Today is my birthday, and I have decided to live as if no one is disappointed in me -- not God, not my parents, not my husband, not my children, not my friends, not my extended family or in-laws, not my businesses associates. After 36 years, I am finally realizing that I must life free of the weight of others' disappointment.
It isn't so much that I have disappointed anyone specifically or that I disappoint others regularly. Like many things I have allowed to shape my life, it's all in my head. I have spent too much time imagining that others must be highly disappointed in me. Yesterday, as I prepared for turning another year older, I started thinking about all that I supposed I would have accomplished in my life by now. That typically gets me feeling pretty disappointed in myself, and that's when I start thinking about how disappointed others must be. The truth, however, is that I have projected disappointment onto others based on my own too-high expectations of myself. It's my birthday, so please indulge me while I explain by telling some parts of my life story that may or may not interest you.
As a child, I knew I was unique and special and very loved. I am the only daughter to my adoptive parents, the fulfillment of a mother's hopes and the apple of a father's eye. I wouldn't go so far as to say I was "spoiled," but I know my two older brothers would beg to differ. At the age of 6 I announced that I knew I was going to be a writer when I grew up. I got good grades and attended a private high school. Socially much was lacking; I bombed with boys, never could seem to fit in, and had an awkward shyness that I wouldn't start to outgrow until I was about 15 (but that in so many ways I still carry today). I always had a few best friends, though, and that was good enough for me.
I had my first missions experience at the age of 14, traveling to the Philippines along with my parents and a group from our church. I had the opportunity to travel to a handful of wonderful places on missions trips after that, and on each trip I had the distinct feeling that I finally fit in. I felt at home in the Philippines, in Mexico, in Tanzania. I believed I could adapt and easily live in any one of those places. I didn't want to leave and cried when I had to go home. I was sure God would call someone who loved mission work so much to become a full-time missionary one day, so I began declaring to everyone I knew that I was destined to be a missionary. I married someone who also felt called to mission work in Tanzania, and I set forth in my writing career while he finished up his time serving in the Air Force so we could carry on with our bigger plan.
We went to Tanzania for five weeks after he left the military, and at the outset we had every intention of scouting out the land so we could plan our permanent return. We soon realized, however, that the particular mission we had felt called to didn't need us. It was a well-oiled machine, run completely by natives. Almost any job we did could be done by an eager Tanzanian who wanted and needed the work and was willing and able to learn how to do it. We could help the mission more by going back home and supporting it financially than we could by moving there. In fact, in moving there we would have made ourselves a burden. I felt like we should find a new mission field that needed us, but my husband knew we had been called to that particular mission. God did give us a new dream for an airport at the mission, something my aviation-loving husband could dream about and plan in the years to come, but I felt like a failure. I was sure, too, that I had disappointed many others.
Up to that point, I had pretty much lived with a sense that a special star was shining on me. As I became bored and aimless with my career in publications, my sense of failure in life grew. I started a home-based business and gradually developed a belief that I would go to the top, help lots of other people start their own life-changing, liberating businesses, and make the big bucks, which of course would be used to get the airport in Tanzania up and running. In the midst of the early stages of my business, we had our first child, and nothing else mattered for several months. He was the fulfillment of his mother's hopes and the apple of his father's eye.
I carried on with my business and reached a measure of success that put me in the spotlight for awhile. It was fun and exciting. We had two more baby boys, and I decided to start homeschooling. I didn't really embrace my call to be a helpmeet to my husband, the best mother I could be to my three boys, and an excellent educator in our homeschool. Those callings weren't glamorous enough in my mind. I was going to be wildly successful in my business, get back to the mission field, and one day write a book about all of it.
Lately, just the past year or so, I've been drawn by God's small, still voice to simplify and rest in Him. Sitting still isn't really in my nature and so I tried to ignore it for a while, but a recent major career change for my husband has caused me to reevaluate my priorities. My husband no longer has time to help much around the house, watch the boys every time I need to run off for a meeting or party, or pitch in with homeschooling like we had imagined he would do. We knew when he was offered this job that it was God who had opened the door, and we understood it would require many hours and some sacrifices. Why I thought my life could continue without interruption I have no idea, but I quickly realized that I would have to make some adjustments. I couldn't figure out where or how, and when I prayed I just came away with the distinct impression to "be still." In reality, I had to do this but didn't realize how desperately my family and I needed it. The truth was that I couldn't keep doing everything I was trying to do, and without making some changes I was likely to have run myself right into a nervous breakdown. I knew this was no exaggeration when my chiropractor, a specialist of the nervous system, warned me that I had to figure out how to let go of some stress and tension in my life. I broke down and cried right there in her office and prayed the whole way home. I was frustrated with myself. Other people seemed to be able to do all these things with ease. Why couldn't I manage my time better or figure out how to live on less sleep? What was wrong with me? I didn't know, but I knew I had to slow down. Something had to give.
As I began to put on hold some of the tasks that had run my life for several years, the gauge on my internal disappointment meter went up. Now I was sure I had not only disappointed my parents and some extended family by not becoming a writer or missionary but also my husband and business associates by not becoming as successful as I had planned in my business. I also believed I disappointed my children every day by not having enough time to play with them and by being a little too impatient with them because I was always in a hurry to get to the next task on my to-do list. Most of all, I was sure I had disappointed God.
And then yesterday, it was like a switch flipped. I have been spending a lot more time worshipping, praying, and reading God's Word for a few months, and last weekend I had the opportunity to attend a Beth Moore conference with a very special friend who came all the way from Maine to spend time with me. I didn't know how badly I needed that conference. I had many "aha" moments, God revelations really, and gained many important insights to my life in Him. I have felt like I'm on cloud 9, unbelievably content and wonderfully light and free, for the past few days. And yesterday, it hit me: I have a pretty amazing life.
I wrote on Facebook, "Sometimes it seems mundane and simple, but today the privilege of living my life struck me. I am so blessed to read, pray, and learn with my children, experiencing the wonder of life and joy of understanding new things with them every single day. I take the gift of motherhood for granted most of the time, but for a moment today I remembered that it is a miracle. I'm truly thankful." As I continued to dwell on this throughout my day, I realized God isn't disappointed in me for being me anymore than I am disappointed in my boys for not being girls or not having a different hair color. He delights in me! And when I realized that, really knew it deep down, the disappointment I had thought others felt about me just melted away. I imagined most of it! And even if someone is a bit disappointed in me, what does that matter as long as God isn't?
Regardless of whether I ever become a successful writer or businesswoman, my family needs me to be the best wife, mom, and Christ-follower I can be. I will still fail, but His mercies are new every morning, and if I am seeking Jesus then He can and will redeem the areas where in my humanness I fall short.
I'm tempted to be disappointed in what I have to show for 36 years of life. But I've seen the love of my life off to work, and the three little boys who fill my heart with pride and my days with joy have awakened early, running from their room to find me and tell me "happy birthday" with huge smiles on their faces and excitement in their eyes. No, I haven't written a book or attained noteworthy success. I haven't sacrificed my life on a foreign mission field or started an orphanage in a third-world country. But I have a mission field here in my home, today, and in my neighborhood and community as well. Living like everyone is disappointed in me isn't serving anyone well, but living like no one is may very well change my life. And we all know that one changed life can change another.
So, yeah, it's kind of a bummer getting closer to 40 and remembering all I had thought I would accomplish by now when I was 18 and 36 was literally a lifetime away. But I have an amazing life to live right now, today. It's time to start living it -- and not just living it, but loving it, with no clouds of pessimism over my head and no imagined disappointment following me like a sinister shadow. After all, another year is just another trip around the sun and another step closer to a glorious eternity. There's no room for disappointment in that.