Joy in Disappointment (praying, day 22)

Day 22
Pray that your husband will practice forgiveness in your relationship and with others. Pray that
he will recognize any roots of bitterness, and yield any resentment and unforgiving attitudes to
the Lord. (Eph. 4:32; Heb. 12:15)

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In my ladies' Sunday School class we are working thru this book:

Secrets of a Happy Heart by Debi Pryde. Today's lesson was on "Overcoming Disappointment with Joy". Without spilling my entire life story on the internet, I will just say that in the past, I have tended to deal with my own disappointments by becoming bitter, angry, and even depressed. Unfortunately, I've wasted a lot of time dwelling on what might have been and what should have been and what wasn't. "Letting go" doesn't come easy to me.

In my thinking, when God allows something to be taken away from you, I felt like He ought to replace it. I have an almost ridiculous sense of "fair" that demands that everything be in perfect equality (to my way of understanding, of course). What I failed to realize until recently is that sometimes the void of loss and disappointment can only be filled by God Himself.

A quote from my workbook is "When you have nothing left but God, then for the first time you become aware that GOD IS ENOUGH." (quote by Maude Royden).

Are we satisfied in Him? Is He enough?? Will things, circumstances, or even a person truly ever satisfy us and never let us down? Only God is able to never change, never leave us, never break a promise, and never let us down.

There can be joy in disappointment when we cast our care on God (I Peter 5:7 & Psalm 55:22); it means to give our disappointment completely over to Him. Every part. We shouldn't hold on to any piece of it because it will embed itself into our heart and take root. If not removed, time only causes roots to grow deeper and spread themselves into other areas, becoming a tangled mass of life-sucking tendrils of hate, anger, and guilt. If we ask God to work on our hearts and to remove old roots, it may take effort, struggle, and painful extraction often with a sharp Tool (The Word of God: sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing even to dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints & marrow...Hebrews 4:12). However, God is a tender Gardener; if we have a repentant heart and a willingness to turn from our bitterness - or just try to avoid the root of bitterness in the first place, He can truly turn our sorrow into joy. We just have to be willing to let Him.