Several month ago (during the Chinese New Year) one of my best friends posed this question to me: Do you ever think about life and say "this isn't what I expected...."?
My mind has been drawn back again and again to this question since it was first asked of me.
Considering that when I first read this question I was sitting on the porch of my Chinese in-laws house in some remote village that I'm pretty sure National Geographic wouldn't be able to find and unable to communicate with anyone besides my husband, I would say that the simple answer is "yes". When I moved to China in 2009, I fully EXPECTED to stay for only one year, I fully EXPECTED to return to America and resume "life as usual" when my year was finished. I NEVER EXPECTED to marry a Chinese man, though many people told me that was going to happen when I left.
When we moved to Sri Lanka and one night while we were out taking a walk and suddenly were being charged by a wild elephant that the dogs had disturbed, after running for our lives and later laughing about it, again my answer to the question was "yes". (By the way, this has only happened once.) Even just the idea of living in Sri Lanka, a place that most people have not heard of and definitely don't know where it is, would cause me to answer the question "yes".
When I was a little girl, my expectation was that I would grow up, be tall, thin, and blonde like our next door neighbor, marry a boy I had known my whole life, and live in my parents back yard. Of all of those expectations, the only thing that has happened is that I've grown up, and that only in the strictest sense that I'm older (my head and my heart haven't seemed to grow up as rapidly as my age has progressed). Genetics were stacked against me on the being tall and blonde part. And the final nail was driven into the coffin of my childhood expectations when my parents moved out of the house that I had spent my whole life growing up in just a few years ago.
I've always been a planner, sometimes being more persnickety about managing my life than others. China tried to beat it out of me, but I am feeling the planning instinct coming back in full force. However, my plans and God's plans have rarely been the same. Thus, my life verse became Proverbs 16:9, "The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps." My heart does a lot of planning, but in the end it is what God wants me to do that I end up doing. That's how a girl who hates to eat rice, has an especially sensitive nose that fears bad smells, and is an over-planned freak ends ups quitting her job, throwing away 2 degrees, and moving halfway around the world. And quite honestly, I wouldn't have traded these past 4 years for anything. If there are things that I would go back and change, they are things about myself and how I didn't do the right things in certain situations.
So where is all of this going? Well, it has led me to think that maybe, just maybe, our EXPECTATIONS are too simple, to small. Why stay in your parents backyard when there is a WHOLE WORLD out there waiting to be experienced? I'm not saying that everyone should quit their jobs, sell their belongings, and backpack around the world, but what I am saying is that I think we limit ourselves and dream too small, EXPECTING life as usual. My God is a big God and what he wants for you and your life is abundance (not necessarily in the material sense, but in a fullness and richness sense - a no holds barred sense). What if we stopped expecting the small things, and got out of the way of ourselves and instead expected God to use us to do something according to his awesome plan, of which we are not the center?
"Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen." Ephesians 3:20-21
No matter who you are or where you are in life or where you are on earth, I'm betting that if you honestly answer the question for yourself, you'd answer "yes" too. Although many of my expectations about life have not be met, they've been replaced with things so much better than what I'd expected.
You may never be charged by a wild elephant or live on a tropical island or even come into contact with another country's culture, but that doesn't mean that God can't use you where you are. If you let him, he'll put you right where he wants you to be to reach the people he wants you to reach - people that only you could reach.
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