Article July 31, 1989 Issue

Expectancy

Are we actively expecting good? Or only passively waiting for it?

Sylvia Messner

At certain periods in my life I've had the feeling that I was waiting for good to happen—waiting for the right job, income, relationship, marriage, or whatever. My happiness seemed to be something that would come "someday." But then I began to think about expectancy and to look at what I was thinking and feeling while waiting for my someday good. I asked myself, "What qualities does expectancy consist of? And what really is expectancy?"

I realized that I wasn't feeling expectant of good so much as I was feeling resentment that I didn't have it. Deprivation, fear, and self-condemnation kept me thinking that when I was "good enough" I would receive what I was waiting for.

As I thought of God and what I knew of God through Christian Science, however, I knew that my feelings couldn't be the right way to look at expectancy. I had learned that God is Love; He is our Father-Mother And I knew that I was God's loved child—the image, the reflection, of Love.

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