Pressing Through Disappointment

Yesterday when I came home I was greeted with exceptional vigor by my 5-year-old son, Davis. He rapidly informed me that he was building a rocket ship. He took me by the hand into the kitchen and so it was: cereal boxes wrapped in aluminum foil, cardboard tubes, and tape and glue littered the floor.

I sat down and joined in the fray. Davis was getting more and more excited: "We'll go outside and TAKE OFF!"

Eventually it became clear that he wasn't entirely clued into the fact that this was a pretend rocket ship and that it wouldn't actually fly. Kelly tried to break it to him gently. But he was crestfallen, pitiful, walking around moping and pitiful. His parents couldn't build him a rocket ship. It won't be the last time we disappoint him.

Within a few minutes, Davis had recovered. But it seems that pressing through disappointment with others is one of the only ways that we can mature in our relationships with one another, at least here in the Land of the Ruins. I dare not hazard a guess as to how things might have been had things gone otherwise at the Great and Terrible Exchange.

For Davis and I to have a mature relationship, he has to realize that there are things that I can't or won't do. If he's still asking me to build him a rocket ship that he thinks can fly at age 20, we're in trouble.

With friendships, it's different to be disappointed. We can opt out of friendships more easily and often when we encounter disappointment with a friend we try to play through it (thus stunting the opportunity for real relating, real intimacy, real friendship) or we cut off the relationship entirely.

Obviously in both the child-parent relationship and our friendships, there's a point where the disappointments become abusive or manipulative and it's clearly time to make important decisions for emotional, spiritual, and even physical health and safety.

Shifting the conversation a bit, it seems that disappointment with God is a crucial step in the maturing of our relationship with him as well. The hard thing with God is that (unlike my inability to build a rocket ship) there's nothing he can't do. So it can feel a little more premeditated, almost vindictive. God could do something, but he's not, he won't. Especially when our request seems like something a good God would want to do: heal a parent battling a disease, for example.

But for whatever reason, the fires of disappointment, even in our relationship with a perfect and all-powerful God, are essential for our growth. What will you do with your pain? Embracing both the disappointment and God in the midst of that disappointment is a crucial part of our growth. Otherwise we either maintain a shallow, immature relationship with God or we quit on him. But to press through disappointment is the path to health, life, and joy that we so deeply desire.

It's just hard to see that when you realize that your rocket ship won't fly.