I what is good.

   I have not ever seen an epitaph like this, but it is fitting:

   "Their Plans Have Changed"