Anticipation

I don’t do anticipation very well. Anticipation of something bad has always led to fear in my life. Anticipation of good has often led to disappointment. So how do we walk through days full of anticipation of something looming on the horizon of our lives? Of something we know, for better or worse, is coming?

Lately I’ve been remembering the days of anticipation before the birth of my first child. The anticipation wasn’t so strong the day I learned I was pregnant. Or even a few months later. I knew I had to wait at least nine months, so the anticipation heightened as the time drew near. I quit my full-time job two weeks before my due date. Every day of those two weeks was filled with anticipation—and little else. I remember feeling restless, eager for something besides the impending birth to occupy my mind and yet unable to settle into anything else for long.

I feel that way these days, too. And yet, nearly twenty years later, I’m thinking that anticipation shouldn’t rule me. I should be able to move forward, to accomplish all that is required of me on a daily basis without succumbing to the inactivity and indecision of anticipation. Isn’t that what it means to not worry about tomorrow? To be able to live each day, each moment without that cloak of anticipation binding my hands and feet?

So I’m trying to do better, trying to live in the now, trying to anticipate only what the Lord would have me to do, not what lies ahead to experience. Help me, Lord!