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All of the laundry was done and the kids were watching a video, so Karla quickly and quietly slipped into her room and threw herself across her bed. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, waited one moment, and then let it out in a very large sigh.
Laboriously, she raised her arm in front of her face, partially to shade her eyes from the sun flooding through her window, but also to check the time on her wristwatch. “Oh how peachy,” she spoke aloud to no one in particular. “I’ve got a whole two hours to clean both bathrooms, vacuum the downstairs, make dinner, bake brownies, clean out my horse’s stall, and make my darling, obedient, younger siblings clean their rooms. Peachy, just peachy keen.”
Karla propped herself up on her elbow and, for the hundredth time that day, recited to herself a quote by Debbie Kendircks that hung above her bed in a cheap, five dollar Wal-Mart frame. “I want to be somebody great for You, Lord-somebody so strong and powerful and wise that everyone will praise You for making me and no one will doubt You again-I want to be somebody great for You, Lord. Why do You want me to be me?”
She forgot where she had seen that quote, but as soon as she had read it, Karla knew she had to hang it in a place where she would see it often. Sometimes, she would lie in bed at night, pondering what the answer to that question could possibly be. “Why do You want me to be me?” The quote had been hanging there for almost a year, ever since her father had nearly severed his ankle in an ATV accident. And because he wasn’t able to work until it healed properly, Karla’s mom had to find a job, leaving 14 year old Karla to home school and raise her siblings and run the household.
Someone once had the audacity to tell her that she needed to “act more her age” and “get a life”. “I wish I could,” she had retorted.
She sat up and angrily swiped away a hot tear that, unbidden, had slid down her cheek. “Having a pity for myself isn’t going to get things done,” Karla told herself. But still she sat, unheeding her own sage advice. Instead, she reached for her worn and trusted companion that guided her through all things; her Bible.
Wearily, Karla flipped, somewhat absently, through the pages, searching for some verse of comfort. She had nearly talked herself into putting her Bible down and getting busy with her chores and quit wasting time, when her eyes fell on Jeremiah 29:11: “ ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.’ ” *
Karla considered the quote above her bed. “I want to be someone great for You, Lord…Why do You want me to be me?” Then she turned to the answer in her Bible. “For I know the plans I have for you…to give you a hope and a future.” Whatever God’s plans for her happened to be, she knew they would be great. She smiled to herself. “And if I follow his grand plans for my future, then won’t that make me somebody great for Him?”
Making a mental note to grab another frame next time she was at Wal-Mart, Karla sailed out of her room, in a much better disposition than when she had entered. That verse from Jeremiah needed to be hung next to the quote above her bed.
* New International Version *
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