When Our Expectations Change
Life’s expectations change. So, your life did not turn out exactly as you expected?
Passed over for the job you wanted, you ended up in a different career? Not the perfect family you envisioned? An unexpected bump in the road detoured you down an entirely different path?
Someone else’s hurtful choices, such as a divorce, changed everything for you? A loved one’s death forced you to adjust to a new lifestyle? Money woes prevented you from achieving your heart’s dream?
Oh yes, I imagine we all have sometimes pondered or questioned where we are today. Not exactly what we once expected.
But it’s not all bad. Despite the disappointments and downsides, think about some of the positive things that have happened to you. Did God guide you in a different direction than you were headed? Did you meet people you otherwise may never have known? Or used your talents in a direction you never expected or even knew you had?
When my friend Karen’s marriage fell apart and her husband married someone else, she had to get a job to support herself and two teenage sons. She had never worked outside the home, but she got a job, then another, and kept moving up in the workforce, increasing in responsibility and salary.
“Sometimes you never know what gifts you have until you are forced out of your comfort zone,” she said. “I learned to live in the present—thankful for each day. We all have today, and we should enjoy it,” she told me on her 75th birthday. “I can’t revisit the disappointments, letdowns, hurts. I had to forgive and move on. I am fulfilled in Jesus alone,” she added.
Now years later whenever a birthday or holiday rolls around, both she and her former husband gather with their sons and grandchildren to celebrate together. Today they are friends—leaving the debris of yesteryear behind. A great example of forgiveness and of remaining “family” for the sake of all the members.
Did my life turn out like I envisioned as a kid when I was embarrassed to be the only one in my school room from a divorced family? No, but I have been blessed beyond what I could ask or think. Of course, there are still disappointments and upside-down days. Most of us have them. But they don’t need to rule us.
One season when I was going through some brokenness, my friend Mary Jo, mailed me a gift to cheer me up. Inside the delicately wrapped giftbox was a white ceramic bowl, once broken, but the pieces had been put back together in a Japanese artform known as Kintsugi.
Artists didn’t hide the cracks when piecing the bowl back together but mixed gold dust with the glue in restoring it. The bowl is even more beautiful than it was originally because the gold running through it gives it a lovelier look. Now it is truly a piece of art!
Someone explained, “Kintsugi treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.”
As I turned my bowl over and over in my hand, I thought of that gold as Jesus. He can put broken pieces back for us. At least He does for me. And somehow my broken situations come out better when I let Him finish the restoration work. Oh, it may take a while and may not be what I thought it would look like. But better.
What about you? Are you still nursing hurts from by-gone days? Why not ask our Savior, Jesus, to minister wholeness to you? He wants to, you know. Just talk to Him like you would a friend. And listen closely as He tells you how much He loves you and wants the best in life for you.
Life’s expectations can change and for our good!
Prayer: Thank You, Jesus, that like the gold dust in the artist’s hands, You can put us back together and make us even more beautiful. Help us give You all our broken pieces so You can heal and restore us. May we yield to Your needed work in us–to Your design. Thank You in advance. Amen.
Scriptures: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10 NKJV).
“ For I know the plans and thoughts that I have for you,” says the Lord, “plans for peace and well-being and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call on Me and you will come and pray to Me, and I will hear [your voice] and I will listen to you” (Jeremiah 29:11-12 AMP).
“… and in the midst of the lampstands I saw someone like the Son of Man, dressed in a robe reaching to His feet, and with a golden sash wrapped around His chest” (Revelation 1:13 AMP).
Quotes: “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.” –William Carey
“It is the process, not the end, which is glorifying to God.”—Oswald Chambers
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