The best things in life are unexpected - because there were no expectations.
Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.
1 Corinthians 10:14
In the past, I've been a really big
dreamer. One of the first things I learned from my mom (and all those
Tupperware ladies that were helping to raise me) when I was growing
up was to dream big. Also, to set goals and to go after them. I
believe it has been a beautiful part of who I've become as I've grown
into adulthood. It has also become part of how I view others. I want
others to dream big. I want others to live in the moment, to know
that anything can happen if you're willing to work hard and take tiny
steps each day toward your dream. I want people to expect great
things from a wondrous God. However, it is this word "expectation"
I am starting to exam as I near my 32nd year hear on earth. I feel
like I've walked into a decade of unknown. There are a lot of reasons
that I thought I wouldn't make it past my twenties. This is not a
reflection of any type of morbidness. God healed me from a very dark
season of destructiveness where I dangled a little too often off a
bridge that was the barrier between life and death. After that, I
just think I believed that I was hear for a short time, to display
the splendor of the Lord, to comfort those that were in pain, to
share my story, and to move on with Him. However, I am still here and
I have been walking the unknown. I know what it looks like to be a
creative writer, I know what it looks like to be a daughter, and I
found safety in being a student -- I knew how to do that. Now I am in
a new city, I am recently a wife, and I am in a new season of working
without school. I'm learning. I'm stepping. I'm far less "in
between" than I was a year a go, than I was even a month ago.
What did I expect from this time in my life? And do we often get the
word expectation mixed up with the word standard? I think having
standards is much different. "I expect people to be ..." is
different to me than not wanting people in your life who don't bring
life, benefit, or only bring toxicity. That is a standard I want to
uphold. What do you think? How do you define each word? I am
beginning to define the word "expectation" as bondage. Our
expectations come from so many places in this country TV, books,
magazines, family history, the Bible, self-imposed ... Expectations
are all over the place and they come from without and within. I was
recently doing a day in my Bible study and it was about idolatry. I
felt a little relief that I wasn't caught up in idolatry in such as
toxic way as I was in my teens and early twenties. However, there are
some things I still put before God in my life on some level. At the
end of the day's lesson you are asked to talk with God about things
you are still holding on to too tightly. Into my mind floated the
word "expectations." To be all together raw and honest,
which is what this devotion site started out to do, I have cried, had
huge adverse reactions physically and emotionally, caused tension in
relationships, missed out on big joyful moments in my life, beat
myself up, and have found myself in times of depression because of
expectations. How I think I should be as a friend, wife, person,
writer ... How I thought planning a wedding was "supposed to
be," what I thought a weekend, honeymoon, wedding day was
"supposed to be." It is bondage and burden. I believe that
is the only outcome having expectations can lead to. In a backwards
way, I thought I was less of a person if I didn't have expectations,
but maybe this is where I was confusion the word with standards and
goals. It is okay to have hope, but I am doing away with all
expectations in my life. It won't be easy. I admit I even project
expectations on a subconscious level. There are subliminal messages
from society seeping into my ears daily, but to the best of my
ability and God's power (well, maybe just God's power) I am over
expectation. I will even begin tossing around the idea of what I
expect from God. I was always taught to pray expecting great things
from God. However, I am now thinking that you know truths about God
and you can pursue him, petition Him, love on Him, but let's be
surprised, awed, and blown away by God. He's big enough to overflow
our expectations anyway. His thoughts not my thought and His ways not
my ways. I believe having expectations in a form of idolatry in my
life. I am only to be satisfied by God and I know longer want to miss
out on the joy from His presence by expecting something horrific or
something amazing.
I just want to live, love, and be -- expecting nothing.
Giving and receiving.
I just want to live, love, and be -- expecting nothing.
Giving and receiving.
Letting go.