Hitting the Wall

I usually post on Monday and Thursday, but this is weighing on me, so I’m just putting it out there.

So what do you do with disappointment?  I mean real disappointment. The kind that makes you question everything. The dream-ending kind of disappointment.

I wish I had a good response to that. It is a question I have thought a lot about during the last year and will write more about soon.  We all face disappointment in varying degrees, and in my journey there have been times when I  just hit the wall and I’m not sure what to do with it. Last summer was one of those times for me. As I write this someone close is dealing with some dream-crushing disappointment and  there are just no good answers. What do you say or do in those moments?

Last night I just stepped into the moment and agreed that this sucks. It’s not right or fair. It’s not the way things should have played out. I am having a hard time seeing where God is at in this.

Some of my favorite Psalms are Psalms 73 and 77. I love Asaph. He just puts it out there. He says what he is feeling. He is painfully honest with what he sees and struggles with. You get the sense that he is in a wrestling match with God over life’s circumstances — actually more of a boxing match, I think. In reading these Psalms you get a sense for his anger, sadness, disillusionment and his hurt.

But somewhere, somehow, each of these Psalms takes an amazing turn. Asaph’s perspective seems to change and the tone becomes hopeful instead of desperate. How do you explain the shift that occurs? In a lot of ways it does not make any sense. Was he just writing it to make a point? Was his intent all along to just write something dramatic and then just end it on a really spiritual note?

I don’t think so.

He was just being brutally honest, and it seems that the more honest he was with God, and probably with others around him, the more opportunity there was for healing, for movement, and for increased hope. The disappointing stuff was still there but his perspective changed dramatically.

That is how it was for me last summer. Once I found the right “space” to have it out, things eventually changed. My perspective deepened and I was at least more ready for whatever was coming next.

So here is to some straight up honesty, to naming disappointment and to the hope for some needed movement as a result.