just as he said.

Things are, very rarely, just as we plan them to be. We can guess, we can try, but life often shows up instead--politely mocking what we thought was the ability to control our circumstances.

We get let down.

I have a client who refers to this as the "expectation gap", and as far as psychology goes, she's not too far off the mark. There's a certain type of enmeshment that we talk about in counseling, where we become entangled with others in such a way that we feel we are them. Their emotions become our emotions, their experiences our experiences. And because of this, expectations are usually high and frustration tolerance is low. In short, we say:

 event+expectation=emotion

So when we plan something, and our expectation is that it will go exactly as we planned, we become emotionally dysregulated when it does not.

The expectation gap.

The irony is that the more we fight things not going our way, the more reactive we become. We literally make it impossible to enjoy an experience because we can't let go of the fact that it is not how it is supposed to be.

Our job.

Our relationships.

Our life.

It's all terribly messy.

And rarely does anything happen in the way we wish it to.

Nothing is just as we said it would be.

And I love this for several reasons.

The first is that rarely have I ever had the foresight to choose things for myself that were good. I have a long history of poor choices, mostly wrapped up in who I thought I was supposed to be or what  I thought I was supposed to do. Thankfully, my feet have found the path I needed to go on, versus the one I  thought I was supposed to. And I am healthier, more whole for it.

It's not to say that the paths were easy, or even comfortable. Most of the refining times in my life have been in the fire, and now is no exception. Growing is hard because it means we have to let something die, let something go. And this is never uncomplicated. There are so many parts of ourselves we have fought to protect because we didn't know who we would be without them, and at times this has heeded our growth.

It's scary to die to yourself, in whatever capacity that may be.

But it's almost always worth it.

There's this story in the bible that talks about when Jesus was raised back to life from the dead. We've all heard it a thousand times, and whether you believe it or not you most likely know it--Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins, and three days later he rose again.

The scriptures say that Mary and Mary (his close friends) were among the first to see the empty tomb. As they got there, still mourning his death, they were surprised to find he was not there.

An angel said to them:

He is not here, He has risen, just as He said. 

Just as he said.

I'm not sure why I have never noticed that phrase before now, or why it's suddenly gained so much meaning for me--but the truth of it stops me in my tracks in its stark simplicity.

Jesus didn't promise that he wouldn't die, that he wouldn't be betrayed by the people he served. He didn't say that it would be easy or that he would take away the painful process.

He died.

And then he rose again.

Just as he said.

You see, the hope doesn't come in just the cross or just him coming back to life. He could have promised to only die, but that wouldn't have been meaningful--just sad. And he couldn't promise to come back without having gone somewhere, it wouldn't make sense.

He died and promised to rise again.

And it was just as he said!

Do you know how many times in the course of my life I have doubted that hope would come through for me? That desperation was the only tune I knew how to sing? That death after death after death made the possibility of life seem like a cruel dream?

But.

I walked through the flame.

I was burnt, ashes to ashes.

And found beauty on the other side.

It was just as he said.

So today, I am resting in the fact that while my expectations may not be met, it's not because everything is just dying.

It's that everything is coming back to life.

My expectations are not high enough.

And I don't mean circumstantially--in a physical sense.

I mean eternally.

There is a hope that has been set before me, and despite what is happening in and around me, it is there--just waiting for me to grab on.

And when the time comes, when my walk through darkness is over, I will be able to look back at my suffering and forward towards the joy set before me and say:

It is just as he said.

He has risen.

And so I have I.

For the joy set before him he suffered.

So that I could have the joy. 

AND IT IS JUST AS HE SAID.

Though the suffering may be unbearable.

And the fire impossibly hot.

Hope is the unshakable, unwavering expectation placed before me.

So when I can't feel anymore, or when I feel too much.

I will remember the joy.

I will remember this thing, this promise that was made in dying, so that new life could be raised up.

Because in the midst of my doubt, my faith has yet to fail me.

And it has always been, never as I said, BUT always as hope said--

far beyond and above the expectations of my soul:

and straight to the heavens.

shame and security.

There is a darkness hidden deep in my heart that I am not proud of. It makes me selfish, a character trait often born of the strange mix between vulnerability and pride. This shadow makes me bitter, it makes me angry towards myself and others. It makes me feel like a professional hater, which is mostly a projection of self-hate onto others. I’ve never understood people who were so confident in their right-ness, people who would go down fighting, people swearing through and through that they are correct. This idea is so foreign to me, this complete and utter loyalty to self-preservation, this certain belief in one’s own goodness.

Psychology has a great deal to say about our fight and flight from self, most of it rooted in attachment theory. We either understand that we have a secure base or not—and this leads to different forms of attaching to self and others. The ideal attachment would be that we can see ourselves as primarily OK, and others as the same. But so often this balance gets hijacked, whether by life or circumstances or the chemistry in our brain. Because of this, our attachments are skewed. We may think that we are OK, but no one else is. Or we may think that we aren’t OK, and no one else is either.

More common than not, we believe that we aren’t OK, but that everyone else is.

Our okay-ness is wrapped up in the other, defined by what we perceive and believe to be true about the goodness of those around us in comparison to ourselves.

Silence perpetuates this myth. As humans, we aren’t exactly in the habit of sharing our secret darkness with others. We are so afraid of this part of ourselves that we can’t even bear to bring it into the light, lest someone discover who we really claim ourselves to be.

So, we go on believing, behaving, and becoming based on our assessment that we are not good—while strongly clinging to the idea that everyone else is.

We call this shame.

We keep on weighing our faults, our failures, more and more heavily until all that’s left on the scale is a heaping pile of self-loathing and guilt, with some bitterness sprinkled on for good measure. And the weight of this becomes so heavy, so hard to carry, that we give up all together.

We isolate, we numb, we go to sleep.

Because the thought of living with ourselves is just too much.

And the idea that we could believe something different is out of question.

That we could believe that maybe, just maybe, we are OK?

Never.

I have shame to carry, don’t you understand? It’s mine, no one else’s, and I did it to myself. If I let it go, it’s like letting myself off the hook, like believing something that’s not true.

What?

When did our mistakes start outweighing our successes?

When did our propensity for bad start deciding that we are no longer good?

That we are no longer worthy?

Where did the grace go?

The truth that says we are loved, forgiven, whole despite our sufferings?

Sometimes, when I get this way, I like to pretend that God is in the room with me—and He has a voice. I ask God, what do you think about this, this ugly thing I did? This thought that I had? This badness within me?

I say, it’s wrong that I’m angry, sad, bitter, depleted, fed up—aren’t you disappointed in me? 

Ashamed of the way I’ve been reacting? Carrying on? Responding?

And God says to me—what are you responding to?

So, I get quiet for a moment and think:

Everything, I whisper. The brokenness, the fear. The uncertainty of life. All of it. I’ve been pushed down and kicked around and labeled and ignored and I’m angry all the time.

And God says, me too.

I know how you feel.

And I’m angry too.

With me? I ask, afraid to look up, worried to see the disappointment in His eyes.

And God, takes me by the face, looks at me with love, and gently says:

Remember the cross?

And I say, well, yeah. I know a thing or two about grace.

But God looks at me knowingly, at the words and mess and shame that I’ve laid before him in this moment.

And that look says, you do not.

You do not know about grace, because you haven’t accepted it for yourself.

You may think that others deserve it, that it is a gift for them, but.

 It was also a gift for you.

A gift that was given because God himself was angered by the suffering of the world.

By your own suffering.

By the fact that you kept acting like you were bad, when God knew that you were really good. 

Because he had once created that good in us.

And believed that we could be whole again.

So He brought down that goodness in the form of grace and gave us a secure base. 

He wanted us to know, we are OK.

That He knows how we feel and is also angered by the suffering we've endured.

The suffering we've placed willingly on ourselves.

So, he responded.

And his response, His grace speaks louder than our feelings.

Than our thoughts.

Than our behaviors.

Sometimes, I  think God is more offended by our lack of belief in His grace than our everyday shortcomings. 

More angered by the shame we let ourselves endure when the weight of glory is right there, ready to change the scales for good. 

Because, in this world, we will feel.

Sometimes bad, sometimes good.

We will act.

Sometimes bad, sometimes good.

But ultimately, the good wins in the end.

Grace wipes it all out, leaving nothing but light behind.

I want to live out of that light.

I am free to believe that I am OK.

That I am light shining in the midst of my sufferings.

Not darkness.

That I don’t need to be uncomfortable with the goodness that God sees when He looks at me.

I can run with my arms wide open and my heart to the sun.

You’re OK.

I’m OK.

May we live out of this security each day.