Disappointment is inevitable when we have hope. Everyone will experience disappointment. The idea is not to avoid hope to avoid disappointment but to process disappointment well. The Bible says hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life (Proverbs 13:12.)
Even the Bible acknowledges the relationship between hope and disappointment and the inevitability of heart-sickness as a result of not experiencing the longing we’d hoped for, but it doesn’t stop there. The second part reminds us of the possibility of what we are longing for and when the possibility is fulfilled it will be a gift that keeps on giving.
The whole thought of the scripture provides the hope that we need to continue hoping and believing after experiencing disappointment. If you’ve ever asked yourself should you continue to have an expectation of hope after experiencing disappointment; the answer is yes you should.
How do you normally process disappointment? Self-awareness is an important tool that allows us to become aware of areas of weakness in our lives as well as strength. Becoming aware of how we process disappointment can help us to make tweaks where necessary to ensure processing disappointment in a healthy way that results in continued hope.
Recently, I’d experienced a disappointment and initially, I thought that it would help to talk out the disappointment with a friend until I realized that talking with my friend about the disappointment made me upset. I found that some of my friends aren’t comfortable with discussing my disappointments and instead of listening and allowing me to process my thoughts; one of my friends continued to change the subject, I guess, to take my mind off of the disappointment and that made me more upset.
Why? Because I need to process the disappointment to view it in a healthy way. Changing the subject was not helpful for me. This experience taught me that I need to process my thoughts first before bringing someone into it or perhaps to process it with a professional, who is trained to listen instead of a friend who is uncomfortable with seeing me disappointed.
Something else I realized is that processing the disappointment allows us to move on. It’s like when someone dies and we have a funeral. The funeral is to allow the living to process the transition of the one who died. Why? Because the living has a responsibility to continue on living. Without the processing of the transition of the loved one no longer being alive; it can be very difficult to move on with hope. However, when the death is processed and burial has taken place it provides somewhat of an ending that allows for closure and the future hope of the living.
Processing our disappointment allows us to move on to hopefully see the tree of life the scripture speaks about in the process of having our hope deferred and then finally coming to believe again. What are some ways you process disappointment?
Leave a Reply