Great Expectations...

I borrowed this title from none other than the Journey devotional…I was on my way into work today with no intention of gracing you with my witty thoughts or opinions, but then I opened the devotional to read what today had to offer and actually opened it to Wednesday’s page, Great Expectations, “love never ends” (1 Corinthians 13:8). Somehow I missed this one the other day. If this wasn’t a slap in the face to the events that unfolded yesterday when I got home, then I have definitely closed my spiritual ear to what God has to say to me. It started off with a woman discussing how her and husband had just celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary and how “despite our struggles, he’s the guy for me.” Now yesterday when I got home I was all ready to talk to my hubby about how I felt like for the first time in a long time we were ‘clicking’ and then before I even got out the car he was coming down the stairs with a bag on his shoulder and his earphones in his ears. ‘Where is he going,’ I thought? He walks up asks to borrow the car to go to basketball practice because his car has a flat tire. Now mind you, I realize now that my response may have seemed at bit selfish, but pride won’t let me back down now. Needless to say, he didn’t use my car and I have no idea how he arrived at practice, nor did I care. When I woke up this morning, I had no intention of speaking to him, just to let him know that I was still upset about our exchange the night before. Well, let me tell you, he just handed me some money for gas and told me to have a good day at work. Pride still swelled up inside me, I walked out the door without as much as a ‘thank you’.
Being the good Christian that I am, I rode into work listening to some worship music to help me start my day, (it had already started when I rolled over to cut off the alarm), and didn’t speed up to cut off someone trying to get by me. Nagging in the back of my head was my exchange, or lack of, with my husband.
To get to my point the devotion author sums it up very nicely, “Sometimes it’s hard to see past our spouse’s annoying habits and imperfections. When life gets hard, it’s easy to think that our expectations are not being met, that he’s not doing all he can to make life better for us. But God did not intend for any person to meet all our needs and expectations. Our God-shaped vacuum cannot be filled by anyone else; it can only be filled by God. So give your husband the freedom to love you, to be himself, and to be only who God intended him to be.”

So, with my tail tucked between my legs and my eyes lowered I need to set things right between us.

Thinking back to the song I was singing on my way in by Mandisa, “Broken Hallelujah”

With my love and my sadness
I come before You Lord
My heart’s in a thousand pieces
Maybe even more
Yet I trust in this moment
You’re with me somehow
And You’ve always been faithful
So Lord even now
When all that I can sing
Is a broken hallelujah
When my only offering
Is shattered praise
Still a song of adoration
Will rise up from these ruins
I will worship You and give You thanks
Even when my only praise
Is a broken hallelujah

Lamentations 3:21-23 “This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning:
Great IS THY FAITHFULNESS.”