When I became a mom, I was blown away by how different momming was from the expectations in my head.
I was told that I would have “sleepless nights”, but I thought oh, I’ll lose a couple of hours of sleep. Then my children came and I realized that sleepless nights can literally mean, sleepless nights. No sleep. Nada. Zilch.
There were days when I would have a sleepless night hangover, functioning only with mass amounts of coffee and looking like a zombie straight out of the Walking Dead. (I’ve never watched that show, but I’ve seen the title picture and it looks just like I did.)
Marriage, let’s get for real here. NOBODY told me that it would be this hard. So. Much. Giving. I mean, it’s an everyday thing.
Why did everyone make it seem like it would be like playing house in 3rd grade? I was super bossy back then. I always got my way.
Marriage is nothing like playing house in 3rd grade. I will testify right now.
What about work? Friends? Heck, the cashier at grocery store? Every time I think I’ve pegged a cashier at the store as grumpy, they turn out like Mary Poppins! And the Mary Poppins of the world, end up like Oscar the Grouch.
Like judging a book by its cover, what we expect out of a situation or person may not always turn out like we thought. Some expectations may be positive (I expect my friend to meet me for coffee) and some may be negative (I expect there to be bad weather because the forecast included thunderstorms), but most involve something that we want or don’t want to happen.
When we don’t get what we want, we get frustrated.
Unmet expectations.
Unmet expectations can lead to our biggest disappointments. Whether realistic or unrealistic, the expectation that is never fulfilled by man may lead to hurt, pain, and negative emotions.
But let me tell you, there is hope. The definition of hope is this:
hope (n) – a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.
The word hope appears 129 times in the Bible. This tells me that God wants us to know that we can have expectation about what He says in the Bible. He will never leave those expectations unmet.
The biblical definition of hope is, confident expectation. There aren’t too many things in life that we can be confident in, but Jesus Christ is one of them.
Seek His will in all you do, and He will show you which path to take. – Proverbs 3:6
I’m learning that no matter what the expectations of circumstances, pray. Submit it to God. Ask Him for guidance and then expect Him to reveal His will for you.
Sometimes I literally open my hands and raise them to the Lord as if to hand it over to Him.
The outcome is sometimes not what I wanted, but when you have turned it over to the Lord, you can be confident that this is His will for you.
In those moments when I feel like things didn’t go my way and I might be feeling frustrated, I try remember that He is my hope. That He is for me and not against me and that whatever the reason for the outcome or even the journey that gets us to the outcome, that He will strengthen me within it.
He will strengthen me within it.
Let down can become my lift off!
Remember how deep and how wide His love for you is!
Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. – Ephesians 3:17-18
He will strengthen YOU within your circumstances. Trust Him. He will keep you strong even when the world may let you down.