I want to care about this one

I don’t want to not care.

 

My pastor told me some of my deep disappointment comes from unrealistic expectations. That’s kind of duh, I suppose the kind of thing mature adults are supposed to “get.”

Realistic expectations have to do with wisdom. And I actually like wisdom. I like when I’ve learned some life lesson so that it’s duh to me; I like when things are ok because my perspective is truthful and appropriate. I really enjoy wisdom most of the time—it’s freeing.

 

But I don’t want to feel better about something because I stopped caring about it. 

 

There are some things I don’t want to feel better about because they no longer matter to me.

 

There are some things I don’t want to care about anymore. There are relationships that, even if things never change, even if the other person never changes, I want it not to bother me anymore. I want to change if that’s what it takes. I want to be able to love regardless of whether or not there is satisfying reciprocation. 

But there are places in my life that I guess I’m just stuck on.

I don’t want to love there unconditionally. I don’t want to gain perspective on who you really are and so have it not matter how you treat me. I don’t want to be the bigger person; I don’t want to invest my love just because Jesus told me to.

I want it to change, not me. I don’t want, in five years, to feel differently about it because I’ve changed, my perspective has changed, and I’ve become ok with who you are not.

 

I don’t want to lower my expectations with you.

 

Because if I do, it’s like it was all wasted.

All the care I invested, all the good I saw in you, all the things about you that I thought were there, were lovable, were delightful. All the things about you that I swear I didn’t imagine, that try as I might to adjust my expectations still lurk there, teasingly, all the things about you that I thought would feel good on my soul. All the effort I spent trying to honor God in my attitude when I did want to quit. Because the fact is I did try to quit caring. It seemed like it would be smarter and so much easier.

 

But I never wanted to quit.

And I have seen how God takes things and makes them into something so much better, in a better way than I imagined. And I’ve seen how, when I am so very changed, when my perspective is so very shifted, how all the feelings change and it all becomes ok.

 

I don’t want that to happen here.

 

I want redemption.

 

I want what I want.

 

I want what I felt to have mattered.

 

I realize You may say no. I know if You do it will be better than what I want. But I cannot see that now—my past experience of Your Sovereignty, projected into the future, does not seem to match the will that I repeatedly lay down. In this I have only two prayers left: I want it all to have mattered, I want it stand in the end without waste. And not my will but Yours be done.