Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Great Expectations

This is actually the third night in a row that I've written this post. The first time I wrote it, I had just finished reading a few other blogs that had gone viral and I had these grandiose ideas of maybe one day, mine doing the same.....so I found the scripture to back every point and by the time I got to the end of the post, I had a whole lot of scripture, and none of me. The second time I wrote it, my dreams of virility were slightly smaller but yesterday was a hard day and well, nobody has time for Debbie Downer. And there's tonight. God says to write.....because this is what He gave me. Even if nobody reads it.....I have to use what He gave me.

Any time I sit down and exercise my brain enough to write a post, it's because I'm working something out in my soul. Topics usually haunt me for a couple of weeks before I make the decision to write and I have finally learned that when that happens it's always 1 of 2 things......it's either the devil trying to distract/hurt/guilt/condemn me or it's the Holy Spirit laying that conviction on thick. Needless to say, I serve an amazing, relentless God who has kept after me on this one for WAY more than a couple of weeks. But only in the last 4 months have I been forced to face and attempt to deal with the monster of my "great expectations". 

In the last 4 months (yes, since David has been home), God has taken a whole lot of really ugly stuff that I had shoved down deep into the darkest parts of my being, and He's attached bobbers to them. They are floating around on the surface now, bobbing up and down and surfacing every few seconds, on display, vulnerable, asking to get baited.  Some of the things I struggle with....anger, resentment, bitterness, selfishness, laziness AND disappointment. Those first several things, ok. I can talk my way through those. There have been offenses and words spoken and actions taken and I have held onto them, and I have battled myself with entitlement and acting like the world owed me something and allowing myself to be selfish and bitter and I've found every single possible reason under the sun to justify why I can't possibly fit time into my schedule to take care of my physical fitness in an effort to facilitate my laziness. Problem solved. But then there's this disappointment thing. And when I think about it, and its root, it's a recurring theme in so many hard times in my life. And its this thing.....this is the hard one. I have great expectations. Of situations. Of people. Of myself. I set unattainable standards for the people around me. And then get disappointed when they are unable to meet them. I've done it with Jake for our entire marriage. It's heart breaking to love someone that you feel like you will never be good enough for. That's what he tells me. I'm the oppressor. I've done it with Cole and Zella. I have loved them with the most selfish kind of parenting love. I have parented them with the expectation of a return. Of them noticing the clean laundry or the new recipe or the extra book that I read but didn't really want to read. Of them growing up and being smart and successful and attributing said success to the one that held it all together for them. Mom. And then David came along. And this transition has been long and hard and it has not been what I expected. At all. And here's what David has taught me........I am selfish. David came to this family with NOTHING to offer.  It has taken me 4 months of examining to figure out why love with him feels so different. It has taken me that long to figure out why it literally hurts. Because David is a small me.......needing to be rescued. Needing to be loved and to learn to love himself.

I had never considered my emptiness that first time I sat at the feet of Jesus and begged for redemption. I had never pondered the fact that I literally have nothing to offer the King of Kings. I am completely naked and empty handed every time I approach Him. But He wants every single bit of my ugly, 2 kids later, nakedness and emptiness. Because He wants to clothe me in dignity. He desires to fill me with promise and truth and hope and a quiet, strong spirit that stands firm when the devil prowls. He wants to equip me to be a grace monger. To clothe the naked and empty handed in the same dignity I have been afforded. He wants to love me  Love me into finally loving myself. He wants to romance me into trusting that I was created with such care that I am beautiful and worthy. He wants me to have HOPE.  He wants me to have so much hope, that I'm able to deliver that to other people that have nothing to offer.......like David.

The difference in expectation and in hope is their creator. Expectations are rooted in what we have created in our minds to be the perfect scenario. Hope is trusting that God, who is the creator of perfect scenarios, has included you in His plans. Expectations have an end. They are a small, finite moment in time. Hope endures. It pushes us through. Hope does not disappoint. Expectations disappoint. Almost every time. I have lived a life of disappointment, at my own hand. And I look around me all the time and wonder how many people are living inside their self created disappointment hell? How many people wake up every morning and say "today is going to be a GREAT day!" and they fully expect that.....but what if its not? What if the really great day that you anticipated really really sucks? What's left but disappointment? What about those people that tell you "well, just go into it expecting the worst"? Do you know me?! I am a Southern woman. Telling me to expect the worst is telling me to immediately jump to my fate of a heinous and untimely death. What if we just stopped expecting? What if when we wake up in the morning we say, "God, I'm here to take whatever it is that You have for me today. I hope that today is sunny and beautiful and goes my way. But if it doesn't, I hope You give me the wisdom to remember that Your plan is perfect, regardless of my emotions." If we could start each day like that......would our lives be as complicated as we make them when we wallow in disappointment? If we could live every single day remembering that we sit empty handed, and naked at the feet of a just God that loves us unconditionally, in spite of our inablity to return the value of His sacrifice, wouldn't we be able to better love ourselves and stop putting unreachable expectations on life that ultimately end in disappointment?

I want to try. I want to try to love my husband like that. I want to look at him every day and remember that he is a precious gift that was named and matched with me before there was even time. I want to hug my kids and not immediately wonder if their squeeze was intended to not be as tight as mine. I want to cook dinner as a service to my family, and not with the intention of a response from them about how it tastes. I want to look at David, and see the second chance that he embodies. I want to extend to him, exactly what has been extended to me. I want to wake up every day and know that God has not wasted this conviction on a naked, empty handed woman......but He has given this conviction to His daughter, whom He loves deeper than deep.  Because He has plans for my life....plans full of HOPE and for a future. (Jer. 29:11)