Thursday thoughts: When facing life's disappointments, we can still dance

My granddaughters love to dance. They will ask Alexa to play music and they make up dances, again and again and again. When their cousins come over they choreograph a dance and then always put on a performance for anyone who is available to watch. 

Lottie, our youngest granddaughter, thinks she is the dancing queen. Somehow the older girls tend to “conveniently” find a way to leave her out of their performances. On a side note, she does have a mind of her own and tends to want to be the star of the show doing her own thing which interferes with the choreography. Inevitably we will hear Lottie come down the stairs crying, or howling, as she has been banned or kicked out of the dance performance. Her disappointment is evident. She really does not understand why or how they could not want her to participate in the dancing.

 If you look up the definition of disappointment it says “sadness or displeasure caused by the nonfulfillment of one’s hopes or expectations.” Lottie is sad, she has tears and she is displeased, and we hear her displeasure voiced loudly because her hope to join the dance is dashed as the other girls did not fulfill her expectation. Lottie is not dancing and she is disappointed. What I have noticed is Lottie has learned to dance through her disappointment. She will go into the walk-in closet alone, play music on the Alexa, choreograph her own performance, and dance her heart out.

I was thinking about disappointment and how we all face it in many areas of our lives. We can be disappointed by something that is said or done to us, disappointed by dreams unfilled, disappointed by unmet expectations, and I’m sure we could all make a list of things that have or can disappoint us. I think about the disappointments that happened because of our economy, the effects of COVID, our jobs, and the disappointment in changes from what used to be normal life to what our actual life is now.

Disappointment affects everyone and can happen at any time. What do we do or how do we handle it? I was thinking about Lottie and God really spoke to my heart about disappointment. First, just as Lottie goes into my closet alone listening to Alexa, I think we sometimes must do the same thing - spend some time alone, not with an Alexa but with God.

I don’t know about you but I need time to process the disappointment. I think our normal reaction to disappointment is to think, “What can I do?” or “What does the person who is disappointed need?” In reality, I think we all need time with God to allow Him to speak to enable us to put our disappointment in the correct perspective. I think we need time to let Him encourage our spirit and begin to help us see His hand in our circumstances. We need to “cast all our cares on Him because He cares about us” (1 Peter 5:7). We must take our sadness, disappointment, anger, and grief to Him. He is the only one who provides the true remedy for our disappointments.

The other thing I noticed from Lottie is that she works on her own performance. She doesn’t let the disappointment keep her down. I don’t know about you, but disappointment can certainly be a roadblock to my happiness. It can almost paralyze me into wondering if God even has a plan for me. My disappointment can most definitely hinder my happiness. I have to make a conscious effort to allow God to redirect my path from disappointment to hope. Romans 15:13 says, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” My life (my performance) needs to be based on hope and God is the supplier of the hope we all need to continue on this journey.

The last thing I noticed from Lottie is she will dance her heart out and she dances with joy. The last part of Psalms 30:50 says, “weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning.” Disappointment makes us sad and I totally know that is true. Disappointment hurts our hearts and again, I totally know that is true.

However, no matter how disappointed we may feel, it won’t last forever. We have a choice to make. We can believe “there is a” God or we can "believe God.” If we just believe there is a God we still mentally carry the responsibility for our life. We feel as though we have to figure it all out on our own. If we believe God, we have to trust He has our best interests at heart, our lives are under His control, and He holds our future.

I can only dance through my disappointment if I believe God. I have to trust that the life I have in front of me is much greater than the disappointment I will leave behind. I’m pretty sure Lottie has taken to heart the first part of Psalm 149:3, “Let them praise His name with dancing.” I can almost guarantee you will not see me dancing in real life. I will however choose to believe God and dance through my disappointment with Him! Oh, and by the way, if you need to learn some dance moves and want to borrow a little girl named Lottie and her Alexa, I’m sure I can arrange that.

___

Jill Johnson, a staff member at the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, finds spiritual applications in her everyday experiences as a wife, mother, grandmother and Georgian. Reach her at jjohnson@gabaptist.org.