Mama Needs A Do-OverSample

Expecting the Unexpected

Managing your expectations is another important part of the process. You certainly should expect to see results, but they won’t usually look the way you imagined.

C. S. Lewis, in his book Letters to Malcolm, shares these thoughts about our expectations:
It seems to me that we often, almost sulkily, reject the good that God offers us because, at that moment, we expected some other good. Do you know what I mean? On every level of our life—in our religious experience, in our gastronomic, erotic, aesthetic, and social experience—we are always harking back to some occasion which seemed to us to reach perfection, setting that up as a norm, and depreciating all other occasions by comparison. But these other occasions, I now suspect, are often full of their own new blessing, if only we would lay ourselves open to it. God shows us a new facet of the glory, and we refuse to look at it because we’re still looking for the old one.

Be careful how you measure success. You can’t measure your success by someone else’s reaction. If making someone happy is your idea of a goal, you need to change that. If wanting your daughter to be glad to stay in bed is your mission, that will be difficult. You can’t control other people’s feelings or dreams. You can, however, have your own joy about the situation and not let yourself get discouraged. Others will see that, and even if they don’t show it, they will want that same joy. They may think they can have joy only if they get what they want, but you know that’s not true for them any more than it’s true for you. Joy is not a result of circumstances; it is a result of having a relationship with the Holy Spirit and living a life of sacrifice and glory.

So don’t make it your goal to have a happy child or happy husband. In the case of your husband, make it your goal to bless him and honor him. Show him the joy you have because you are married to him, and let that minister to him. How he responds is up to him, and you can’t control that. (I know I wouldn’t want someone else to try to control me like that!)