“I know sometimes what messes our life up most—is the expectation of what our life is supposed to look like. Entitlement can leave you feeling entirely empty.” Ann Voskamp
Sometimes I hear my thoughts expressed through the words of another. Eerie really. How did they know I felt like that? Or thought like that?
I have lived in the cell of unmet expectations. I have circled the disappointments time and again in my head.
Perhaps what was penned in the book of Ecclesiastes has meaning here:
That which has been is that which will be, And that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.
So the stress and fear I am tempted to be stuck in, the regrets I have for time wasted or misspent, the longing for the time back with my sons when they were little? All these things are common to others as well?
Outside life looks easy. But inside the wrestling, the revisiting, the battle wages on.
God’s Word, the balm. The renewal that comes with a mind fixed on Him.
Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. A living sacrifice.
Being made new into the likeness of Another; not losing who I am, my uniqueness, or how I’m wired for moving through the world but letting go of the thoughts that hold me in the cell. The door is opened behind me; it has been since He set me free. I didn’t see it; didn’t know it was open. I have been looking at today through the lens of the past hurts.
Be transformed
It’s a process. The metamorphosis does not happen in a moment. Nor does it happen without dying: to damaging thoughts, to un-real expectations, to tapes of hurtful words spoken from brokenness.
The changes take time. I am in the process. What are you called to lay down before the One who died to free you from it all?
This was very encouraging to me today, Lisa. I’m at a point of transition in my heart. I’m longing for something that can’t be and I have to give it up to the Lord. Change takes time. And it doesn’t happen without dying to self, dying to thoughts I shouldn’t have. I need to lay it down before the One who died to set me free. It’s hard.
Thank you for sharing. 🙂
Love Pamela
Good to hear you were encouraged; that is the reason I write…Hoping you’ll stay in the battle: “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but [a]divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,”