Gratitude and Expectations

I have been thinking about Gratitude.  I remember a f/Friend of mine who sent out a Christmas letter in which she invited us all to play the "thanksgiving game".  She said it is easy and gave examples that she is thankful that she can see so she can read, that she is grateful that she can walk so she can go places.  She is slowly loosing her eyesight and had polio as a child and so it makes sense that she is grateful for such things.  As an able bodied person it , unfortunately, never occurs to me to be thankful for such things.  I have an expectation that I will see and walk and because I have that expectation I take it for granted.  In fact I sometimes struggle to find what to be grateful for, focusing on problems and feeling sorry for myself about those things.  My expectations often cause me problems as I get upset by things which are not as I thought they would be.

Right now I have a lot of gratitude- in fact I feel a little like someone who has won the lottery and keeps expecting someone to come knock on their door and ask for the check back because it is all "a big mistake".  I have been thinking about how expectations, like goals and dreams are generally a good thing and help us aim for things and collectively move forward in life.  And yet I am aware of how we can become so attached to a dream, or a goal as to have the expectation that life will be a certain way and experience great disappointment or frustration when it is not that way.  So I have sat in the silence of Meeting trying to reconcile those two things - the good of our dreams and the problems of our expectations.

I thought about the old saying:  "I will do X tomorrow, God willing and the Creek don't rise".  One thing about that saying is it makes the assumption that all or our intentions are subject to God's will.  It occurs to me that the problem with expectations, dreams or goals is not having them, but when we do not subject them to The Divine Author, but rather see our lives as separate from God wholly of our own making.  Among other things this does separate us from the source of our blessings.  When we are not busy being our own Creator, it is easier to notice all the many small and large blessings and goodness of the Creator.