Great Expectations

Expectations are a dangerous thing.

We've all been asked the question, "Where do you see yourself in 10 years?"  Right there you're setting yourself up for failure.

Don't get me wrong, it's good to have goals and dreams and hopes and wishes.

But when you expect something, a lot can go wrong.

10 years ago, I was 18.  I was starting my senior year of high school.  I was living the dream, on top of the world.

Okay, that's not true.  I was miserable and had no friends and couldn't wait to get out of high school.

However, when I was 18, I felt like I had the next 10 years figured out.

I was going to Hope College, where I would major in education and meet an awesome guy and we would get married right after graduation and then move back to Chicago where I had a job waiting for me as a high school teacher at one of the Christian schools in the area and we would get a house and a dog and by the time I turned 28 I would have one kid or at least one on the way.

I was so sure that that was what God wanted for me because it was what I wanted.

Clearly, I was wrong.

I changed my major 5 times in college (and I still graduated in 3 1/2 years! Crazy!) before settling on sociology and religion.  I met a guy, dated him for 2 years, and then broke up with him right before senior year.  I went to seminary round 1.  I got a masters degree.  I got a job and moved back in with my parents.  I went back to school (again!) 1000 miles away from home.

The things that I wanted most in life at 18 were not the things I received.

It's come to my attention that I hated my life for a really long time. I was heartbroken my senior year of high school.  I was miserable and sad at Hope because I had alienated all my friends for a guy.  I regretted not taking the job offer in California.  I wanted to quit Calvin more than once.  Loneliness pervaded the 2 years that I lived at home.  For 8 years of my life I was sad.

In those 8 years, I constantly wondered why God had put me on the earth if I was going to be miserable.  I felt lost, without a sense of purpose, and I was not living the life that I had expected I would be living.

I kept fighting with God, pushing him away and trying to do my own thing because I thought what I could plan was better than his plans for me.

I have this fear in life, the fear that if I trust God with my future, he's going to do something crazy, like make me be a poor missionary in Azerbaijan.  That's a real country.  I looked it up.  Or, worse yet, God is going to make me be single for the rest of my life (GASP!).

However, when I follow God's plans instead of making my own, good things happen.

Coming to Gordon-Conwell wasn't in my plans.  I never wanted to go back to school.  After I finished at Calvin I said, "That's it.  I'm done.  I'm never going back to school."  Two years later, I went back.  Against my will, really.  And I can honestly say that it was the first place that I had been in 8 years that  I wasn't miserable.  In fact, I feel happy.  I feel ecstatic.  I feel overjoyed.  Just being at Gordon-Conwell.

It's funny, because I have all of these trust issues.  Yet, when I look at my life, the ONE time that I trusted God with something big, a great thing happened.  So why do I have so much trouble trusting God?

I don't know.  I can't tell you that.  My theological brain tells me that it's probably sin.

If my 18-year-old self and my 28-year-old self had a conversation, my 18-year-old self would probably be disappointed.  She would be sad that all of the expectations that she had for her life didn't pan out.  My 28-year-old self would say, "Dang girl, you skinny."  But she would also say, "look, your life might not have turned out like you wanted, but that's not a bad thing.  You are in the best place you could possibly be, with some of the best people you could possibly be with. Get over yourself."

And possibly an argument would ensue and then we would make up and go shoe shopping.

So, has my life turned out the way I expected it to?  No.  Is that okay?  Yes.  Am I still going to plan for the future?  Yes.  Will I be disappointed if my plans go awry?  Maybe at first.  But I'll get over it.  Because it means that God has something bigger and better for me.  And even if I'm called to go be a missionary in Azerbaijan, I won't be miserable.  Because I'll be following God's plans instead of my own.  I won't be fighting him to do the things that I want to do instead of the things that he's called me to do.

So where do I see myself in 10 years?  No clue.  I'm trusting God for that one.