The Blueprint on the Kitchen Table

Elena Vasquez spread her business plan across the kitchen table at 5:00 a.m., the way she had every morning for three weeks. The numbers never changed. A small alterations shop in downtown San Antonio required twelve thousand dollars she did not have. Her sewing machine hummed in the spare bedroom where she took in mending for neighbors, but the leap from hemming pants to signing a lease felt impossibly wide.

Her grandmother back in Guadalajara used to say that planning without praying was like threading a needle in the dark. So Elena did something that felt almost foolish. She slid the business plan to the center of the table, placed both hands flat on the pages, and prayed aloud: "Lord, this is Yours. If it lives, it lives because You breathe on it. If it dies, I trust You still."

Within a month, a retired seamstress from her church offered to co-sign the lease. A local bridal shop began sending overflow work. None of it unfolded the way Elena had sketched in her careful spreadsheets — it unfolded better, and stranger, and with people she never would have chosen on her own.

Proverbs 16:3 says, "Commit your works to the LORD, and your plans will be established." The Hebrew word for "commit" is galal — it means to roll, the way you would roll a heavy stone off your own shoulders and onto someone strong enough to carry it. Elena did not abandon her plans. She rolled them onto the One whose shoulders never buckle.