The Story of My Rotten Sunday School Class

God, Oprah... my life is full of favorite quotes I heard on your show.  One that I heard that became a mantra for me was "Expect nothing and appreciate everything"The thing on my mind right now is the trouble that unmet expectations cause in the fucking up of relationships.  Yesterday, I awoke to a text from a new acquaintance who expressed disappointment in me not pursuing a friendship with her more aggressively.  She had expectations of me that I had not met and she wanted to talk about that.  As I thought about her pain and tried to evaluate how much I had caused by my not being as attentive to the new friendship and how much she caused herself by expecting me to behave in a certain way, it got me thinking about unmet expectations that we can have for each other.I recalled an example from my own life many years ago during my church days when I was trying to pray away my gay and thought it might be good to share.The Story of My Rotten Sunday School Class I was pregnant with Lindsey and in a close-knit group of young adults that made up my Sunday School class.  We did a lot of social events together.  Many of the women were stay-at-home moms like me and we had many opportunities outside of Sunday School to fellowship including Bible study, couples bowling, attending our husbands' softball games together, etc.  I threw several baby showers for women in this group as well as remembered birthdays and took meals when someone was sick. In many ways, we were like a family.It hurt my feelings that my due date was upon us and nobody had offered to throw a baby shower for me.  I didn't say anything.  However, Lindsey was born on a Sunday morning just before church and it was announced in our class that she had arrived safely.  I had expected a few visitors or calls after church.  When they didn't come, I was really hurt.  In fact, I only had a single phone call from Mona, one of the women that I thrown a shower for.  She offered to bring a meal later that week.  Other than that, I didn't get a call, a visit, a card, a gift - not any kind of acknowledgement that my daughter was born.  Each week, I sat in class silently stewing about it and looking across the rows into the faces of my classmates and silently singing "Fake Friends" by Joan Jett in my mind.I fantasized about standing up in the middle of class and telling them all what hypocrites they were.  Here I was a lesbian, not being a lesbian because I was being a good Christian woman, and they were acting like inconsiderate assholes!I wanted to laugh out loud when our teacher taught about loving your neighbor as much as you love yourself.  I found it more and more difficult to get up on Sunday mornings and go to class because I was dragging this incredible burden around with me.  I couldn't even pay attention to what was being said because it bothered me so much that they were all so unaware of the pain they had caused me.I was withdrawing from activities and stopped participating in things as a way to protect my heart from further hurt and, as weird as it seems, as a punishment for them.  I was divorcing myself from this family.I had this expectation for them to have the same love toward me that I had for all of them.  When they didn't show me love the way I wanted to see it - an acknowledgement of my daughter's birth, it cut me to my core.All of those times I was so bitter and angry and wanted to lash out and call them hypocrites would have never reached their hearts because I would have delivered it in an attacking way.  Whenever you attack, it is a natural response to be defensive.  After several months of me feeling so badly about this and wishing to just quit church all together, I finally had some relief.  It happened this way:Our Sunday School class was growing and our teacher suggested that we use a class to organize and put certain people in charge of tasks.  Couples were assigned as "care group" leaders - they had 4-5 couples in the class that they were to be sure were ministered to and, if they stopped coming, were reached out to.  The teacher suggested a few women volunteer for some spots such as organizing meal delivery for families who were in crisis, and perhaps someone to make sure that all babies born to a class member were welcomed with either a shower or a diaper drive.Mona, the woman who called me to offer a meal, spoke up and said, "We don't need anyone to do that.  We all take care of that."The teacher said, "We don't want anyone to fall through the cracks, though.  I think we need to have a woman be in charge of making sure that doesn't happen."She said, "Nobody will fall through the cracks."Without even realizing it, I found myself rising to my feet.  I looked into the faces of everyone staring at me and I said, "I fell through the cracks."The room was silent except for the pounding of my heart.  I could peripherally see my then husband look down at the ground, probably praying that I didn't embarrass him.  I looked at Mona and said, "Mona, you were the only person in this class to contact me when Lindsey was born.  Other than that, I did not get a call, visit, card, or any type of acknowledgement that we added a new life into our family."Heads began to hang in shame as the realization that other people didn't step in and do what should have been done - so it didn't get done at all.  Even the teacher looked away.My voice began to tremble as I tried to keep those hurt feelings, along with my tears, from spilling onto the floor of that room at First Baptist Church of Woodstock.  "I had an expectation that because I have loved you all, invested in your families, wished you happy birthdays with cards, attended funerals with you when you lost a loved one, prayed for you each week when you shared your requests and lovingly prepared meals for you when you had a need - I had an expectation of you that you would do the same for me.  I apologize for holding you all in contempt in my heart and for the bitterness I have felt toward you all since then.  But we do need someone to step up and make certain that nobody falls through the cracks again."With the weight of the world now off my shoulders, I sunk down into my chair to settle my heart back to normal speed.  I felt my husband's hand on my leg giving me a pat which may have meant "Good job" or may have meant "That's enough" - I don't really know.  Probably "Please, God, give me another wife that can just let shit go!"I don't even remember the rest of the meeting because I was just thinking how perfect the circumstances for me to unload my burden.  The woman that needed to be addressed in the discussion was the one that I could deliver my pain to her without making her feel attacked because she was the lone person that actually did what she should have done. I got to say what was in my heart in a way that was helping everyone see the need and I got to say it in a way that was not angry or bitter so people received it in a way that allowed it to do its motivating work.The lessons I learned from this experience:Don't assume someone else will take care of it.  If you become aware of a need, go ahead and accept responsibility for it. I should have expected nothing and just appreciated so much the one friend who cared enough to call.I should have let the anger and bitterness go long before I did.I trusted the universe to give me a way to unload it and I waited patiently and it was sublime when I was finally able to let it go - it was my first time not just unloading what I was feeling but thinking before I spoke.  It was a great feeling to know that if I need to get it off my chest at all, I should wait for the best time to do it, not just when I first feel it.Expect nothing and appreciate everything, my friends.  Don't burden your family and friends with expectations of how they should behave.  Just appreciate whatever they bring, no matter how big or small.  Life is too short to let small offenses caused by unmet expectations ruin our relationships.

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