When Walls Go Up

By Sarah C. Ayers

When you are an entrepreneur your life feels like a business plan sometimes. As a Christian it is hard to live with the understanding of Proverbs 16:9 which says The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps. The Lord has shown me over and over in my life that He knows what is best and without fail His purposes prevail.

I am a childcare provider and I feel with complete conviction that God’s will for my life is to serve families and children. But how I am to do that is sometimes unclear. Over the last two years I have been positive that the way to do that was to start a daycare center. But the further I got into planning to move my business in that direction figurative road blocks went up. No matter how many people I called, or how many connections I tried to nurture, no real traction or progress was made. 

There were two locations that I could picture being the next location for my daycare. The two point of my beloved Gooseberry Childcare was a small structure down the hill from my house. It was an old house on a medium piece of property that in my mind’s eye would be an exquisite place to carry on my legacy and continue serving my beloved Lummi community.  The second location is just up the road from me, an A-frame home that has been vacant for just over a year.  I did so much research on zoning, on funding, on writing proposals and grants, I talked to all different people, but no real traction.

And then, all of our worlds were shook by the Covid-19 decisions. Everything stood still and I realized that I have no control, I had to take a moment.

And guess what happened? Literal walls went up around the little house down the hill! The house suddenly went off the market and the owner built a huge wall all around the property. The property, the trees, the little building, everything is out of sight. And then the little A-frame house down the road now has a charming young family living in it. Both locations are completely off the table so to speak.

My blog is about my journey as a daycare teacher and the verse that next comes to my mind speaks directly to my continual message to my readers there: “I know, O LORD, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.” Jeremiah 10:23.  God directs my path now so clearly.

I am not going to work towards having a daycare center, I am going in another direction. My plan, which I believe is God’s directing, is for me to create a unique nanny agency that will be family-focus, ministry-focused; it will be a service that will meet the unique needs that has arisen for childcare that exposes children to the fewest possible chances to get infected with Covid-19.

This article is not to advance my new nanny agency or even my blog. It is to encourage you not to see walls (whether literal or figurative) as God saying “no” to your service, it is a redirection. Our God knows us more deeply and completely than we can even imagine. Our lives matter to Him, He has a plan and a direction. But our God is also a gentle God, He does not set out to break our hearts, but to lead us. So, lets have soft hearts to God, lets allow ourselves to listen in the midst of chaos and panic. Let’s be still and know that God is with us. 

Your lives are not business plans, your lives are real. It is good to plan your ways, but God will hold you up (James 4:10), God will not allow you to truly fall (Psalm 121:1).