photo credit: churchleaders.com

It implies hope of something certain. Yet what happens if what you expected clashes with the reality of what you’re given? Like the wife who says – “I never expected him to work so much,” or the husband who can’t understand why his wife is so distant. The parents who come quickly to their wit’s end with their 2-year-old or their teenager, and they say with desperate pleading, “I didn’t expect parenting to be this hard! When will it get easier?”

The hardest can be when I myself turn out differently than I expected. I never thought I would be the mom who struggled with anger, or the wife who wanted more alone time, or the friend who went “off the grid” when life felt too hard, or the pastor’s wife who would resent the church at times, or the counselor who grew cynical. But I have been all of these and more. And it’s surprising to me, yet not to the God who made me, who wrote out each of my days before they began. Though I do not meet my own expectations, God’s love for me always exceeds what I expect of Him. This brings hope – that there is a Love to carry me through all that I do (and especially what I do not) expect in life.

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Part of a 31-day writing series on various topics – 5 minutes of free writing each day. Read all of them here.