On Disappointment.

Disappoint: to fail to fulfill the expectations or wishes of.

The last two months have been full of some really great highs: hard work paying off, learning how to fight for something and seeing fruit, a few new friendships that I didn't expect, some serious fun. Things that have enhanced my life and shown me that I am way more capable than I ever gave myself credit for. What's so ironic as I sit here today is that the last two and a half weeks have been filled with some disappointments I wasn't expecting. Wait. When do we ever EXPECT disappointments? That thought just made me smile a little bit. Disappointment is never expected, otherwise we wouldn't end up disappointed. However, we all are very aware of the possibility, right?

Some things didn't work out that I was thinking might, the most recent one happening this week. It's brought discouragement, a slight heavy heartedness, a few tears of frustration. Even a loss of brain function as I sat in a meeting yesterday and we both kept saying "What do you think we should do about this?" "I don't know what do you think?" By the end, we both kept laughing at how little we got done. Entertaining for sure, but certainly not helpful in being productive.

I don't want to be the person that says, "If there is one thing in life you can count on, it's disappointment." It does exist, but the angle I'm trying to train myself to see is that those things weren't fulfilled for a reason. Believing in God really reiterates this idea. He's in charge, He knows better and He has something better. That leads me to live in anticipation instead of disappointment. Anticipation that something better is out there, it's worth looking for and as a friend told me last week- Jordanne, in the word it says that you can be perplexed about all these things, but it doesn't have to drive you to despair. And boy is she right. I can live in truth that it's hard to not get what you were hoping for, to be perplexed by it, baffled by it or feel really misunderstood in it, but I will not be driven despair. Disappointment is exactly that, disappointment. It doesn't have to steal, kill and destroy the future hopes and dreams.

Whatever has had you disappointed recently, there is no easy fix. I know.
There is, however, a great hope and anticipation of what the future might hold and that's worth holding on to.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18
16 That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are[e] being renewed every day. 17 For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! 18 So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.