I hate waiting..
I actually think I’ve already written one or two blogs describing how much I hate waiting…
But even more than that… I hate when I’m waiting for something… hoping that it will happen… and then things don’t work out the way that I had anticipated…
I always describe this moment as the moment that hope and disappointment collide…
Sigh… “when hope and disappointment collide… you’re often left standing in the shards of their collision…”
It’s such a disheartening moment when I really think about it because I am instantly thrown into this battle where I’m trying to stop myself from sinking into a deep state of hopelessness; depending on what I was hoping for…
I found myself there about an hour ago…
I was wishing that the words coming out of the mouth of the woman speaking to me would line up with what I was hoping for…
All while simultaneously being glad that I was wearing a mask so that she couldn’t see the disappointment that I felt was seeping out of my pores…
And though I generally try to shift my thoughts towards the “bright spot” or “silver lining” as a way to fight off the discouragement that feels like it’s trying to suffocate me…
This time I took a different approach and allowed myself to just dwell in the disappointment for the 30-minute drive home…
It was such an interesting way for me to respond to what was stirring in my heart and mind…
I spoke out lout (to the Lord) and expressed how disappointed I was about the outcome…
I was honest about how discouraged I felt…
And then I allowed myself some time to just quietly feel sad as I drove…
As I said earlier, I generally skip this step and jump straight to the part where I start trying to encourage myself so that I don’t have to feel those emotions…
And I’m not even sure why I’ve always done it this way…
But I guess somewhere in my mind I came to the conclusion that I would be consumed by the disappointment, and would be unable to pull myself out of its clutches…
But to my surprise, allowing myself to feel that 30-minutes of disappointment and sadness lifted a weight off of my shoulders and I was able to close the door to disappointment and focus on the bright spots…
And it seems like the bright spots feel brighter than they generally do…
It’s still unfortunate when hope and disappointment collide… but I guess I need to stop skipping that step in the equation…