Five Minute Friday: I Didn’t Expect

I never expected to have children.

I never dreamed of a family. I didn’t play love and marriage or stuff my shirt with pillows.

I did dream of caring for others. Maybe in far countries.

I even used to hope I’d find an injured animal so I could take care of it.

But I never dreamed of or expected to have children to care for.

So when my now-husband said he did not think the world was a place to birth children, but that adoption might be an option someday, I was good with that.

I didn’t expect to have children.

But the dream changed. And when it did, I didn’t expect to not be able to expect. I didn’t expect the pain of trying to expect. I didn’t expect the pain of failure. I didn’t expect the peace of surrender.

I didn’t expect the phone calls.

I never expected the sheer joy of burying my nose in a Baby Magic bundle, of the first snow, or the first hands-off bike pedaling, of the first day of school or of lawn chairs on a rain-soaked soccer field or cheering from a gym bleacher or improvised carnivals in the driveway or rabbit show blue ribbons or being lulled to sleep by the breathing of three others and a dog in a 13-foot camper.

And I didn’t expect the gut-wrenching sobs or the tear-drenched pillows or prayer-draped emergency room stretchers or the anxiety relieved only by a paper lunch sack. Of nights and days of unknowing, of stark fear.

I didn’t expect how incredibly hard it would be to navigate an unfamiliar gene pool.

I didn’t expect to have preadolescent emotion “normally” directed to a mom hurled at me, the grandma.

I didn’t expect to survive let alone sprout “passionate patience.”

I didn’t expect to expect a miracle at every turn, a mystery in every moment. To realize that wherever my foot falls or tear drops or head lays is holy and sacred because of His pervading presence.

I didn’t expect to learn to expect the unexpected.

And that it was all good because He is the long-expected One. Because He is the King of the unexpected and He can be expected to make it all good.

Joining Lisa-Jo today on the word prompt, expectation.

And I’m pretty sure I went over five minutes, without second-guessing or backtracking or editing or deleting.

I expect I’ll wish I did.

And standing with Kimberly on holy ground.