I Shall Yet Praise Him: Dealing with Disappointment

I got out my planner this week. —You know, those books we used to use to write down all the things we were going to do? I haven't looked at mine since March.

Filling the squares of the calendar for this next week were event after event, responsibility after responsibility. It would have been the busiest week of the school year for me, with something going on every night as well as a writing conference all day Saturday. I remember feeling overwhelmed as I wrote in all the things I needed to remember to do that week, taking a deep breath at the recollection of how exhausted I usually am by the end of that week each year.

Yet at the same time, I looked forward to the excitement of the school year drawing to a close, to the bustle of preparation for the graduations and for the festivities of the last week of school to follow. I looked forward to all the new things I would be teaching my students during each of those school days, even if I would be tired from the long string of late nights. All those happy and exciting things almost made up for the stress and exhaustion of the week.

But now, as I look at the busy days that were to signal the final push towards end of the school year and the beginning of a new focus on writing for the summer, There's a lot to be disappointed about. Added to all that was the news I received this week of the cancellation of the four-day writer's contest I was going to attend in August. That and the one-day spring conference which would have been this week were like the two bookends of my summer, and with both of them cancelled, the disappointment seems complete.

However...

Looking at that planner, I was reminded of the verses in James which say: "Go to, now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that." (James 4:13-15)

It is natural to be disappointed when things we had so looked forward to are cancelled, opportunities are lost, or vacation time seemingly squandered by the necessity to stay home. I think everyone has at least one major thing they are mourning over right now, and it isn't wrong to feel disappointed.

It is wrong to stay there, though.

You have probably heard this example many times, but don't let familiarity rob you of its truth: While David was running from Saul (who was trying to kill him, even though he hadn't done anything wrong), he and his band of men had been living in the city of Ziklag with their wives and children. I won't belabor the background, but David's little army returned home to find that the city had been burned and all their wives and children had been taken captive.

Disappointing, right? Here they were, probably looking forward to some rest and time with their families, only to find that everything important had been taken away. This was even more devastating to David, because the men began to blame him, even to the point of wanting to kill him in revenge for what had happened!

So how did David deal with this mixture of disappointment, loss, and fear? he"encouraged himself in the Lord his God." (1 Sam. 30:6)

I don't know when Psalm 42 was written, or even if David was the one who penned it, but it expresses exactly how we should respond to disappointment, grief, and loss:

"Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance." (Psalm 42:11)

Throughout this psalm, the psalmist is honest with God about what he is feeling, even to the point of asking why God has forgotten him, but then he reminds himself of the wonderful truth "I shall yet praise Him". In the midst of sorrow, loss, and disappointment, the psalmist didn't lose track of the truth that now is not all there is. Even without Romans 8:28, he knew that God could be trusted, and that there would again be reason to praise Him, no matter how bleak he felt at that moment. That was the hope he clung to.

Whatever is happening, whatever you are missing, God knows. Invite Him into your disappointment, and see how He reminds you of the truth that it's not over, that He has good things planned for you that cannot be cancelled.