the unexpected good
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • Videos
  • Contact
a blog for Christian women about

discovering joy

in the challenges of singleness,
marriage, motherhood, chronic illness,
​and every day faith

The Unexpected Good

5/16/2015

0 Comments

 

(or "The Story of the Work That Didn't Get Done Because of the Work That Was More Important")

Picture
Today has not gone at all like I expected. I had a list of things to do, in order to meet all my weekly obligations and goals, and I thought I had all the time I needed to do them.

God must have laughed, because every item on my agenda took twice as long to do as I thought it would, and my energy lasted half as long as I expected. Interruptions abounded. I needed to stop off at the store because I was low on food for my special diet. My mother needed helping making and delivering a meal for someone in my church. I had to go pick up my sister from the community college.
Like the even-tempered, mild creature that I am, I began to stress out. 
“I put [Extraordinarily Important Job] on this list because I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it tomorrow, and because I have to get [Vastly Crucial Job] done on Friday. I’m going to have to cut out [World-Changing Task] and get it done next week…”

And so I went on, the tension coiling my shoulders and burning my chest—until I realized just how ridiculous I was being.

I had just had a lovely morning with the ladies at my church, discussing the things of God and all the ways in which the Gospel should change our daily focus, and free us from worries over lesser things. (That message wasn’t familiar at all, was it?) I had just spent nearly an extra hour afterward, chatting with a friend of mine whose writing is as much an integral part of her identity as it is a part of mine. I just blessed new parents with a meal, and had the privilege of holding a precious newborn in my arms. I just spent uninterrupted time in the car with my mother—a rare occurrence these days. 
Picture
Was I truly whining because I didn’t get done everything I wanted to do today? Because my agenda got interrupted? Because it wasn’t the good that I expected?

So I laughed. I laughed at the patent absurdity of the human mind that clutches so strongly to the expected good of crossing completed jobs off the list that it misses the better good of being Christ-like encouragement to others.

I’m not saying that priorities should be thrown out the window. The Lord well knows that I will have to strap a jetpack on my back to finish this week’s tasks, all because of today’s adventures. There are times when I’ve had to say “no” to one opportunity in order to say “yes” to a different opportunity that I must rank higher. Certainly, flexibility and responsibility must be balanced.
Picture
But, today, I’m not sorry one bit that I chose to do the things I did. Which was more important: helping my busy mother or cleaning my closet? The chaotic closet drives me nuts, it’s true, but my relationship with my closet isn’t nearly as important as my relationship with my mother. If, at the end of my life, my mind is filled with regrets for the lost time that I could have better spent in my closet, I’m pretty sure it will be a sign that my dear Savior is very close to taking me home.

And now that I have my real priorities straight, I’m not stressed at all. I realize that stress is just the product of a will that wants only the expected good, and interprets the unexpected good as an “interruption.”

So I will work as responsibly as possible toward fulfilling the expected good, but I will ask God for the eyes to see the unexpected good that He sends to me.
Picture
“What you have made me see,” answered the Lady, “is as plain as the sky, but I never saw it before. Yet it has happened every day. One goes into the forest to pick food and already the thought of one fruit rather than another has grown up in one’s mind. Then, it may be, one finds a different fruit and not the fruit one thought of. One joy was expected and another is given. But this I had never noticed before—that the very moment of the finding there is in the mind a kind of thrusting back, or setting aside. The picture of the fruit you have not found is still, for a moment, before you. And if you wished—if it were possible to wish—you could keep it there. You could send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning it to the good you had got. You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other… One can conceive of a heart which…clung to the good it had first thought of and turned the good which was given it into no good.”
- Perelandra (C. S. Lewis)

Like this post? Subscribe to the email list!

* indicates required
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

      Never miss a post.

    Subscribe to Email List
    Picture

    Meet Yaasha

    None of my life has gone the way it was "supposed to go," but I don't love my life any less because of the hardships and new directions. I see so much unexpected good in it, and I want others to see the good in theirs.

    Learn more about me here.


    Picture

    Archives

    May 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    May 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013


    Categories

    All
    Adoption
    Bible Verse
    Book Excerpt
    Book Excerpts
    Christian Community
    Chronic Illness
    Courtship
    Dating
    Depression
    Discovering Joy
    Evangelism
    Excellent Relationships
    Faith
    Family Relationships
    Fearless
    Forgiveness
    God And Christianity
    Godly Womanhood
    How We See Ourselves
    Identity
    Incredible Journey
    Joy
    Life Direction
    Marriage
    Ministry
    Miscarriage
    Motherhood
    Our Story
    Overcoming Sin
    Persecution
    Poetry
    Prayer
    Pro-life
    Ready For Him Today
    Relationship With God
    Service To Others
    Singleness
    Spiritual Growth
    Suffering
    Womanhood

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • Videos
  • Contact