**NOTE: I wish discouragement was something we grew out of. Unfortunately, it doesn’t end with a certain age. I wrote this about a week ago and then I received some discouraging news and what I’m writing here was as true for me in last week’s disappointment as it was 20 years ago. Things happen that discourage us and seem to knock us over but the truth of God’s Word still stands. I hope this encourages you and I’m repeating these things to myself in the wake of my disappointment.**
When I was in college, I tried out for a play. It was something a little out of my comfort zone but as a speech minor, I had taken an acting class and wanted to try. Days passed but no callback. I was disappointed but proud of myself for auditioning. Several weeks later, I was talking with my voice teacher and he asked why I hadn’t responded to his email about singing in a recital he was conducting. I hadn’t gotten an email. He said the campus address he had sent it to and I immediately recognized it as the work email I had used over the summer in my campus job. It was supposed to be deleted because I wasn’t working there anymore. I ran to the computer lab and checked the email I hadn’t used in months. There was the invitation to sing in the recital and there - sent days after my audition - was a callback notice. I quickly emailed back explaining why I never made it to callbacks and apologizing. But it was too late. The cast had been set and two of my friends had received the lead women speaking roles.
Seeing that email was more disappointing than all the weeks of not knowing I had been called back. I kept thinking, “Why did they use this email instead of the one I wrote on my audition paper? Why wasn’t this email account deleted? How would I have done in callbacks? If only….”
Life is filled with disappointments. Sometimes they are small and quickly forgotten. Other times they stick with us and we rehearse over and over what went wrong, what we could have done different, if things will ever get better. And while disappointment itself isn’t wrong to experience, our attitude in the face of disappointment can be good or bad.
Usually when disappointment or discouragement strikes, it’s because things didn’t go the way we expected or hoped. We have in our mind how we want things to play out and when that doesn’t happen, we might question what brought us to that point. A lot of times disappointment comes from a result of things we can’t control. Like weather ruining our picnic plans, a missed flight changing vacation schedules, or a sudden illness canceling a fun trip. We know we can’t do anything to change our circumstances but disappointment still weighs heavy when we think about what we’re missing.
Then there’s broken friendships and missed opportunities, things we think “Maybe if…” and try to analyze what happened to bring on this struggle.
God’s people are not immune to disappointment. Isaiah and Jeremiah preached the same message again and again, waiting for the Israelites to listen. Naomi mourned her husband and sons and traveled back to her homeland with discouragement about the future surrounding her.
When we find ourselves in the midst of disappointment for whatever reason, we need to remember we are not ultimately in control of anything. Disappointment often gives way to many other emotions — anger, fear, bitterness — but we can’t let those things control us or our attitude about life. The Bible says that we are to be content {Phil. 4:11; Heb. 13:5} and we aren’t supposed to be anxious or worried {Matt. 6:34; Phil. 4:6; I Peter 5:7}. In the moment, those are difficult things to remember but focusing on God instead of ourselves brings things back into focus.
So did I overcome my disappointment at missing my chance? Yes, and I was given another opportunity the next year. I went to auditions again with no expectations but wanting to try. And I got a callback. And then a second callback. And finally an email with my name listed as the lead female character. It was so much fun to be part of the original musical production that I was cast in. And I’ve not forgotten how disappointment is sometimes the first step to something else.
Photo by Toni Lluch on Unsplash.