In Gennesaret

A couple years ago, one of my daughters was getting rid of a dress that I liked, so I tried it on. It was awfully cute, but it was not a style I usually wore. I showed it to my girls. “What do you think? Can I get away with wearing this? Does it look okay on me? Do I look good in it?” Their eyes widened a bit. “Oh, yeah – you look great, mom. But . . . that’s not a work dress for you. Or a church dress. “That’s a DATE dress.” OHHH. Well, dang. Thanks. I’ll just wait for one of those. I am so not a clothes person. I have no sense at all of what’s fashionable or stylish – I’m not always sure what looks good on me – and Lord knows I HATE shopping. I’m really desperately in need of a few clothing items right now (a pair of jeans, some exercise shorts, probably another pair of good walking shoes), but I cannot make myself find time to accomplish such a dreaded task. Courtney, who apparently LOVES to shop, has offered to go with me, bless her. I’m not sure she knows what she would be...

Back in New Jersey fifteen years ago, I did a monologue in a church service as a homeless person. In preparation, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out my look, and I tried it out on the women attending my scrapbook workshop that weekend. These pants? This shirt or that one? No makeup – how about my hair back? I affected a bit of a limp, if I remember right (because a friend standing at the door through which I left the sanctuary complimented me on maintaining it all the way out). I spent a lot of time running lines in front of a mirror, just to see how I looked. I wanted to not look like me. And I apparently succeeded – I had a couple friends tell me after the service that they didn’t recognize me at all for quite a while. But at one point while I was rehearsing with the mirror, I took a really good look at myself. And it occurred to me that several years earlier, it would have killed me to go on stage looking this ugly. I didn’t realize until that moment how much my perfo...

Let me tell you about a couple freaky incidents that happened to me about twenty years ago. Back in New Jersey, when the girls were little and I was in a Mothers of Preschoolers group.  At a MOPS meeting one week, the guest speaker offered to visit with each of us individually if we’d like – to give us “a personal Word from the Lord”, or something to that effect. I was rather skeptical of the offer . . . but I was also at a place where I was trying to be open to new things, and I was certainly curious. I watched the other women who spoke to him, and they seem to have brief, positive conversations. So, why not? I decided to give it a shot. The man was kind and friendly, but he seemed to have a bit of trouble with me. He closed his eyes and furrowed his brow. Then he gently told me that God wanted me to stop hiding from him. I’m sure I gave him a questioning look, and he seemed to be praying or listening again. But he came back with the same “message”. Stop hiding from God. Wel...

So, I’ve been reading lately on the difference between expectations and expectancy.   Expectations are when you assume something is going to happen – when you expect someone (God, someone else, yourself) to do a particular thing. I expected my teenage children to put their dirty clothes in the laundry room on laundry day. I expected my husband to not sleep with other women. I expect the teachers on my team to post their lesson plans by Saturday evening. Some expectations, like these, are quite reasonable. Other expectations are not. It would not be reasonable for parents in my school to expect teachers to respond to their emails after 10pm. It would not have been reasonable to expect my daughters to only date boys I picked out for them. It was not reasonable to expect myself to be the same kind of housekeeper my mother was while I was homeschooling and living in a much larger house. But now, expectancy is a different thing. Expectancy is an attitude you live in. It’s having y...