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Expectations Are A Scary Thing
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The Beleaguered Child of Our Soul
Picture a child, a toddler for whom we have great expectations. We want them to become the best of us, our wasted opportunities, or perhaps we just want them to be their most awesome.
We feed the child, clothe it and find the best teachers for it but this child refuses to flourish in our well-attended garden of ‘love.’ It doesn’t learn, it doesn’t grow and we wonder ‘why’ doesn’t this child flourish? We may be tempted to wrap our regrets into the words with which we will hurt them, or if we are mindful, we may begin to probe.
In our search, we may find that there are many things we don’t yet know about this child. Perhaps it was born deaf and as such could not hear the voice of its teacher. Perhaps its roots would thrive better in a different soil than in that which we’ve planted it.
As we set our unmet expectations aside and look more closely at this forsaken child, we get to know that child more. We get to see it as it wants to be seen, and in that understanding, we cast ourselves aside, our expectations too, and attain the best posture to help this child to be, to help it find its destiny.
If on the contrary, we fail to see this child as we ought to, and we hold it…
