Dealing with disappointment

I haven’t felt truly disappointed in several years. Obviously I’ve had to deal with small scale disappointments on a regular basis just like anyone. But generally things have steadily been going the way I want them to for about four years now. But this week I had to swallow a bitter pill that turned the tables on everything and made me feel like I was right back at square one. (Just a side note, I’m not actually back at square one, it just felt like that. Feelings are not truth!) 

The most amazing opportunity had virtually just landed in my lap and it was so wildly beyond anything I could possibly have thought up or orchestrated myself. There were just too many ‘coincidences’ and details falling into perfect place and all of the important people in my life were united in their affirmation and encouragement. It was literally one of those ‘too good to be true’ moments, except that it was actually happening. I could hardly believe my good fortune. I thanked God for his favor, reveled in his plan and praised him for his goodness. 

And then yesterday I got a call containing the worst imaginable news: Never mind, we can’t go through with it, we’re very sorry. The ‘too good to be true’ stopped being true and went back to being just ‘too good.’ The balloon had popped in a most spectacular fashion. I missed His favor, felt disappointed in His plan and questioned His goodness. 

I felt soooooo disappointed. Disappointed in myself for the impulsive mistake I’d made at the outset of this whole thing (even though I didn’t realize it was a mistake at the time); disappointed with the individuals who were in charge of deciding my role in this (I mean, my word! How inconsiderate!); but more than anyone else in this story, I felt disappointed with God. Why had he allowed such a spectacular buildup only to let it fizzle out into nothing? What was the point? Why drag me into this in the first place? Why present me with the answer to so many prayers just to snatch it away? How can this be good for me?!?! 

Also, I felt confused. How could I have mistaken random happenings for the hand of God? How could I have felt such peace and joy over something that wasn’t meant to be? And not just me, but the most important people in my life!?! Several of them had sensed the same thing as I had, that this was truly a God idea, not just a good idea. So what the heck, Lord? I DON’T GET IT!! 

Let me be clear: These were all emotions and questions coursing through my mind and heart, and legitimately so in my opinion. But these were not truth. 

The TRUTH is this: God is good to me. He has always been good to me and will continue to be so. He does have plans for me that are beyond my wildest imagination. He will give me the desires of my heart. He will entrust me with realizing the dreams he has placed in my hands. But he’ll do this in his own way and in his own time. And he will, for reasons only he knows and understands, ask me to let go of those dreams more than once. 

I’m reminded of the lyrics of a Nick Mulvey song that seem so pertinent right now: “The only way to hold on is to keep letting go.” This is such a hard truth to accept sometimes (heck, let’s be honest - most of the time). Because when we see His hand move to orchestrate things, when we see things starting to come together in ‘typically God’ fashion, when everything in our spirit says “Yes, this is it!”, it is so incredibly easy to fix our eyes on the form in which it happens rather than on He who makes it happen. My Morfar (maternal grandfather) reminded me of this yesterday as I sat crying on the telephone. He said, “Annika, this is not the end of the story. But you’ve got to seek Him, not the way, not the form, not the process. Seek Him.” 

So. In the words of Job, “Though He slay me, yet I will trust in Him.” Dramatic wording, I know, and I’m not comparing my current circumstances to Job’s because that would just be foolish and inaccurate. But the principle here is the same. I trust in God’s plan because it is better than mine. There’s no getting around that fact, regardless of how disappointed I may feel right now.