Day 40: I Thought...
/I honestly can’t remember if I’ve written yet about expectations. I’ll tell you this, though: I expected to be done writing these daily reflections at 40 days. I just assumed Lent was 40 days. It’s the length of Israel’s wandering. It’s the number of days Jesus spent fasting in the desert. After Noah built his ark, the flood last for 40 days.
I looked at my calendar two weeks ago and realized Lent is actually 47 days. Now, we don’t complain about what we’ve sacrificed for Lent. Also - I did not realize the energy that would be required of me for daily writing. Which means this was a great exercise because I’ve had to rely on divine intervention more than once. If this was 2002, it would be way less energy. Write the thing, publish the thing, and then share it through email to friends or on the one and only social media site (what’s that?) available. Because people had just 2 things bookmarked: MYSPACE and probably Yahoo search or Ask Jeeves.
I thought I’d write 40, but it looks like I’m writing 47.
How many sentences in your day start with I thought…
I thought I’d have a spouse by now.
I thought I’d have 3 kids by now.
I thought we’d be done with this argument by now.
I thought my bank account would be fuller by now.
I thought everyone would have realized this by now.
I thought she would have learned this by now.
I thought he’s know me by now.
I thought I’d be healthier by now; I’ve been doing all these right things for so long.
I thought it was going to be sunny.
I thought it was going to be cloudy.
I thought we were going to do this.
I thought we were going to do that.
I thought she’d be alive for all her grandkids’ graduations.
I thought he’d see me get married.
The possibilities are truly endless. Even for the planners among us, the ones who look for every possible hiccup and plan for every possible contingency. Until what we didn’t plan for pops up and the alarm goes off… No, no, no. I thought… I thought… I thought…
I don’t know your unique situation, but I do know this: the best way to get over or through an I thought moment is three-fold:
1. Evaluate where you actually are.
2. Rearrange your expectations.
3. Try again (if you can).
So much of I thought… comes down to our own expectations. Sometimes it’s rooted in predictable, practical things that make sense to rely on. At the same time, we have to remember that so much of life is what we’re given. And we are not in charge. We are not in charge. (I wrote it twice so we can all say it like we mean it.) It is not our duty to keep fitting our square peg into life’s round hole. It is our duty to do the best we can with what we’ve got.
There are so many exceptions to this: access, privilege, other people’s choices that impact our lot. I don’t pretend to understand every situation. I do know that living a faithful life includes rearranging and giving up my expectations on a daily basis, sometimes on a moment-to-moment basis. Replacing the I thought… with Okay, from here I go…
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