Great(ish) Expectations

 #50. 50 years. FIFTY.

I get it. If you're 60 or 70 or 80 or 90, then 50 is the childhood of "senior" adulthood.

I first read the Dickens classic, Great Expectations, when I was 20 years old. It's a poignant read that set me straight early on as I considered what was ahead. I read it again in my 30s, and the week I turned 50, I read it again as I entered a daunting new decade. 

In the closing chapter, a key character says something that made a profound impression on me the first time I read it, and it affects me still: "I have been bent and broken, but--I hope--into a better shape." It worried me (rightfully so) at the time. Turns out, the character was right about the brokenness to be expected throughout one's life. A year after my fiftieth birthday, I'm still contemplating what it means to be bent and broken, but into a better shape. 

Sometimes it's our own stubbornness that causes the pain; other times, it's forced by others upon us. But pain is unavoidable. One way or the other, somehow,  we're forced into change. Never mind the platitudes about getting "bitter or better." 

I do have great(ish) expectations for the next few decades. I've learned one thing--pain is inevitable. However, pain on the front end by walking the way of discipline often deflects pan on the back end of stumbling upon the path of consequences. The path of brokenness is the path toward hope. 

I still have great expectations.