This Is Not What I Expected

By Bethany Broderick

“Ma’am, are you waiting for someone?” I look up from my hardcover novel to see a teenage girl with a dripping gray rag and plastic bucket in her hands.

“My family is skiing,” I say. I gesture to the window revealing a white landscape and dots of people with puffy jackets and long sticks. “I’m just sitting inside until they finish.”

She sighs, “Well, you can only sit in here for thirty minutes.” She tosses her towel in the bucket and crosses her arms, as if irritated that my insubordination disrupted her bussing of tables. “So that other customers can have a seat,” she further explains.

I glance around at the lodge’s almost-empty dining room, “Is there anywhere else here to sit while I wait?”

“Yeah, there are tables out back.” I look over her pointing finger to the snow falling on wooden picnic benches. I could already feel my hands and feet freezing for the next several hours.

I thought back to when my husband first suggested leaving our two children with his mom and going to a ski lodge with his siblings for a day during our Christmas vacation. I had pictured a Hallmark-worthy log cabin with crackling fires, plush sofas, and (of course) hot cocoa. A relaxing day to keep my mind from worrying about our prolonged adoption process and my fingers from constantly checking my email for news from our social worker.

Instead of my imagined idyllic lodge, my husband and I had walked into a glorified cafeteria with folding tables and chairs.

“Is this it?” I had asked, adding a lilt at the end of the question to hide my disappointed surprise.

“I’m sorry,” he said with a squeeze of my hand. “I know this isn’t what you were hoping for.”

I kept the smile plastered on my face while my husband repeatedly asked if everything was okay. I laughed and reminded him, “At least I can still read in peace and quiet. And there’s hot chocolate!” I even joked about the faux A-frame rafters that had been added to mimic the rustic atmosphere of more luxurious ski lodges.

“I’ll be fine,” I say. I bit back my tears and shooed him out into the cold Utah air. “Enjoy time with your family.”

But now that I am being thrown out into the cold by an annoyed teenage waitress, the tears threaten my eyes. “Is there anywhere else I can sit—inside?”

“There are some benches outside the locker room downstairs.” She motions to a narrow stairwell behind her, and dirty water sloshes out of the bucket. The heat of embarrassment rises to my cheeks while she waits for me to pack up my stuff and leave.

I load my arms with the bags, shoes, and water bottles left behind by everyone. “Thank you.” I nod to the girl, then kick myself for my tenacious southern manners.

Down the slippery stairs, I find a single free bench outside the men’s bathroom. Dropping my load to the floor, I pull out my book once again. “At least I can still read,” I mumble, my shaky voice masked by the flush of a toilet.

This was not what I expected.

I shift to find an elusive comfy position on the wooden bench and feel a single tear fall down my cheek. Why am I crying about a stupid table? I ask myself. But I already know the answer. Today’s minor unmet expectations are just the cherry on top of an entire year that has let me down.

Though I promised myself I wouldn’t, I pull out my phone. I had hoped a cozy ski lodge would prevent me from checking my phone every five minutes. With a book in one hand and a steaming mug in the other, I wouldn’t even think about opening my email inbox. The possibility of receiving an email from our adoption social worker would be the furthest thing from my mind.

While I now realize it had been a completely unreasonable expectation to have, I had dreamed of bringing our new baby on this Christmas trip to Utah. I imagined passing our child around to see his or her aunts and uncles. I imagined the cousin picture on the couch with our newborn propped up on a couch cushion. I imagined feeling settled now that our family was complete. Yet for months we had received either no news or bad news. I stare down at my phone, unsure which is worse—no emails from our social worker or another email letting us know we hadn’t been chosen by a birth mom.

I tap the app. My inbox is empty. The pit in my stomach feels like heavy coal in a stocking.

I shake my head, trying to rid my mind of high hopes for this season. The holidays often arrive wrapped in the thickest paper of expectations, secured with an entire roll of scotch tape. I feel this pressure for Christmas and New Year’s Day to compensate for all the failures and letdowns of the past year. Why do I assume this month will magically be different than the eleven before it? I think relational conflict will be overcome by the twinkling lights. Anxiety will fall like snow to the ground. Loved ones will know exactly what I want without having to ask.

Especially as a mother, holidays often remind me of the one thing that remains out of reach. Every Christmas memory since becoming a mother has been tainted with a hint of unmet expectations.

The Christmas I spent battling postpartum anxiety, wondering when I would ever feel true joy again.

The Christmas we mourned a miscarriage while it felt like every one of my friends was announcing a pregnancy.

The Christmas we quarantined, worried more about mask guidelines than big family celebrations.

And now, the Christmas I check my emails a hundred times a day, praying for a match in our adoption process.

In a season that’s supposed to be all twinkly lights, cheerful carols, and warm wishes, December often leaves me wondering if there is supposed to be something more instead.

A tall man in a puffy coat exists the locker room, and I hastily wipe away my unwelcome tears. Not sure what else to do, I pull out my Advent devotional—my feeble attempt to force joy into this season. And as I’m reading the nativity story, a story I’ve heard a million times since I was a little girl, a sliver of hope cracks my calloused heart.

Maybe the beauty of the Christmas story is that it was all so unexpected.

Mary didn’t expect the promised Messiah would cause her to be sent away from her hometown and to live a life of a refugee.

Joseph didn’t expect to marry a girl who was already carrying a child and to have to flee to Egypt.

Neither expected for this precious child to be born in a feeding trough.

The shepherds didn’t expect to be scared by angels lighting up the dark sky as they proclaimed the hope of the world.

The wise men didn’t expect for the promised king to live in a small town rather than a palace.

Yet in each of these stories about the birth of Jesus, there is a glimmer of hope. Joseph cradled the tiny son he would call his own. Mary treasured these things in her heart. The shepherds and wise men both went away rejoicing. The light of Christmas was ignited by the unexpected.

I don’t try to stop the tears now. I let everything I believe is unfair rise to the surface—from being sent to sit on a locker room bench to the empty bassinet in our bedroom at home. I’m brutally honest with myself and with God.

Not a single Christmas season has gone the way I expected, while some we have mourned more than others. But I also let myself remember how each year contained a flicker of hope, like the last candle extinguished in a Christmas Eve service.

I find it’s in the darkest days of unmet expectations that hope often meets me. Not with answers, not with empty encouragements, but with just enough light to help me see the way forward. Maybe the beauty of Christmas isn’t that it ties up the year in a shiny red bow, but that it opens the door for the light of hope to shine through. Christmas arrives on one of the darkest and coldest nights of the year, and yet it points us to light, to warmth, and to the hope Jesus ushered into the world.

At last, the tears dry up, and I feel emboldened by this new hopefulness (and tired of the sounds and smells emanating from the men’s bathroom). Picking up all our stuff once more, I walk back up the narrow stairwell. Head held high, I rebel against the waitress by pulling a single chair into the corner of the cafeteria. She stares at me but doesn’t say a word as the tables fill with tired skiers ready for an early lunch.

I purchase a small hot chocolate from the gas-station-like machine, then pull out my black moleskin notebook and favorite pen. I write—pages and pages—of my unmet expectations and unexpected hopes. I finish reading my novel. I sit motionless watching the snowflakes fall to the ground outside the grand window.

No, this wasn’t what I expected—sitting in a plastic chair in a corner rather than a plush leather sofa next to a fire. But somehow, I still have exactly what I need: time to think and breathe, with a notebook in my hand and my eyes on the white peaks. Time to mourn the waiting and rejection in our adoption process. A moment to regain my hope for the year to come.

This isn’t what I expected, and I won’t lie and say it’s better than I had hoped. But I’m learning to search for these moments of grace amidst my unmet expectations.

My husband and his family soon return from the slopes and are appalled at my uncomfortable accommodations. I wave away their concerns. We order our food and are granted access to one of the cafeteria tables.

My husband pulls me close and apologizes again. “I know this wasn’t what you expected,” he says.

I shake my head and give him a kiss on the cheek. “It wasn’t,” I say, “but I’m okay.” And I truly mean it this time.

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Guest essay written by Exhale member Bethany Broderick. Bethany lives in Birmingham, Alabama, with her husband and three young children. She is an author and speaker, and her work has been featured on The Gospel Coalition, Risen Motherhood, Journeywomen, and more. Her first book, Perfected: Trading Shame and Striving for Wholeness in Christ, releases in April 2025. You can connect with her on Instagram @bethanygbroderick and on her website BethanyBroderick.com.

p.s. Exhale opens for enrollment January 1! Join the waitlist here.

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