I expect

“If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.” –Woody Allen

Writing on the basis of that statement, I’d arguably be God’s favorite comedian.

However, I’m not going to claim myself as a planner, for I’m something far worse. I’m something that puts me in graver danger than a girl who merely plans: I’m a girl who expects. And when expectation and reality fail to align, I wind up shaken, sitting silently in the very predicament that has loudly introduced itself to me multiple times before.  It’s a condition that with every new encounter only reinforces the fact that I can work in accordance to plans set out for me, or stumble along the courses that I pave for myself.  

That’s me today: trying to conceive a post-wreckage course of action. 

I can just see God up there, laughing at all of the things I think I want.  He cracks a smile at my meager desires as they cease to even begin comparing to what’s really in store.   He probably chuckles each time I believe in an outcome, snickering at its lack of wonder.  I imagine He releases a deep belly laugh with every plan, notion, idea or self-constructed conjecture.  He laughs until those self-proclaimed dreams become self-inflicted pain.  Then, I imagine He cries right alongside me when my illusions are shattered and my heart breaks big.   It’s an odd thing: a God who laughs and cries with us, but I think He really does.  Among the comedic chaos and humbling sobs that accompany broken agendas, I think He tries to speak:

“If you can succeed so greatly in the light, imagine shining in the darkness. If you love the wrong things so deeply, imagine how much you’ll love the right ones.  If you are already content in a life cultivated by you, imagine a life created by me.  Just imagine.  Please, just imagine."

We are classic comedic fools when we strive for our own expectations.  These things are laugh-worthy because we don’t see them, and they are worth our tears for that exact same reason.  It’s a complexity in which we’re called to seek refuge.  In seeking, we’re compelled to hold our breath and trust that things are beyond our control.  
Yes, loosening our grip seems as though we're allowing ourselves to be swallowed whole by the flood of our expectations.  The paradoxical truth, though, is this: it’s the very thing that keeps us afloat.