I made a ham for my second grader’s special Thanksgiving dinner today at school. He loves ham and was super excited. I like things that are practical and make sense. So I made a slow cooker fall off the bone ham. When done, this ham is super tender and just shreds apart not unlike a roast. In theory, this is easier to eat and wouldn’t require any cutting or extra mess with plastic utensils.
Well, said child looked at it and said, “that’s not ham.” Then he took a bite and claimed he didn’t like it. Personally, I thought it tasted good. No matter though. He had already made up his mind that it didn’t look like he expected or wanted it to look, and therefore he wasn’t going to like it. It doesn’t hurt my feelings. I mean I cook at least five nights a week and probably three of those nights someone doesn’t like something.
I laughed about it with other parents and teachers at school. But I came home and was washing and putting stuff away and thought about how guilty I am of doing the same sort of thing, more often than I care to admit if I’m being honest. We have this picture in our minds of how we think something should be or will be and so often it just doesn’t match up.
I’m extra bad about this at Christmas. The picture I attached to this post came straight from a Kohl’s advertisement. I had just taken that picture earlier this week with the thought of writing this very same post and the ham just added an additional example. God is really calling my attention to it at the moment.
How often do we base what our Christmas should look like based on pictures like this one or on movies and shows we watch? Doesn’t it look so pretty? It would be cozy, warm and festive if I just bought all that stuff and filled my living room for Christmas. Except that it wouldn’t.
For one, my living room doesn’t have the exact features of that fake living room. Nor does it have a professional designer and photographer or all new and trendy goodies to display. I have to work around the tv and the vent and the window and the furniture. I don’t have a fireplace. Exactly zero professionals will be involved. There will probably be at least one argument of some kind.
I will put up a small nativity and eventually it will include Spider-Man and probably some little green Army men and maybe a Matchbox car. I’m sure that little drummer boy rolled up in a fast car. The Christmas tree won’t be anyone’s idea of pretty because it will be a hodgepodge of handmade toddler ornaments, cartoon ornaments and angels that I’ve had for 40 years. At least a row of lights will mysteriously go out by mid December.
Basically, nothing will look like the picture in my mind. If we want to really uncover some stuff, not much of my life looks like how I pictured it would years ago. In my mind, both my parents would still be here. I might not of have had kids at all. I would’ve been doing something interesting in some fancy place going from one fun event to the next. I can promise that the biggest social event of my week would not have been making a disappointing ham for second graders in my small corner of Appalachia.
Do you suppose Mary the Mother of Jesus pictured her life going just that way? Instead of being married and everyone being excited about the upcoming baby, you’re going to be forced to put your beliefs to the test and narrowly avoid being stoned to death for something so scandalous. I bet her birth plan didn’t include having a baby in a barn. I can just imagine – Lord I had kind of hoped there would be a bed at least. You want me to have a king in a barn? Beside the donkeys? Say what?
I think so often of God’s people following Moses out of slavery in Egypt. How excited they must have been initially. But then wonder what they thought when they were staring at the Red Sea in front of them and Pharaoh’s army behind them? Or say, 5 years later (much less 40) they must’ve been getting pretty tired of eating manna and never getting to the promised land. Um, Moses, this isn’t like the picture of freedom we had envisioned.
I’m reminded of that quote that says, “Life is what happens while we’re busy making other plans.” That’s pretty accurate. We perceive much of life as worse than the picture we had in mind. Sometimes it is. At least in the moment. But what if in God’s reality it winds up being better than anything we could actually imagine?
My life today isn’t the script I would have written 20 years ago. But just because it doesn’t look like what I had pictured doesn’t mean it isn’t good. It many ways it’s so much better than I could have dreamed. The thing is, the picture I used to want, it isn’t what I really want now. And while there are things that I would definitely have chosen not to go through if I had the choice, they’ve led to some of my biggest blessings. I would have missed a lot of good stuff by skipping out on things that made me uncomfortable or that I didn’t think I liked or wanted.
I’m thankful that God is in control of my reality, even if it isn’t like what I had in mind. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” I have that scripture on one of my favorite coffee mugs as a frequent reminder.
I want to be more open to whatever God has for me, regardless of what it looks like. If I stand firm in my disappointment that reality didn’t live up to, let’s face it, my limited ability to dream and let it bleed over into my actions then I cheat myself out of the goodness that He intended for me. And I’ve hurt Him on top of it. Now that’s a real disappointment.
