Saturday, August 6, 2011

Disappointment

All of us face disappointments at one time or another. I know I do, but I have learned something important about disappointment: disappointment serves a purpose—as a matter of fact, many purposes.

(1) Disappointment can spur us on to bigger and better things.

(2) Disappointment can humble us and bring us closer to God.

(3) Disappointment can teach us things we will need to know later.

Nature reinforces this in many ways. The failing of the caterpillar indicates a butterfly is about to fly forth. The failing bud turns into a beautiful rose. The tiny seed disappears but grows into a food providing plant. Plants grow the most in the darkest hours just before the dawn. In other words, nature seems to be trying to teach us that some of our darkest times of failure and disappointment are merely steps of evolution to our happiest and brightest successes.

I had a friend who summarized this idea when he told me, “I’ve gotten to the point that I get excited when bad things happen because I know something good is waiting for me on the other side of the bad experience.”

So if right now you are experiencing good days—rejoice and enjoy!

If you are experiencing bad days—rejoice knowing that there is something good waiting for you!

4 comments:

  1. i can certainly attest to this being true! i went through a miserable 2 years of dissappointment with a very dear friend. so much so that our friendship fell apart and we parted ways. through about 6 months of no contact and not being able to get eachother out of our thoughts for even one day, we were able to finally learn so many things about our own self and work our way back to eachother. we are better friends now than we ever were and we learned so much more through all of that.....huge life lessons of the differences in people, perspective and just plain ole acceptance! wow, what a journey that we both treasure and realize that we would not be as close now if it weren't for those rough 2 years. thanks for this great reminder!

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's nice to remember that there's hope even during discouraging times. Thanks! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. boy do I need this today. I can't imagine being like this friend who gets excited about disappointments. If I get there- bean me up Scotty- That's practically translated!

    ReplyDelete
  4. 6Ls. I just am so amazed every time I think about our friendship. When I saw the link to this post, I immediately thought of you too. I'm so grateful for those two years now that they are behind us.... and also for forgiveness.

    ReplyDelete