“I have found it very important in my own life to try to let go of my wishes and instead to live in hope. I am finding that when I choose to let go of my sometimes petty and superficial wishes and trust that my life is precious and meaningful in the eyes of God something really new, something beyond my own expectations begins to happen for me (Henri J. M. Nouwen, Finding My Way Home).” 

That’s the hardest part– letting go of expectations of how we thought our lives would turn out. Some of us (including me) expected to be married at this point. Some expected to have those 2.5 kids and that white picket fence by now. A lot of us expected to be in a career that involved more than counting down the hours to 5 o’clock and counting down the days to Friday.

I keep thinking about the story of the little girl and her imitation pearls. In the story, night after night, her father said to the little girl, “Give me your pearls.”

Each night, the little girl refused adamently. 

Finally, after weeks and weeks, with tears in her eyes, the little girl looked up at her father and told him, “Here, daddy. You can have my pearls.”

It was at that moment that the father pulled out a strand of real pearls that were way more valuable than the fakes. He had only been waiting for her to let go of the old to receive the new.

What expectations are keeping you from receiving God’s best for you? In what areas of your life can you trust that God has better dreams for you than you do for yourself? 

Ultimately, do you and I believe that God in and of Himself, apart from any gifts or promises, is enough? Will God alone be enough to satisfy?

I added another first to my list today. I rode one of those scenic ski-lift chairs at Gatlinburg to the top and back down again.

Granted, it may not sound overwhelmingly daring, but for someone who’s dealt with a lifelong fear of heights, it’s a big deal.

I actually kept my eyes open the entire time and only hand a minimal death-grip on the chair’s front and side bars. I even enjoyed the experience.

My challenge to you who are reading this: pick one thing you’re afraid of and go do it.

The fear may be fierce and seem overwhelming, but the only negative emotion stronger than fear is regret. 

So get going. And good luck.

“When Aslan said, ‘Now make an end.’ The giant . . . stretched out one arm—very black it looked, and thousands of miles long—across the sky till his hand reached the Sun. He took the Sun and squeezed it in his hand as you would squeeze an orange. And instantly there was total darkness.

Everyone except Aslan jumped back from the ice-cold air which now blew through the Doorway. Its edges were already covered with icicles.

‘Peter, High King of Narnia,’ said Aslan. ‘Shut the Door.’

Peter, shivering with cold, leaned out into the darkness and pulled the Door to. . . . Then, rather clumsily (for even in that moment his hands had gone numb and blue) he took out a golden key and locked it.

They had seen strange things enough through that Doorway. But it was stranger than any of them to look round and find themselves in warm daylight, the blue sky above them, flowers at their feet, and laughter in Aslan’s eyes.

He turned swiftly round, crouched lower, lashed himself with his tail and shot away like a golden arrow.

‘Come further in! Come further up!’ he shouted over his shoulder. . . .

‘So,’ said Peter, ‘night falls on Narnia. What, Lucy! You’re not crying? With Aslan ahead, and all of us here?’

‘Don’t try to stop me, Peter,’ said Lucy, ‘I am sure Aslan would not. I am sure it is not wrong to mourn for Narnia. . . .’

‘Yes and I did hope,’ said Jill, ‘that it might go on forever. I knew our world couldn’t. I did think Narnia might.’

‘I saw it begin,’ said the Lord Digory. ‘I did not think I would live to see it die.’

‘Sirs,’ said Tirian. ‘The ladies do well to weep. See, I do so myself. I have seen my mother’s death. What world but Narnia have I ever known? It were no virtue, but great discourtesy, if we did not mourn.'” (C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle).

Sometimes, new beginnings and new chapters in the story God is writing require that there also be endings. It’s okay to mourn the endings as we celebrate the beginnings. 

It also means that for every ending we thought we could not bear, there’s always a new beginning birthed in the process.