When Disappointments Come...

"Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." Proverbs 19:21



"I have to check the calendar." How common a phrase is this? Oh how blessed we are that our calendars overflow with the fruit of family and friendships, activities and events. We make our plans, carefully gliding our Sharpie markers over the white space of our lives, marking the important dates and the times we are to be somewhere special. We build expectations of the revelrie we will share and expectations of how we will handle our own special events. It is those expectations that have the potential to rob us of our joy.

Think back to some of your most critical expectations, perhaps a special friendship, a marriage, a birthday party, your prayer life. In every facet of our lives, we design our expectations and though sometimes, they turn out exactly the way we planned, sometimes God has something different planned. Since I only have one day a week with a significant time frame to clean and prepare, I carefully map out that day with a firm agenda in mind. On one such day, the phone rang, smack in the middle of conquering mount laundry and scrubbing the whitest bathroom in our home. I had a choice to keep to my "firm" agenda or to answer the call that could potentially throw me way off track. Fortunately, the phone call,a wonderful diversion and blessed time of fellowship did not throw me off track, quite the opposite, it energized me and propelled me forward. This was not my expectation, and I was pleasantly surprised. I could have viewed the interruption as a disappointment, instead it was a blessing.

Disappointments happen; not just interruptions or changes in plans...true disappointments. A loved one dies suddenly, a marriage falls apart, children get sick, vacations get cancelled, financial burdens threaten to destroy...real life losses. So, as we seek God's purpose and put aside our own expectations, how do we keep our joy amidst the disappointments? We look to the cross where a curse becomes a blessing. The grace of God abounds even in the difficult times or "disappointing" times. When our eyes are closely fixed on the character of God and His deep desire to provide for us in all circumstances, it lessens the chances of our hearts being bitter or remaining disappointed when our prayers are not answered our way or when our expectations are not met.

Recently, our nine year old daughter became ill just in time for her school's Field Day. She had looked forward to it for weeks and was disappointed that her fever would render her unable to attend. I was surprised at her ability to healthily cope with her sadness. She said she had wanted to play games and be with her friends, but that God had a better plan for her to spend a quiet day alone with her grandmother playing like they did when she was little. She was able to find God's goodness and grace in this situation. When the day was over she rejoiced in all the happy moments. I learned an important lesson from my daughter that day. I spent the day at school lamenting and missing her, I had a certain amount of bitterness welling up within. God quieted me and my disappointment with the joy of a child and her grandmother. Sometimes, it is our job to surrrender our expectations, making room for God's perfect plan, even when it does not match ours.

"See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many." Hebrews 12:15

Accepting Disappointment

Disappointment is a hard thing for me to accept. I tend to like getting what I want. But the hard truth is that I don't always get what I want. As a matter of fact, I often don't get what I want. It's part of life. From the time we're born until our last days we will meet with disappointment. Have you ever noticed how some people seem to be able to accept disappointment and keep moving forward better than others? They have probably had a lot of practice and good guidance.

We can help our children and grandchildren to better accept disappointment while they are young by allowing them to experience it. I think this can be especially hard for us grandparents.  Allowing children to experience disappointment doesn't mean we cause it and I'm not referring to devastation here either. Allowing children to experience small disappointments and teaching them how to accept those little disappointments, trains them to better deal with the bigger disappointments they will experience later in life. So often we want to shield children from disappointment so we try to prevent it or make them forget it by giving them something much bigger and better. Often when there is more than one child we try to make everything "fair" by making it equal, but equal isn't necessarily fair or what is best.

Dealing with disappointment is generally a matter of redirecting our focus in some way. At the center of disappointment is usually "self" so a part of overcoming disappointment is redirecting our focus from "self" to "other". When my three little granddaughters come over they often want to play Webkinz. Since they all want to be first we have a rotation setup so that each time they come over someone else is first. They spend a few minutes talking about who was first last time and working out what the new line-up is every time. As they do this, they are working through the disappointment and learning to accept it as well as learning to place a little more focus on the others.

Disappointment generally involves a loss so offsetting that with some sort of gain or joy can help to train children to look for something positive in the midst of disappointment. In the above example, the one who is last gets a little more time on Webkinz than the other two. This provides a little disappointment and a little joy to both the first and last position as well as making things a little unequal for all of them. I have noticed that the one who is last will sometimes remind herself that she gets a little more time instead of dwelling on not being first.

Life isn't fair and it isn't equal. We all face disappointments but we can learn to view life and disappointment from God's perspective and teach our children to do the same.

Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross... Hebrews 12:2

Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Romans 5:5

Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Philippians 2:3