Today I join this writing community for Five Minute Friday with the prompt, Catch.  Writing briefly from the overflow of the heart.

Just five minutes of writing.  No editing, no over-thinking, no back tracking.  This challenges me to walk in freedom.  I challenge you to do the same.  Cozy up in your own place and write for just five minutes.  In your journal, on a napkin, at your laptop right in front of you now.  Just. Write

Expectations kill relationships.  A simple phrase from that book of wisdom on counting gifts, it haunts me, stays with me like marshmallows stuck to fingers.  I can’t get it out of mind. The truth found in this phrase so profound.  How the expectations I put on my kids, friendships, my husband, they extinguish the flame that burns love. 

Do I live in expectation or expectancy?  One encumbers, the other frees.

Then I catch what He is saying about this phrase during a phone conversation with my friend as I wait in the pick-up line at school.  She reminds me about what I said that day, how I got nothing accomplished. And she challenges my declaration, asks me about the nothing I did that day. So I give her the list.  The way I tidied the house, ran errands and she laughs, gives me perspective.  Tells me, “this nothing is about not meeting your own expectations.”

Then I get it, like catching leaves falling, twirling down from high overhead, piling right into my hands.  I cup hands to hold this truth, then open arms to catch more.  That the expectations I put on myself kill my spirit, my relationship with Him. 

And it is freeing, the way He helps me see. 

The grace of God to remind me; recall that brief interchange all those years ago so I can catch His grace, receive the truth and be set free.  It is like throwing that big pile of leaves in the air and breathing deep again.

Do you live under the weight of your own expectations or in the joy of expectancy?  Is this concept new to you?  Does it give you pause?  Tell me what you think and leave a comment.