There’s a woman in my ward named Joanne. She’s probably sixty-ish, but her smooth, rosy cheeks make her look much younger. Although stalwart in the gospel she rarely comes to church these days because of the effects of severe Type 1 diabetes. But once in a while I see her shuffling a slow course around our cul-de-sac, getting the exercise she needs to help the circulation in her swollen, pain-wracked legs. It takes her about fifteen minutes to complete the circle.

One morning I was outside with my preschoolers when she made her way past our yard, leaning on her husband for support. I told her I missed seeing her at church, and asked her how she was. She responded with one of her typical upbeat replies (the woman has the most positive attitude I’ve ever encountered). But then she paused for a moment. “You know,” she said, “this isn’t how I envisioned spending the rest of my life.”  

I almost started to cry right there. Her words were so candid and poignant, so void of self-pity. And so evocative of the human condition. How many of us get exactly what we expect? How many of us come within spitting distance? How many of us find ourselves in a territory so foreign from what we envisioned, we sometimes wonder what force carried us hither and set us down to live, completely surprised, sometimes traumatized, and usually at least a little bit bewildered?

Joanne’s words made me think about the unexpected course of my own life. As is the case for all of us, the surprises have come through a mix of choice and circumstance. When I got married, I never thought I’d end up with seven children–but an unexpected, near-constant desire for children gripped me for a dozen years, and I chose to follow it, and mother nature cooperated, so here I am in a household of nine. When I was a child old enough to be self-aware, I never expected to live a life complicated by chronic depression, but I do (and so do two of my children). When I was a young adult and envisioned my future offspring, I didn’t see a child with Down syndrome. There have been dozens of surprises, large and small, positive and negative and neutral. And no matter how often I counsel myself to expect the unexpected, it always takes me off-guard. I can’t trump the unpredictable and the unseen, although I’ve tried.

How has life surprised you? How do you cope with the stark reality of the unexpected? How do you plan for life, knowing it very well may shred your plans–and that you might be better off as a result? How do you walk the fine line between deliberate living and surrender?

Maybe deliberate surrender is an important part of the answer.