What Do We Do with Disappointments?

“I’m sorry to say, but you did not get the job. It was a really tough decision.”

I was fully expecting to get this job.

It was going to be the open-door God had for me to walk through so I could have the

paid position I needed to pursue ordination.

But now, this dream was not going to see itself realized.

Here I was in my last semester of seminary, unsure as to what the degree in which I

had worked so hard toward was for.

Jagged edges of freshly shattered glass pierced my heart and my dream.

I did not know this would be just the beginning of a bombardment of disappointments

that spring.

Our daughter ended up in the hospital.

I lost a mentor.

My brother relapsed again.

My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer.

We came to the difficult decision that it was time to leave our church community.

My final seminary capstone paper was on community as the missing element in the spiritual

formation movement and here I was without Christian community.

Disappointments.

What do we do with them?

Especially when the voice of God has seemed so clear.

Did we not hear him right?

Did we not pray hard enough?

What did we do that was so wrong?

At first, I got angry and bore my chest and screamed at God using the words of Pat

Benatar, “Hit me with your best shot! Just fire away!”

But then, as the mudslide of disappointments continued to come, I was left in a fetal

position. No more dreams. No more visions. Empty and spent.

Disappointments.

What do we do with them?

Especially when we’ve dared to dream and have taken those brave and faithful steps