We've all felt the pain of unmet expectations, but what if there was a reality where we didn't have to worry about such things?

Things rarely happen the way we expect them to. Our plans fall through, our dreams are crushed, deep life desires lay dead on the floor—long replaced by the cold, hard truth of reality. The only thing that seems predictable about life is that it will be accompanied with difficulties.

And although we generally know this, we're still wrecked when our situations are changed, dramatically or slowly, as we realize that the trajectory of our lives is largely out of our control.

This is not new in the world. So, why are we surprised by it? Over and over (and over and over) again this happens throughout our lives, and has happened in the lives of our predecessors; our plans come to naught, our diligence seems to bear no fruit, our "good deeds" appear useless.

Unaware of how to stop the hurt that comes from these things, we attempt to avoid the pain by putting up carefully constructed defense mechanisms. We bunker inside ourselves in an effort to protect ourselves, building walls that disallow us to feel bad emotions, yet end up disabling the good ones as well. And so we live muted lives, trying not

to feel, but deep down wanting to more than anything else. We wish there was hope for something better, but cannot see where that is possible.

Hope, if we had it, would make all the difference—if it were real, but innumerable attempts at hoping in things have left us jaded. And maybe that's because we've been placing our hope in the wrong things.

We tried placing it in success, fame and enjoyable moments; family, friends and romantic relationships. But those are all fickle, and wholly unpredictable. What would happen, however, if we found something unchangeable that has intrinsic benevolence? Something good we could put our hope in that doesn't shift like situations. Something bigger than us. Something like a god. Someone like God.

If we were to trust in God—maybe we wouldn't need to worry about predicting the future, nor stress over maintaining happiness. Maybe the future would come to us as it should, and though we won't have made it happen the way we had planned it, we would embrace it with open arms and resolute character, overjoyed in spite of it.

Then, our chief expectation would be that, regardless of outcome, we only need embrace life and trust in One that created it in the first place.