Expectations

My soul, wait only upon God,

for my expectation is from Him.

Psalm 62:5

It was the summer of 1987, and my oldest daughter, a happy four-year-old, was perched in the middle of a hospital bed.  She was scheduled to have heart surgery the next day – the second such operation in her young life.  We had finished our check-in, and she had been placed in a room with another mother/child combo – this one a boy of approximately the same age.  Just as dinner arrived, the other mother smiled and asked what we were there for.  After my explanation, I returned the question, and she said, “Jimmy came in with a temperature above 105 degrees – a fever of unknown origin.”

I was blindsided.  My child was pre-op for heart surgery, and she had been given a roommate with a high fever of unknown origin?    My expectations of the hospital keeping my child as safe as possible evaporated into thin air.  Muttering an apology to the other parent, I kicked off the brake on the hospital bed, grabbed the end rail, and hauled my daughter – bed and all – out of that room and down the hall.  I was almost to the elevators when the medical staff registered that something was amiss and came running after me.  Eventually they placed us in a room with a little girl with sleep apnea.

Expectations of how someone is going to behave, or how a situation is going to evolve, or how things "should be" often let us down - failing to match reality.   The Psalmist set his expectations upon God - the One who never changes - today, tomorrow, and forever.

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In Christ alone my hope is found,

He is my light, my strength, my song.

This Cornerstone, this solid ground,

Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.

What heights of love, what depths of peace,

When fears are stilled, when strivings cease.

My Comforter, my all in all,

Here in the love of Christ I stand.

UMC Worship in Song, No. 3105