I’ve never been pregnant, and I’ve never even wanted to be. I’m not saying that’s good.  It’s just true. I have a dear friend who’s having a baby in February though, and for some reason, after all the friends and family members who’ve had babies, this one has gotten me thinking. It’s too late for me and I haven’t changed my mind, but I’ve started thinking about expectancy.

I’ve thought a lot already about expectations. These are almost always uniquely negative things. They tend to be false, unfair, disappointing, and relationship-killing. They place strict boundaries around what we want or think we need from others. They limit another person to being a particular way or doing a certain thing.  They don’t leave room for anything other than what is expected.

I actually ran into this as a major personal issue when I was younger, and I was expected to have a child or two or three within a few years of marriage.  Doing that is a great thing for a whole lot of people, but it wasn’t for me. When I failed to meet this expectation, assumptions were made about the reasons for it. Emotional barriers were thrown up by people who did and didn’t know me, because I was unusual in this regard and that made me unpredictable and mysterious. People didn’t know what to think of me. They didn’t know what to expect, and that was an impediment to our relationship. I think it may have made people feel insecure.  Sometimes they’d even assume that I must not approve of people who did have children, and that I’d placed judgments on them. I hadn’t at all. For a whole bunch of reasons I just didn’t have the emotional or physical resources to engage in being a mother, myself.

Expectancy is different in that it leaves room for the unexpected. We can be expectant of something good without defining exactly what we think that must be. It’s about waiting for something, and not being quite sure exactly what it is that we’re going to get.

My friends who are expecting a baby boy are absolutely thrilled to meet their son. They get adorably giddy at the thought of getting to know who he is. Therein lies the difference. They haven’t decided who he’s going to be or what he’s going to do. I’m sure they probably have some expectations about parenting that will turn out to be false because they’ve never done it before and they’ve imagined it to be a particular way. Knowing these dear people, they’ll work through that and get back into reality. But right now, in the third trimester of the pregnancy, they’re expecting a son and leaving all the doors and windows of possibility open to him. He’s going to be a remarkable little human and that’s about all anyone knows about him right now. But expectancy is in the air. They’re longing with all their hearts to find out who this little person is going to be, and that leaves room for him to be himself.

Expectations aren’t helpful. They disappoint, distract, and disconnect. Expectancy is different because it is hope that doesn’t try to control outcomes. It may dream a little, but in the end it makes room for whatever is coming to be whatever it is.

As Christmas approaches, I think about the traditional story. I think about the person of Jesus as described in the Bible. He was executed because he did not meet expectations. He didn’t overthrow the Romans. He hung out with crooks and prostitutes and liars. The only people he ever really reamed out were the religious leaders of the day, because they made God inaccessible and placed unbearable burdens on everyday people. He was not who people expected him to be. That didn’t mean he wasn’t good. That didn’t mean that people weren’t onto something when they were hopefully anticipating the coming of the Messiah. He ended up being all about loving God and loving each other. He represented God here on earth, which means God is all about love, too, and that’s something worth getting excited about.

Expectancy waits for revelation and lets go of pre-definition.  It releases control and embraces acceptance. It puts us in the role of recipients instead of demigods, insistent on our own ways. At Christmas we’re waiting for a baby to be revealed.  If we are wise we’re not waiting for a predefined man to show up and meet our every desire like a Chippendale-Warrior-Santa-Claus, slave to our whims and fantasies.  It might be fun at first but we’d tire of him eventually, as we do of anything plastic that runs on batteries.  We’d almost certainly muck up what’s good by trampling over others’ needs while trying to meet our own.  None of those stories about genies in lamps turn out well in the long run.

I think I’d rather anticipate a baby, and gradually discover everything that is delightful and unexpected about him. I’d rather have a God I can’t control, especially if he’s willing to show up helpless and humble. As he and I take time to get to know each other, he might just turn out to be someone I’d like to know.