Little Disappointments

Read Time:5 Minute, 35 Second

The end of the school year is fast approaching. My stress level is through the roof and students are feeling the same, as teachers scramble to get all of their content in. Seniors only have a week left and are just about ready to hang up their metaphoric sneakers on four years of high school.

As I have been thinking about our seniors a lot in the past few days, that whole “next chapter” thing really stuck out to me. I mean if we look at our lives as a book – and I’m an English teacher so I often do – we have many chapters. Some more than others, but all of us have chapters, and those chapters aren’t always filled with sunshine and lollipops. They’re also not always filled with scary monsters and rock bottoms. Oh sure, we all have pages of our book that have extreme highs and lows, but for the most part we go through with those little ups and downs we just often qualify as “that’s life.”

Little disappointments are different than the big crescendo disappointments. Little disappointments we deal with monthly, weekly, or maybe even daily. There aren’t people knocking on the door to bring a meal, or sending you an encouraging text. In fact, most of the time, others don’t even know these blips are happening.

When my daughter tore her ACL in November, there were many people that came to her physical and mental aid. Obviously, family and friends, but also people from church that she had never talked to before, or others who had gone through the same injury reached out, even though she didn’t even know them. It was one of her life’s big catastrophes as she is a college cheerleader on the stunt and all-girl teams and would have to miss participating in her final season while she struggled through the surgery and almost year-long recovery. Many reached out to her in love and support.

It’s now almost May and although she is not back to normal, to just look at her you wouldn’t know she had had a devastating injury. However, that injury, though five months old, is still causing little disappointments. My heart broke for her as her senior day celebration at their stunt home game came and went, and she put on a happy cheerleader’s face for her team and the fans even though she just had to stand and yell for teammates as they brought home victory.

Those little down parts of her chapter continued as I know what it was like for her the following week as her all-girl cheer team went to Nationals in Daytona, but she couldn’t compete, and then two weeks later, Nationals with the stunt team in Oklahoma, again watching from the sideline. These disappointments didn’t register on the Richter scale as far as anyone else was concerned, but they were those small, sad moments that often go unnoticed by the world around us.

These types of things are the pieces of our chapters that may only be a few sentences long but they hurt, even though we may not let anyone else know they hurt. So what do we do with these things, these small potholes in our road of life?

The easy thing to say is, “just trust God and lean on Him.” Of course that’s the answer, but so many times we don’t. Not because we don’t think He cares or can handle the little disappointments. No, we forget to make Him a part of everything. Our heads are filled with, “why go to God with this little problem? It isn’t big enough to bother Him.” Or probably even more often than that, we don’t even think of God. We sit back and deal with inward pain and disappointment on our own. We got this, right?

Wrong. God needs to be in control of your whole life, not just the big crashing lows. I know that at my worst times God has been there. He has sent people into my life to help with a situation, or just the right song has come on, or I’ve felt the peace only the Lord can give. All of these have happened to me in times that have been the lowest, so if I trust God in the big, why not in the small?

I know for me it comes down to relationship. The relationship I have with the Lord isn’t good enough that I think about taking these low blips and giving them to Him. I can handle these moments on my own. I’ll veg on the couch or go for a drive. I’ll unwind with a beer because it’s been a tough week.

Not saying any of these are bad things, but what I am saying is the whole time we are trying to figure out how to deal with these small problems, issues, disappointments or whatever we choose to call them, Jesus is standing there, arms outstretched, waiting to talk, waiting for you to bring the whatever to Him.

Big, medium, small – no matter the size of the issue, the Lord wants to help. He wants to be a part of every aspect of our lives. He wants to be the friend you turn to, to celebrate the big highs, and the little ones. The comforter you seek for the big lows, and the little ones. That’s the type of relationship He yearns to have with us.

Before He left this Earth, Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

“My peace I give you.” I don’t know about you, but not too many strangers come up and want to give me something. I get gifts, but those are from people I have a relationship with. Jesus wants that relationship with us and how much easier would it be for us to deal with those little disappointments if we had that gift of His peace? I know I could use it right about now.

So as the school year winds down, I’m going to work on that relationship. I’m going to make it a priority to make Him a priority in every aspect of my life, big and small. I hope my daughter continues to lean on Him with her little downs, and I hope you will give your small disappointments to Him as well. If you enjoyed reading my blog, think about subscribing below. Until next time, enjoy all the beauty that comes with spring.