When I was younger, there were days that I was convinced that I could be the world’s best lawn mower, a mathematical genius, a world-class athlete, a truly great husband, or any number of other things. Yes, I said “world’s best lawn mower,” really. I was very conscientious and hard-working, and that translated into well-mown lawns for my family and for my grandmothers.

Of course, at the time, I’d never seen a professionally-tended world-class golf course, the lawns of a great estate, and in truth, I didn’t do a very good job trimming. I could mow fast, but I’d never seen anything like the way those yard-care services can do my whole lawn in 10 minutes, riding those mowing platforms that you stand on. Those people trim well, too. And now that I’m firmly settled in middle age, my body no longer can go fast or push hard, or at least not nearly to the extent that it used to, without threatening to entirely dehydrate or entirely cramp up right there on the spot, leaving me as nothing but a puddle of sweat or a ball of fat-covered, knotted muscle.

And so, prayerfully, I have conceded that on this earth, it is extremely unlikely that I will ever be, by any meaningful measure, the world’s best lawn mower. That dream is lost in the past, leaving behind at least a couple of good questions, like “why did I ASSUME that I could do that if I wanted to?” and “why did I assume that I could do THAT if I wanted to?”

What about those other ideas I had when I was younger?

World-Class Athlete
I used to be in pretty good shape. I was the best tennis player for a while at a high school with 1500+ students. I could get on a bike any day I wanted to and ride 100 miles. Even though it was a big mistake, I was able to run a half-marathon without training for it (succumbing to peer pressure after training for a 10K: You should run the half! We’re all running the half! It’ll be fun! Thanks guys, it was … fun. Kind of like waking up right during surgery, right before they got the wound closed, with the anesthetic still in effect, but no doctors in sight. Fun.) I played baseball for 8 years and never batted below .400. I won championships at several sports, some obscure and others not. My resting pulse was in the 50s, my cholesterol was under 100, and I could leg press any stack of weights I’d ever seen in any gym. And oddly, although I was definitely told I was a fast-twitch runner (a triathlete friend once told me “you go a million miles an hour … for ten feet”), it seemed like I could also run my plodding 7-minute miles all day if I wanted to (see the half-marathon comments above).

But you know what? I was never in great shape. I was the best tennis player for a high school that had maybe the 4th-best team in the city, and there were dozens of guys in our little city that could easily beat me. That won’t get you to Wimbledon. Although I could run, I hated it, and my fast-twitch was actually kind of slow, as were my 7-minute miles. Even though I batted well over .400 in junior high school, fielded well, and knew the game, I was not even the best at my position at my own school. Resting pulse and cholesterol don’t make you an athlete, and besides, I’ve messed those up in the meantime. And the reference to leg-pressing stacks of weights, while accurate, is pretty deceiving, as I’ve never had any upper-body strength. I literally had trouble getting the pin out of the weight machine after doing those leg presses sometimes.

So, I’m thankful to God for all that fun stuff I got to do. But I know I made decisions to prioritize other things in my life, especially things that help me fund our family. So, I’ll never be a world-class athlete, but it sure was fun being athletic in my own way, back in the day.

Genius
Mathematical, scientific, artistic, or otherwise, when I was growing up, I had a really over-inflated sense of my own abilities. I was talking with someone about this recently, and I think it might have all been an attempt to show other people that I had worth. See that? I did that! That’s good, right? I am so glad that I discovered that I have unshakable and intrinsic worth as a human being and that I don’t have to pass some kind of test for that to be true.

In the meantime, I am really enjoying watching my kids do things I never could do mathematically, scientifically, artistically, and otherwise. It keeps me in my place. Plus, I’m plenty bright enough to live the life I’ve been called to, so there’s no complaint here. But a genius I ain’t.

Husband
This is all pretty easy to write so far. Most people lose some degree of health and athleticism as they mature, and it’s healthy to realize more and more of your limitations, as well as coming to understand things that you CAN do well. But as a Christian, I do think there are things I’m called to do really well: doing my job, being a son, being a parent, being a husband, being a friend, and, well, being a Christian.

So if it’s relatively easy to let go of many things that I should let go of, why is it so hard to do the things that I should not let go of? I put “Husband” up there as the bold section header not because it’s the most important thing on the list, but because my failures at it are so obvious. I am supposed to be a great husband for my wife. In fact, when we were first married, there was a brief period of time when she would tell me that I was. I don’t think I’ll ever forget hearing her say you’re the perfect husband for me. It was great to hear, and unexpected due to my generally low self-esteem. Unfortunately, I also balked at the word perfect being applied to me in any way, and could not take the compliment graciously. I honestly didn’t understand the significance of the for me part the way I would today. What I wouldn’t give to hear those words again!

But, this is a post about Lost Things, and I don’t think I will hear those words again.

My wife has somehow, over all these years, caught on to the fact that I’m pretty much a dolt. And not just any old dolt, but a dolt that screws up as a husband in big ways on a frequently-recurring basis. I can see this reflected back to me in so many ways – the way she sometimes agonizes over how she’s going to phrase something, the decisions she’s made on her own about parenting our kids or relating to our own parents, the way the kids relate to her versus how they relate to me, and so on. But I don’t have to be so tricky – I don’t have to infer what her words regularly tell me.

Now mind you, this post is about Lost Things, not Hopeless Things. The innocence of a young marriage within which I could be seen as a perfect husband for my wife is long gone. But I do have hope. I hope that things can get better, much better, as I learn to give up more of my own expectations, whether they are expectations of me being awesome, or expectations of my wife or kids treating me a certain way. The truth is, we are who we are. I want them to love me even though I am full of brokenness and weaknesses, and I want to love them just as they are too. In many ways they are pretty awesome, but it’s wrong for me to expect them to be awesome – they don’t need that pressure. And neither do I. So here I am, not awesome compared to anyone else, but still uniquely bearing God’s awesome image in a unique way.

And my expectations? They are pretty much simplifying as I get a little older. I expect that I’ll try to be good and helpful, and that I’ll fail a lot; that others will try to be good and helpful, and will fail a lot; but that Jesus will see me through all of it, and He will never fail.