We spend a lot of our lives making plans. We decide what job we want, who we want to spend our lives with, where we want to live, what success should look like, and sometimes even the exact path we believe will get us there.
We call it Plan A.
And when Plan A falls apart, we rarely celebrate. We grieve it. We get frustrated. We wonder what went wrong. We question our decisions. If we’re people of faith, we may even question God. Why didn’t You let this happen? Why did You close that door? Why bring me this far just to make me turn around?
Then we reluctantly move on to Plan B. Except sometimes, years later, we discover something surprising. Maybe Plan B was Plan A all along.
The Dog I Didn’t Go There to Get
Many years ago, I went to the pound because I had seen a Boxer online. That was the dog I wanted. I had already pictured it. I had made the decision. I knew why I was going there. Except when I arrived, the Boxer was gone. Someone at the shelter said something along the lines of, “Hey, we’ve got this little girl over here.” She was six weeks old. Her name became Sadie. And it was love at first sight.
I hadn’t gone there looking for her. I didn’t know she existed when I walked through the door. Had the Boxer still been available, I might never have even met her. But that little girl would go on to spend nearly sixteen years of my life beside me. For fourteen of those years, she was my working dog. She became part of my routines, my travels, my experiences and ultimately my story.
The dog I went there to get disappeared from my life before ever entering it. The dog I hadn’t planned on became unforgettable. At the time, Sadie looked like Plan B. Looking backward, it’s difficult to imagine how she could have been anything other than Plan A.
Then It Happened Again
Years later, after losing Sadie, I eventually found myself looking for another dog. This time I brought home a Husky. She was beautiful. She was also somewhere around 65 or 70 pounds and had some significant behavioral issues. I tried. For five days, I really tried. I couldn’t leave her alone for even a few minutes without her destroying something. Then, on day five, she ate a hole in the inside of my car door.
There are moments in life when subtle hints tell you something isn’t working. And then there are moments when something eats your car. I had to take her back. I hated doing it, but wanting something to work doesn’t always mean it will. And once again, someone brought out another dog. His name was Shiloh. The rest is history.
Today Shiloh is about two years old and weighs 46 pounds. Sadie spent most of her adult life around 48 pounds. They are both Shepsky mixes, and Shiloh can wear Sadie’s old vests, shirts and jackets. The things I bought for my girl all those years ago somehow fit the little guy who came along after her. Once again, the dog I originally chose wasn’t the dog who stayed.
Once again, Plan B became the plan. And that got me thinking about how often this happens outside of animal shelters.
We Don’t Like Plan B
There’s something almost insulting about Plan B when we’re living through it. Plan B feels like settling. It feels like the consolation prize. Plan B is the college you attended because your first choice didn’t accept you.
It’s the career you discovered after the one you prepared for disappeared. It’s the city you moved to because the opportunity somewhere else fell through. It’s the person you met after being devastated by someone you were certain you’d spend your life with. It’s the business you started after losing your job. It’s the friendship that formed because someone else walked away. It’s the life you built after realizing the life you planned wasn’t going to happen.
At the time, all we can see is what we lost. We compare what is happening to what we thought was supposed to happen. That’s what makes Plan B so difficult. We aren’t evaluating it on its own merits. We’re comparing reality against an imaginary future that never actually existed.
And imaginary futures are remarkably difficult to compete with.
The Life That Never Happened
There’s another problem with Plan A. We know only the version of it that existed in our minds. We imagine getting the job and being successful. We don’t imagine getting the job and discovering we hate it. We imagine the relationship working. We don’t imagine what might have happened five years later. We imagine the opportunity changing our lives. We don’t imagine the problems that might have come with it. We mourn paths we never traveled as though we know where they would have led. But we don’t.
That doesn’t mean disappointment isn’t real. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t grieve when something we desperately wanted disappears. It simply means we don’t possess enough information to know that losing Plan A was actually a loss. Sometimes the closed door protected us. Sometimes it redirected us. Sometimes it delayed us. And sometimes it simply forced us to look to the side and notice something we never would have noticed while staring straight ahead.
“Hey, we’ve got this little girl over here.”
One sentence. One change of direction. Sixteen years.
When God Says No
Faith makes this even more interesting. We frequently ask God to bless our plans. We’ve already decided what should happen. We’ve selected the destination, mapped the route, packed the car, and essentially handed God the itinerary. Then we pray for His guidance. What we sometimes mean is:
“Please approve the plan I’ve already made.”
And when He doesn’t, we’re confused. We prayed. We believed. We tried. The door still closed. So, we assume something went wrong.
But Scripture is filled with people whose lives didn’t follow the route they expected. Detours, delays, wildernesses, imprisonments, losses and unexpected encounters repeatedly became part of something larger than the person experiencing them could see at the time.
That doesn’t mean every disappointment is some elaborate divine chess move. Sometimes things simply don’t work. Sometimes people make choices. Sometimes circumstances change. Sometimes life hurts. But faith leaves room for another possibility:
Maybe God’s “no” isn’t always rejection. Sometimes it’s redirection.
We ask Him for the Boxer. Maybe He knows we’re there for the six-week-old puppy sitting somewhere else.
Stop Calling It Second Best
Perhaps that’s where our language gets us into trouble. Plan B. Second choice. Backup plan. Fallback. Those words assume we already know which outcome was better. But sometimes we don’t learn that until years later.
The job you reluctantly accepted introduces you to someone who changes your career. The relationship that ended forces you to discover who you are without it. The opportunity you didn’t receive pushes you toward something you never would have attempted otherwise. The failure you were embarrassed by becomes the experience you eventually use to help someone else.
The road you never intended to travel becomes the road that takes you home. What looked like a detour from the destination may have actually been the route to it.
Maybe You’re Standing in Plan A
There will always be things we don’t understand while they’re happening. Some doors close without explanation. Some prayers seem unanswered. Some plans collapse at exactly the moment we thought everything was finally coming together. And when that happens, it’s natural to look at whatever comes next and think: Well, I guess this is Plan B. Maybe. But before you dismiss it, give it some time.
Because somewhere in my house today is a 46-pound dog wearing clothes that belonged to a 48-pound dog who came before him. Neither one was the dog I went looking for. Both became the dog I needed. One came into my life because the dog I wanted was already gone. The other came into my life because the dog I chose first simply couldn’t stay. And perhaps that’s one of life’s quieter lessons.
We spend so much time grieving the plan that didn’t happen that we sometimes fail to recognize the life arriving in its place.
So, when Plan A falls apart, mourn it if you need to. Be disappointed. Ask questions. Adjust. But don’t assume what comes next is second best. You don’t know the rest of the story yet.
Maybe Plan B was Plan A all along.
