Little Wren Writes

Yes. I’m cheating.

There are no X words that I liked.
We’ve made it to day twenty-four. I think I’ve earned the right to start highlighting letters in the middle of words and pretending they count. Welcome to X.

I have discovered an extremely efficient way to become exhausted:

Have expectations of yourself that you would never place on another human being.

Works every time.

Be patient. Be kind. Be available. Be productive. Be organised. Be emotionally regulated. Be spiritually disciplined. Be a good friend. Be good at your job. Remember everyone’s birthday. Reply to your messages. Exercise. Drink enough water. Get enough sleep. Maintain healthy boundaries. Have meaningful relationships. Keep the house vaguely presentable. Process your emotions – but don’t process them so much that you’re ‘too emotional‘! Rest when you need to. But also don’t waste the day.

And obviously, do all of this with a cheerful disposition and a well-balanced nervous system.

Easy, right?

I’ve been thinking a lot about expectations lately. Not expectations about what my life would look like. I’ve done plenty of grieving around those. I mean the quieter, daily expectations I carry about who I should be and how well I should be doing it.

Some of them are reasonable. I should be kind. I should take responsibility for myself. I should try to do my job well. I should care for the people I love. I should follow Jesus faithfully. Expectations aren’t automatically bad. In fact, a life without any expectations at all would probably be fairly disastrous. But somewhere along the way, reasonable expectations can quietly become impossible standards.

And impossible standards are exhausting.

The word should features rather heavily in my internal vocabulary. And actually my psychologist now points it out – he just says ‘should’ EVERY time I say it. To the point where I start to get frustrated…but it’s an effective way to get the point across.

I should be coping better.
I should have more energy.
I should be further along by now.
I should be able to handle this.
I should be more consistent.
I should have replied.
I should have remembered.
I should have done more.
I should be less affected by that.
I should be better at this by now.

Sometimes the expectation hasn’t even come from anybody else. Nobody has actually asked. Nobody is disappointed. Nobody has issued a performance review. It’s just me. Holding an imaginary clipboard. Assessing my own performance against standards I invented. And somehow still failing them.

That’s the particularly exhausting thing about expectations. Some of the loudest ones have never actually been spoken. I can assume what other people expect from me.
My boss probably expects…
My friends probably think…
My family needs…
People at church will assume…
They’ll be disappointed if…

And then I start living according to expectations nobody has actually confirmed. I’m essentially disappointing imaginary versions of real people. Which is an impressive use of emotional energy. Sometimes I’ve discovered that the person I was desperately trying not to disappoint wasn’t disappointed at all. They hadn’t even thought about the thing I had spent three hours worrying about.

Rude, honestly. I had prepared an entire emotional crisis.

And then there are expectations that have been spoken. Sometimes by people who matter deeply.
Expectations about what a good daughter should be. A good wife. A good Christian. A good friend. A good leader. A good woman. A capable person.

Some of those expectations have shaped me beautifully. Others have weighed me down. And some belonged to people who were simply wrong.

I’m slowly learning that another person’s expectation of me does not automatically become my obligation. That’s difficult. Because sometimes saying:
I can’t do that
feels an awful lot like
I’m letting you down.

And maybe I am. That’s uncomfortable. But disappointing someone and doing something wrong aren’t always the same thing. I can disappoint someone because their expectation was unrealistic. I can disappoint someone because my capacity has changed. I can disappoint someone because I made a healthy decision they don’t particularly like. I can disappoint someone because two people’s needs genuinely conflict and I cannot meet both.

Someone else’s disappointment isn’t automatic evidence of my failure.

I’m trying to learn that one. Slowly.

I think expectations become especially complicated when capacity changes. There are things I have been able to carry in previous seasons that I can’t carry in exactly the same way now. And I don’t particularly enjoy that. Because my expectations of myself don’t always update as quickly as my actual capacity does. My brain still says:

You used to be able to do this.

Correct. Thank you for that incredibly helpful observation. But used to isn’t necessarily a useful measurement for today. There are days when doing less is laziness. I need enough honesty to admit that. And there are days when doing less is wisdom. I need enough grace to admit that too.

The difficulty is learning the difference.

Sometimes exhaustion isn’t telling me – you’re weak.
Sometimes it’s simply telling me – something has to give.
Maybe the schedule. Maybe the standard. Maybe the deadline. Maybe the number of things I’m trying to carry.
Maybe my assumption that I should be able to do everything without help. Maybe an expectation I inherited years ago and never stopped to question.

Exhaustion isn’t always a spiritual revelation, obviously. Sometimes I just stayed up too late watching something stupid. There are consequences. But sometimes exhaustion is information.

My body saying that this pace isn’t sustainable.
My emotions saying that I haven’t had space to process anything.
My mind saying that there are seventeen tabs open and one of them is playing music but we cannot locate it.

Maybe instead of immediately asking myself how can I push through this, I need to occasionally ask what am I expecting of myself right now…and is it even reasonable?

Jesus has something to say about heavy loads. In Matthew 23, He speaks very sharply about religious leaders who: “tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders.”

I find that image striking because religion can become incredibly exhausting when it becomes a collection of expectations. Do enough. Know enough. Serve enough. Pray enough. Be good enough. Look like you’re doing well enough. Don’t struggle with the embarrassing things. Don’t ask the wrong questions. And whatever you do, make sure everybody else thinks your relationship with God is going wonderfully.

But that’s not the way Jesus treats burdened people.

There’s a moment in Luke 10 that I think is particularly interesting. Martha is doing something good. Jesus is in her home. There are people to host. Food to prepare. Things to do. None of that is bad. But Martha becomes distracted by all the preparations.

Eventually she says: “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

Honestly, I appreciate Martha’s directness. No passive aggression. Just straight to Jesus.

Please deal with Mary.

And Jesus says: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed – or indeed only one.”

Notice Jesus doesn’t say ‘Martha, hospitality is stupid’.
He doesn’t shame her for serving. He addresses the weight she has placed on it. Somewhere, a good thing has become an anxious thing. A gift has become an obligation. Service has become pressure.

I wonder how often I do that. I take something good…and add expectations until it becomes exhausting.

I love people – so I should always be available.

I care about my work – so I should always do more.

I value friendship – so I should never forget anything important.

I want to serve – so I should never say no.

I want to grow – so I should always be improving.

I love God – so I should have a flawless spiritual routine and never find prayer difficult.

Good desires. Heavy expectations. Maybe the problem isn’t always what I’m doing. Sometimes it’s the invisible should I’ve attached to it.

And then there are Jesus’ words in Matthew 11: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

I know I’ve used the idea of rest elsewhere in this series, so this isn’t really about rest. It’s the next bit that interests me:

“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me…”

Jesus doesn’t say:
Come to me and you will never have responsibility again.

There is still a yoke. There is still discipleship. Still obedience. Still work to do. Still people to love. Still sacrifice. Jesus isn’t offering a life without expectations. He’s offering His yoke instead of all the others. And apparently “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

That makes me wonder how many of the burdens I’m carrying did Jesus actually give me?

Did Jesus ask me to keep everybody happy? No.

Did He ask me to never disappoint anyone? No.

Did He ask me to be endlessly productive? No.

Did He ask me to be emotionally unaffected by suffering? No.

Did He ask me to never need help? Definitely not.

Did He ask me to earn His affection through usefulness? Absolutely not.

Some of the heaviest expectations I carry have God’s name scribbled on them when He never put them there. And maybe part of following Jesus is learning the difference.

There are, of course, expectations Jesus does have of me.

Love God. Love my neighbour. Forgive. Repent. Serve. Seek justice. Tell the truth. Be generous. Pray. Trust. Follow.

Some of those are costly. Jesus never pretended discipleship would be effortless. But there is a difference between costly obedience and exhausting performance. One flows from being loved. The other desperately tries to secure love.

One says ‘because I belong to Jesus, I want to follow Him’.
The other says ‘if I can just do enough, maybe I’ll finally feel like I’m enough’.

I know which one I’ve accidentally lived from more often than I’d like to admit.

I’m also learning that grace doesn’t mean lowering every standard until nothing matters. Sometimes that’s what I’m afraid of. If I’m kinder to myself, will I become lazy? If I stop expecting perfection, will I stop trying? If I accept my current capacity, will I never grow? If I say no more often, will I become selfish?

But grace isn’t indifference. Grace tells the truth. Sometimes the truth is that I can do better here. And sometimes the truth is that I am asking far too much of myself.

Wisdom is learning which sentence I need.

And I think that’s one of the reasons I need other people too. Because my own expectations are not always reliable. I need people who can say ‘Yes, I think you need to follow through on that’.

And people who can say ‘Renee. Go home.’

People who encourage me to grow. And people who remind me that I don’t need to earn rest. People who challenge my excuses. And people who challenge my impossible standards.

Both are love.

I don’t want a life with no expectations.
I want right-sized expectations.

Expectations shaped by reality. By wisdom. By capacity. By season. By Scripture. By grace. I want to stop demanding today’s version of me carry what another season’s version could carry. I want to stop automatically turning other people’s preferences into obligations. I want to stop measuring myself against imaginary standards nobody actually set. And I especially want to stop putting words in God’s mouth.

Exhaustion can come from many places. Sometimes life is simply exhausting. Sometimes love is exhausting. Sometimes grief is exhausting. Sometimes work is exhausting. And sometimes I’m exhausted because I’ve spent all day trying to meet expectations Jesus never gave me.

That one is worth noticing.

So perhaps when exhaustion arrives, alongside sleep and food and all the obvious sensible things, I can ask:

What am I carrying?
Who asked me to carry it?
What am I expecting from myself?
Would I expect this from someone I love?
Is this obedience – or performance?

And perhaps most importantly:

Does this actually belong to Jesus’ yoke?

Because I suspect there are things I’m carrying that He never asked me to pick up. And maybe putting those things down isn’t failure.

Maybe it’s faith.

“For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” 
Matthew 11:30