Dance on Your Disappointment

Monday we stood on the dusty roadside of a mountain pass peering under the open hood of our van.  Acrid, too hot scent stinging our noses.  An irregular knocking filling our ears.  Only one set of eyes knew what they were seeing, but five hearts were sinking.  We were supposed to be off on an adventure, having a change, a rest.  The only wise choice was to turn around and try to get back to the nearest town.

Naturally, there were tears and questions.  The little one leaned against me with a small sob and said, "We've had a lot of disappointments lately, Mommy."  I knew she was thinking of the Big Disappointment which was now about six weeks past but still fresh in our hearts.  Then she asked how I could bear this one.  The simple answer was, "I know He loves me."  Deeper than that, I had an epiphany right there in that melting mountain pass--I'd claimed Hope Territory in the time of the Big Disappointment.

We'd gone more than three months with mom, the heart and soul of the family, out of commission.  Quiet Christmas sans turkey dinner, limping along through the basics, postponing holidays, and continually praying for healing.  Into the fourth month and there was a cancellation, they would take me in for surgery.  Hope rose.  Only to be crushed after hours of waiting.  I'd have to be bumped to another day...a month away.  We cried together, feeling quite like we'd been taken out at the knees.  The long struggle had worn on us all.

I'd been sixteen hours without food, water or medication while waiting for my surgery.  With all those needs finally met, I slipped into the blessed relief of sleep while my family cuddled together with a movie.  A few hours later I returned to cognizance with one urgent thought, "You need to dance on this disappointment."

What a silly idea!  And not because, as my curly-haired family frequently tells me, I dance like a white woman.   Physically, I was no condition to dance and who dances anyway when they haven't got a clue how they're going to get through another month of this?  But I know that Voice and I've learned it's worth listening to...

So I found the song that said what I needed to say and I played it.  On repeat.  Loud enough to saturate my senses. And I sang and sang and twirled around as best I could until hope rose.  I sang and twirled some more until I was bursting with hope.  When I finally flopped down breathless I still didn't know how...how anything, but I knew that I knew that I knew that God loves me and that nothing is impossible for Him.  I knew that as long as I could dance on my disappointment, thereby declaring my confidence in His goodness, He would make something glorious out of this whole big mess.  For me and for my family.

Navigating disappointment isn't easy.  It's important to be honest and process our sadness.  But we can't live there.  Disappointment pulls with a tremendous gravitational force, trying to hold us down.  Self pity encourages us to put down roots in that place.  Disappointment is a place to go through.

We can, in fact, be "perplexed, but not in despair...cast down, but not destroyed."  Whether your setback is great or small, I encourage you to dance.  Dance on your disappointment. 

Dance.  As though your life depends on it.

What joy for those whose strength comes from the Lord,

who have set their minds on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem

When they walk through the Valley of Weeping

it will become a place of refreshing springs.

The autumn rains will clothe it with blessings.

They will continue to grow stronger, 

and each of them will appear before God in Jerusalem.

Psalm 84:5-7

2 Corinthians 4:8-10

Loss and Hope

My Aunt Barb visited this weekend.  We haven't seen each other for 21 years.  Life has led each of us to different parts of the country, and sometimes to different continents.  It was so wonderful to be with her and for my husband and children to become acquainted with her.

Our visiting also stirred up some pain that had been lying dormant.  Her husband was my favourite uncle.  I guess he still is, but I haven't seen him for 28 years.  He was taken from us, violently, by the hands of one whom we had cared for.  My Uncle Gerry was a pastor, a man who loved God, and truly believed that love should be lived out, poured out, on the broken and hungry.  He was killed "in the line of duty."

It almost felt wrong grieving again after so many years, but are there any rules about when grieving starts and ends?  Loss is...just that, loss.  There was a time when I wrestled and struggled and was so angry that God would let this evil happen.  I no longer hold Him responsible for the choices of men.  However, I am reminded that ANY time any of us listen to the lies of the enemy, choose sin, reject truth...there's a price to pay.  

Sin causes pain.

I talked to my aunt for hours.  We caught up as adults.  She raised, I am raising, three kids.  Her story is full of miracles--the greatest being the power of forgiveness.  No less amazing to me are all the stories of miraculous provision.  Sin may have stolen her husband in his prime, but Jesus has not abandoned her.

Jesus brings healing.  He paid the eternal price AND He brings healing to us here and now.

There are still fracture lines of pain running through our extended family because of this loss.  There is also a powerful testimony that God and His love are real and that there's hope for healing after devastating loss.  

I have a burning passion to tell you, to tell everyone, that there's healing for you, that the pain doesn't need to multiply and spread.  That God doesn't just heal our hearts, He promises to "repay two blessings for each of your troubles."   He promises that there will be a day when "He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain."*

This is no pie-in-the-sky promise.  I've seen the down payment on the promise...the joy in my aunt, the end of the torment in my own heart, in the hundreds who have received the gift of God's love in the wake of my uncle's death.  In his life and death they saw what Love looks like.

Because of the covenant I made with you, sealed with blood,

I will free your prisoners from death...

Come back to the place of safety,  all you prisoners who still have hope!

I promise this very day that I will repay two blessings for each of your troubles.

Zechariah 9:11-12 NLT

*Revelation 21:4