This has been our week for Vacation Bible School at the church, and we’ve had a blast with a bunch of the island kids. However, for one of our participants, Monday morning didn’t get off to a very good start. The tears started to flow less than half-way through the morning, and when I went to investigate the reason for such sadness, the response was “this isn’t what I was expecting.”
This child had participated in our vacation bible school last summer and had a fantastic time. In fact, she had so much fun that she thought we should do everything exactly the same way this year, with the same theme, same songs, same lessons, same activities. And since last year was her first time with us in VBS, she had no basis for thinking that every year we did something new. When she arrived on Monday morning filled with expectations, she found herself facing one disappointing moment after another as we headed off in an entirely new (and very fun) direction.
Ultimately, this child began to understand that she had a choice to make. She could continue to hold on to the idea that we had to do everything like she expected it would be, and thereby continue to be disappointed and upset. Or, she could drop the expectations and just enjoy each activity with her friends and excellent program leaders. I’m very happy to say that, by the end of the first day, she had embraced the newness of this year’s VBS experience, and the tears were ancient history.
If only this child was the only person to ever face this dilemma that is created when our expectations clash with reality. Unfortunately, there are so many of us who have had to deal with exactly the same sort of thing. Our first experiences with something create in our minds the template for what that experience should be in the future. You have most certainly heard someone else say the phrase “This is the way that it has always been done” when you know personally that it has been done many different ways in the past. We fail to take into consideration the breadth of other possible experiences and outcomes, thinking that our own experience must be the way that it should always be.
Every day, we awaken to a day that is unique, with circumstances that are never exactly the same as the previous day. People grow older, trees grow taller, new businesses open, older businesses close, a new home is built, one family moves out of a neighborhood while another family moves in, the sun may shine all day, and clouds might bring steady rains. In a world of constant change, we cannot reasonably expect today to be exactly like yesterday, or our vacation to be exactly like it was last year. For people who fall in love with our community today, it is important to realize that this same idea holds true – our community today is different than it was last year, and different than it will be next year. Frankly, it is starkly different than it was twenty years ago, and it will be starkly different twenty years from now. But if we are wise, we will awaken each day with the realization that we are living in a very special place that has so much to offer us, and so much that can bring us joy. There’s no sense in expecting today to be exactly the same as yesterday, because God has something new in store for us.
I pray that you will all embrace the experiences that God puts before you today.
Peace and blessings – Pastor Aaron