Dear sister in Christ. . .
My dearest (future) daughter. . .
Lowering your expectations doesn't mean lowering your standards.
Expectations, when unmet - leaves you disappointed, frustrated, to the point that you start questioning your worth. Standards, when unmet - increases your patience to wait on what would not fall short of what you know you deserve. Expectations are most often superficial, a shallow surface, external and worldly. Standards look past superficial aspects, focus on what is essential, and are based on your foundation of beliefs, values and principles. Expectations make you want to be in control of the situation brought about by the person's actions or words. Standards become your basis of how the person and situation is working towards your favor.
Lowering your expectations saves you from the heartache of disappointment but this does not mean that once expectations aren't met, you are any less of what you are. No, don't ever think that. There's this famous quote from a 1999 film, "don't ever let anyone make you feel you don't deserve what you want"
Keep your standards in tact and continue preparing yourself as you run the race, and at the right time, in God's time, the right one will run alongside of you without your help, pursue you relentlessly and give you more than what you think you deserve - that exceeds every expectation you've ever had.
❝Wait for a man that will put in the time, heart, and effort to pursue you. None of this whole “chasing around boys who don’t really like us and pine when they reject us” business. Wait for God to set you up with one who will put in time to win your heart. How can he do that though if you’re throwing it at him? Be secure enough in yourself and your Father that you don’t need to throw your heart around and give it away to any man who winks his eye at you. Be a woman, secure in God, deadly to the devil, feminine in strength, purity, and tenderness, andgive your man a chance to be a man. Let the boys go who blow you off and expect you to let them walk all over you or just plain won’t put in effort to get to know you at all. Let them go, and position yourself as a woman satisfied in Herself and Her life. Give yourself to knowing God, give yourself to loving others, and your man will come alongside you. You will never have to strive to make him like you, to make him talk to you. He will be already a man in pursuit of your heart without your help.❞
And he will love you, in many countless and immeasurable ways, for you are the only one who holds his heart and that by itself, surpasses every standard. And for the first time, you will truly love wholeheartedly, most genuinely, without a trace of uncertainty.
