The weight of expectations

I’ve gained a little holiday weight already. Several pounds of dissatisfaction have settled onto the hips of my heart. And I’ve spent the past few days trying to work them off. This time of year there are so many rich lies about what you need to fill you up.

The holiday season seems to be a smorgasbord of expectations impossible to live up to. I’ve seen the pictures. The perfect tree, the perfect mantle, the perfect advent calendar countdown experience for the kids. It has made me look around our house with dissatisfied eyes.

I worry about what I am not giving my kids. I swallow down the impulse to rush around instituting a rash of new family traditions that seem to make other families so happy and fulfilled. I don’t bake or quilt or have the time or real desire to make an advent calendar from scratch. I am not a photographer or a crafter. But I compare nonetheless. And I come up wanting.

I want more space. I want to take advantage of all the coupons that come calling at this time of year. I want the right words to explain to my son why our house is “liddle” and his friend’s house is not. I want to erase the distance and all the miles between my South African family and me with just a wave of the hand. I want things I can’t even put into words. I just know, I want.

All my many wants have been choking me. Stuck in my throat, they make it impossible to feel full. I gag on them. And I am empty inside. Hungry.

Come, …

you who have no money,

come, buy and eat! Isaiah 55:1

He feeds me.

He nudges me to reexamine my expectations through the eyes of a young, newly engaged girl. Hugely pregnant and uncomfortable she travels away from her family as her due date approaches. Unwelcome and unexpected she gives birth without mother or friends to encourage or celebrate with her. There are only farm animals and strangers saying strange things.

There is no gift registry, no baby shower, no clean hospital or crib.

There is no time to settle in. There is just uncertainty and more travel; this time to a foreign country into a strange language and no promise of immediate return. Waiting and wondering and comparing their situation to the ordinary lives going on around them, the couple must have cried with the weight of their own expectations.

Something shifts from off my shoulders. I breathe better.

I remember that my expectations are not important to the God who came to us wrapped in the unexpected vulnerability of a baby.  His expectations are what matter.

I readjust my sights. I shift my vision. From me to Him. From my perspective to His.

I see it.

Thirteen years of marriage, countries and fellowship shared; two children bursting with life and health. Family ties that have held despite the distance.

I feel it.

The weight of our wealth; we are knee deep in riches, living beyond my wildest expectations. Love lingers in these walls. We pour into each other and grow stronger together. We journey through lean times and learn how to measure success on a different scale.

I start to feel full. This is the only hunger worth meeting. And He is the only food that will do.

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.” John 6:35.

Everything else is cotton candy by comparison. Sweet and vapid it dissolves on the tongue and leaves the stomach feeling unsettled. No one in their right mind would serve it for dinner.

I’ve been eating cotton candy for three days.

But I’m done now. I’m back in the kitchen. And He doesn’t ask where I have been. He simply sets me a place and spoons steaming hot meat and potatoes into my outstretched bowl.

Side-by-side we sit and eat the first Christmas again. Slowly, chewing it over, piece by piece. Warmth spreads from my belly to my heart. My wants are filled up by what He has given me. My needs are met. Satisfied. I promise to come back for breakfast. And lunch. And snacktime. And dinner again.

We make a date. Now all I have to do is keep it. Because I know He will.