Disappointment: Life's Million Tiny Griefs

In 2002, we lived for one year in Nebraska for my husband’s student pastoring. I was a new mother. Our oldest child was 3 weeks old. We left Missouri knowing it was only a year stint. I had convinced myself so thoroughly of “it’s only a year!” that I forgot a year is also 365 days of motherhood without my mom and without my sisters and without everything familiar to me close at hand.

We found a beautiful little circle of support in Nebraska. We were loved well and it felt selfish when I began to be sad. Post-partum depression crept in, surprising my generally cheerful soul. I kept the homesickness at bay, almost undetected internally until Christmas. I had plane tickets in hand. I could taste the words of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” on my tongue like the wine my dad would hand me upon our arrival. 

On December 18th, I noticed a small spot on my infant’s leg. December 19th brought another on her torso, and December 20th yet another on the inside of her elbow. Our family doctor got out a magnifying glass, several textbooks with pictures, and spent 45 minutes consulting before she determined it as the “lightest case of chicken pox she had ever seen.” All was mostly well and good until I counted the days of infection with her and realized we would be grounded for Christmas. United Airlines informed me my tickets were non-transferable, non-refundable, and essentially non-usable. I cannot tell you how bad I wanted to bring that contagious baby, with both her laughter and her chicken pox on board that plane. And I did not.

The disappointment sank in deep. 

Disappointment can feel like a mistaken whisper in our ear or it can feel dramatic, closer to grief, wrapped in fear, wondering if we might even lose ourselves in its waves.

Disappointment

/disəˈpointm(ə)nt/

emotion and sense related to a felt lack of fulfillment of expectations or expected outcomes

There is no shame in disappointment. Life is disappointing. Sometimes, even God can be disappointing. It’s just an emotion afterall, not God’s actual character. The spiritual edge to disappointment can intensify our experience of this emotion in particular. If we are disappointed in a situation, that’s a bummer we might be able to surf through, but as people we are complex. Most of us at some point in our lives experience a disappointment initially, and then it expands and grows, connecting with the other disappointments in our systems, the deep and hidden memories of when life has not come through. Our cognition quickly becomes not only “I am disappointed I can’t see my family” but also “I feel like I’ll never see my family again” and “I feel alone and wonder if God cares.”

Research shows us that disappointment is heavier or in need of more attention when we feel like something is out of our control. It is one thing to be disappointed and feel like I can navigate through it or change something in my reality, but when I feel helpless, this is when those spiral cognitions and wonderings come in. You would think that mitigating our expectations might be the place to work toward less disappointment. Yet, recent research reveals that it doesn’t change the voracity of the disappointment. We are all human and we will have expectations. Living in the dialectic of life as full of all that is amazing and full of lots of junk helps. And there is more…

If we are in real relationship, with people, or with life, we will be disappointed. It is a good and intimate thing as we express it and find a way through. And this is where God speaks in Romans 5:5 - Hope does not disappoint. Doesn’t put us to shame. God doesn’t back away in our disappointment. We are not deserted. God as love extends perfect arms to embrace all our emotions, rather than pushing us away or hurting us.

Skill: Non-judgmental expression of emotion

Try this phrase on with disappointment: “Here we are.”

Validate that disappointment feels yucky, even in its seemingly tiniest morsels. “Here we are” allows us to be disappointed without having to move heaven and earth to make life better and often, this practice of simply being with our emotion without trying to shift or change it lets it move through our system to a place where we feel more aware of what we can control in our environment. You can try “Here we are” as a spiritual practice with God as well. Open your hands and show God the reality of your disappointment, whether bummed or in the depths of sorrow. Allow a little back and forth conversing. Allow the disappointment to be seen and shared. Disappointment will make a way through your system in its time. For now, “Here we are.”

As the last of the leaves begin to let go of the trees here in Northern Michigan, I am trying to learn to let go of what I thought might be and instead be where I am. And maybe, if it all works out, “here” will be home for Christmas.