Expectation

The thing about EXPECTATION is that it is attempting to dictate a future that it has not created.
The flaw is in the creator of the expectation.

Brandon and I packed his car full to the brim the day after our wedding and I left my life as I knew it.  A life that wasn't necessarily BETTER than the one that I was about to embrace ......it was just simply, the one I had KNOWN.  Though I was scared, there wasn't a bone in my body that could have STAYED and not headed to Texas.  We were young, beautiful in each other's eyes, and full of expectation.

That expectation carried us for several years. And held us as well. Yep. It's a tricky thing. Expectation.  It holds you in this weird place.  A grey place. A place that removes the color and vibrancy of reality and exchanges it for a sub-reality while convincing you that it is reality.

Expectation can never be our reality because it is something we create. No matter how close the situation plays to the things we have dreamt of....it will never be an exact match.  We spend hours in our minds dreaming of the way a situation will play out, how a family member will respond differently this time, or the path to our next success. Those are wasted hours. And really.....who has hours to waste these days? Where is the cure?  How does this cycle break? Where is our freedom?

 "It was for freedom that Christ set you free."

Shouldn't five years of battling brain cancer with my husband entitle me to bitterness? To a "get out of jail free" card when I want to scream loudly that "this just isn't FAIR"?!  I guess. And I do have those moments. But when I stay there too long....bitterness becomes my friend and joy my enemy.

And that is not my reality.

This is the flaw. When I begin to play the tape in my mind that this five years has interrupted all that we had planned......  All the expectations we had for years five through ten of our marriage or Asher's first five years or Banner's first year.  Definitely.  If I looked through the lens of expectation I would have no choice but to choose bitterness.

So would Joseph (remember the 11th son of Jacob)?  His brothers tossed him away, sold him to a foreign land.  An event that took away years of his youth.  But Joseph said it best all those years later when redemption found it's way into his story and into his family....."What you intended to harm me, God intended for GOOD to bring about the salvation of all these lives."
He surely could have chosen the bitterness of failed expectation. Right?

But how the story would have shifted if he did.

Just as Joseph was not authoring his story neither am I.  No matter what I think I deserve or what you think I deserve....it will always be short within the bondage of expectation.

When we release ourselves from the bondage of expectation we position ourselves to receive what HE has prepared for us.  This is where I find strength. And joy. And perseverance.  I have no strength to fight this battle under the armor of expectation only within the shadow of His wing where comfort is mine and peace is my rest.

May we cast off expectation and embrace an anticipation of the work He promises to complete within us.

He is faithful.