I am an optimist. I always thought this meant I didn’t really wrestle with disappointment. Sure, I have faced disappointments (significant and numerous) but I believed my resilience meant there was no deep or lasting impact. My optimism led me to diminish my disappointment. I thought it was all “water under the bridge.”
Recently, in the face of some overwhelming emotions that I could not escape, I discovered a hard truth: just as water erodes under the surface, disappointment has left deep furrows carved into my soul.
This has shaken me to my core, perhaps because it is tied into my perception of who I am as a person: an optimist, forgiving, resilient, gracious… how did the landscape of my soul become so marked and altered by disappointment?
We all approach and process disappointment in unique ways, based on our personality, internal resources, and history of experiences. I am not one to avoid hard things. I tend to thrive in the hard times, actually. So when the waters of tribulation recede it’s not unusual for me to feel a little off balance, learning to embrace times of relative steadiness. I suppose I tackle things as problems to be solved and once I feel I have done that, I move forward instead of taking a deeper inventory of how things have shifted.
Emotions cannot easily be “managed.” So when I treat disappointment in this way, I think I have underestimated a huge aspect, a force of (human) nature. There is a mystery here, a hidden shaping of my soul. I am learning to respect it, to explore it. It is not pretty. And yet, it is beautiful as a reminder of how God has made us with complexity and a deep need for Him.
We are weak and do not know how to pray, so the Spirit steps in and articulates prayers for us with groaning too profound for words. Don’t you know that He who pursues and explores the human heart intimately knows the Spirit’s mind because He pleads to God for His saints to align their lives with the will of God? We are confident that God is able to orchestrate everything to work toward something good and beautiful when we love Him and accept His invitation to live according to His plan. (Romans 8:26-28, The Voice translation)
This is the point I came to, when the aching emotions were too much and words failed me. Trauma, pain, disappointment, grief… these things mark us in ways deeper than words. Having studied psychology and (briefly) explored creative therapies (art, play, and narrative), I began to realize that we cannot access all of the parts of ourselves through cognitive and linguistic avenues alone. For a problem-solving lover of language who is trying to embrace deeper creativity, this was both terrifying and exciting.
So, I have no answers, only my work cut out for me. Scratch that. There’s my problem solving creeping in. I have a theme to pay attention to as my days unfold, some clarity in my perspective, and a deep appreciation for these parts of me that will not be silent but cry out to be known and find healing.
And yes, writing this on the heels (or should it be heals? as in all the heals…) of a post about victory and letting go of striving for perfection — the irony is not lost on me. I think they are actually inextricably linked, one leading to another. When the stiff grip of perfectionism is released, there is a wild and wonderful existence to navigate. I am glad I am not alone in this wilderness. Thank you!
Let the exploration begin. (image from https://stmed.net/)