Katie's prayer: Andy Cloninger's "O Gracious Light"

I listened to this song non-stop for about 3 hours this afternoon while doing other work. I was thrown off by the end of this song. After all the singing is finished, there’s a slight pause, then just instrumental music that at the beginning sounds a lot alike another song I know. Even though I knew the song was on constant repeat, every time that instrumental bit came on, my brain thought it was a new song and was trying to recall what the song was by the first few notes. Like I said, it sounds like another song I know and love, so I would get all excited. Then I would remember that it couldn’t possibly be that song cause I have this song on repeat! Seriously happened about 25-30 times throughout the 3 hours of listening to it (about half the time!). I had expectations and then was disappointed by them.

Similar to tonight. Tonight I went to Encounter. I was so excited, I’d be seeing friends, I’d be experiencing the XLT at a different parish than I’m used to recently, and yet still in a familiar environment. I was excited and had much expectations for the entire night to be the greatest night ever. Sadly, like with the song, I was disappointed. Not that it wasn’t great, cause it was. But it wasn’t the greatest night ever. I found myself comparing the song choices, and the topic choice, and how everything is run there to how it all is at XLT at St. Gabe’s. And I actually found myself wishing that some things were the way St. Gabe’s has them. Just little things, like wanting to sing Tantum Ergo instead of Down in Adoration Falling (the same song, just different languages). So a night that usually would have been super great, I find myself walking away disappointed because it didn’t meet the super high expectations I set for the night.

It makes me wonder, how many other times am I setting high expectations? How could my experiences or my life in general be better if I didn’t have expectations? How does one go about doing that?