Learning How to Dance Upon Disappointment (Again)
*My original “Learning How to Dance Upon Disappointment” post was about how I coped with the disappointment that came from a breakup. This post has nothing to do with that, but I wanted to recycle the title because it was too fitting to pass up.
So, I recently just came off a two-month long funk.
You see, I left 2017 with high hopes and so many expectations and plans, but 2018 quickly met me with a huge helping of “Sike. You thought!” and a side of “Almost, but not yet”.
I’ve jokingly said to friends that I think God’s a troll sometimes, but the more I said it the more I realized that a small part of me actually thought that was true - that God kept opening doors just to tease me and slam them in my face...or that He kept taking me the most roundabout/inconvenient ways before getting me to where He wants me to be.
As I was hashing that out with God one day, I paused my long rant, sat for a minute, and tried to choke back tears of frustration as I defeatedly said, “God, I am just so disappointed right now.”
The intimate moment of laying down my honest emotions before the Lord was cut short as I immediately wiped my tears and auto-corrected with, “I trust you, though. I do. I know you’re good. I know you’ve got this.”
It’s like I was trying to cover the very real feeling of disappointment with a “God is good” band-aid. Because how could I be disappointed in Him or in the things that weren’t going the way I had hoped? I know His heart, and I know that He loves me. I have even seen the fingerprints of His goodness and faithfulness in my life, and I 100% believe that He always works things out for good.
I quickly transitioned from being sad and disappointed, to feeling ashamed for feeling that way, to starting to go numb because I wasn’t allowing myself to fully process my emotions or properly grieve my disappointments.
Me finally deciding to process everything with the Lord happened around the same time I was supposed to be wrapping up the “Marked by Grace” series. So I immediately slammed the breaks on that because I knew I had to deal with this before I could write another word.
I got the first hurdle over with, which was realizing (and admitting) that I was disappointed.
I tend to default as an optimist, so that kinda took me a minute. But all my positive and reassuring self-talk didn’t change the fact that I was SO bummed. I could feel myself starting to get worn down by every single plan that didn’t work out, every hope that fell flat, every expectation that was missed, and every dream that seemed to be put on hold.
And that brings me to the whole idea of “learning how to dance upon disappointment.” Lord knows that none of those things make me want to dance. Ha, not even a little bit.
These past two months have made me want to hit things (almost tried enrolling in kickboxing classes. Still might because it sounds fun, haha.), it’s made me real salty, it’s made me want to take matters into my own hands, it's made me lose a bit of hope, and it’s made me want to forget/abandon all the plans or dreams that I have (my friends know this, because my auto-response to anything that has needed any amount of planning has been “I’m not planning right now.” - which is a good and bad thing, but that’s another post for another day).
Processing the hot mess that was all of the above was…well…a process. Lol My sweet friend, Analynn Salvato, posted something on Instagram about processing disappointment, and I got her permission to share it with you (because her words beautifully described how I was feeling, and her vulnerability in sharing her process helped me so much):
“How do you process disappointment?
These past months since graduating have been some of the loneliest and disappointing ones of my life.
Days marked by missed expectations and disappointments of what I imagined life would be.
I started and ended each day telling myself God is good (which He is) and He has a plan (which He does). But I never allowed myself to fully feel or express the emotions I was feeling –
How could I? The truth is painful. I AM DISAPPOINTED.
But I never wanted to admit it because I thought to be disappointed in this season was to say I did not trust the Lord –
However, I believe the more you know the character of God the more you can enter into His presence and be fully honest with Him. He cares about our emotions and He is not surprised nor swayed by them. And in a season where I am exhausted from numbing my own heart, there is a lot of freedom in being honest and open in the presence of a good, good Father. –"
To me, learning how to dance upon disappointment is not just about learning how to have joy and hope in the middle of sorrow or disappointment, it’s about allowing the Lord to dance with you through it.
A dance is such a beautiful picture because you are joining each other hand in hand through every step, finding a rhythm together. Whenever I worship and close my eyes, I always imagine myself dancing with the Lord (which is kind of funny because I can’t dance at all, lol. But in my imagination I belong in So You Think You Can Dance.)
Some days it’s more like a waltz. I’m in rhythm and am keeping step with the Lord and it’s beautiful. Other days it’s more of a high school slow dance. I don’t really know what I’m doing. My head is on His chest listening to His heartbeat, and I am barely moving and barely staying on beat (and accidentally stepping on His feet every now and then).
To no surprise, the past two months have felt like the latter. I have been letting the Lord take the lead (and I’ve asked Him to drag my butt through it on the days I didn’t hear a song or on the days I didn’t feel like dancing at all). But with every step and every movement, I have just been learning more about what His heart sounds like.
It was so timely that I ended up studying grace while I was in the middle of my funk. Because while I looked up verses, while I wrote each post and looked back at the times He has met me with grace, while I processed my emotions with Him, and while I listened to his heartbeat, the more I discovered that His heart is 100% for us.
"If your heart is broken, you’ll find God right there;
if you’re kicked in the gut, he’ll help you catch your breath."
(Psalm 34:18)
We have full permission and freedom to be real and broken and completely abandoned before Him.
He is gracious and kind, and He wants to provide you a song of hope that is worth dancing to in the middle of your disappointment.
“...so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.” (1 Thess. 4:13)
Analynn also sent me this short message that beautifully talked about engaging in hope in disappointing seasons. 10/10 would recommend.
The very ending of Analynn’s post was a prayer that I prayed at the beginning of this month (and that I am praying again as we approach the start of a new one) –
“Today I am thankful for a new month with fresh opportunities to process and release my disappointments to a kind Father.
Lord, here’s my little laid down life.
In disappointments and grief, not my will but yours be done.”
Xoxo.