How Disappointing!

Life is full of disappointments. Getting my order wrong at any given restaurant has come to be an expected, normal part of my life. So, when it’s right once and a while, it is a nice surprise. Other disappointments are just that-disappointing! Like when you are at the grocery store and you finish paying your bill only to realize as you put away your wallet that you had five dollars in coupons you forgot to use. Or how about when you finally remember you have coupons, you get them out to use them, and they expired 2 days prior! Then, let’s see, your favorite store has jeans on sale and you get there to find out they are out of your size! What about when you make plans with someone and they fall apart? What about when you choose the “??Mystery??” Dum- Dum Lollipop and it’s Root Beer flavor?!! (Yuck!) Or better yet-you wait in line for hours for front row seats to your favorite event and it gets cancelled due to bad weather and they offer no refunds! Simple things we take for granted such as the milk won’t be sour when we take a drink or there won’t be a worm in our apple and we certainly won’t step on gum in the parking lot. Life happens. Babies puke on us and poop on their pretty church clothes on the way to church. Children say the most inappropriate things at the most inappropriate times. Dogs chew up leather couches and $200 shoes. (And sometimes they leave “gifts” on the living room rug!) Disappointments come in a variety of sizes. Dale and I used to lead a Married for Life class in which each week there was to be an Object Lesson. One week the lesson similarly was “deception” or how you think one thing is good and turns out bad etc. Anyway, the object lesson was for us to bring in a “Caramelized Onion”; an onion disguised as a caramel apple! We honestly just didn’t have the heart to do it to these unsuspecting couples. Can you imagine the DISAPPOINTMENT of biting into what you think will be a sweet, yummy, juicy, caramel apple, only to find a stinking onion!!?? This kind of thing is hard to see in our children as well. The better we handle disappointments, the better they will handle them too.These are not things to start taking anti-depressants for. This is Life 101. God has a sense of humor too. He sets before us obstacles in order to strengthen us daily, not to trip us up. We need to learn to change our perspective sometimes.

Philippians 4:8 says this: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

“Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.” Psalm 37:4-7

It’s ok when things go wrong. If your hair is a mess, and your children have on the wrong size, color or two Right shoes, or even if you bite into a caramelized apple-it’s ok. Tomorrow is another day. And this (today or any day) “is the day which the Lord hath made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Blessings.