Disappointment

Take delight in the LORD,

and he will give you the desires of your heart.

(Psalm 37:4)

The other day a friend asked me if I ever get disappointed. I said yes and threw out a spiritually sound answer. And then the next day happened. The day when a really big disappointment whacked me upside the head and sent my heart sinking. I’d been asked to speak at a really big event — one of the biggest of my life — and then things fell apart.

Invited, thrilled, excited, honored, included turned into uninvited, bummed, sad, disillusioned, left out. And while I still had solid spiritual perspectives to hold on to, my flesh just needed a minute to say, “Stink!”

Because sometimes things do stink. But right when I wanted say “Stink” a few more times, I spotted a bowl that’s been sitting on my dining room table for weeks now. Brooke found some caterpillars awhile back, put them in a bowl, and has been holding them hostage ever since. I mean she’s been lovingly admiring them underneath a layer of cellophane.

Wouldn’t you know that those caterpillars formed cocoons inside that unlikely environment. And then today, as I was muttering, “Stink!” I glanced across that bowl and sucked the word back down my throat.

The cocoons were empty.

Expecting glorious butterflies, I had to chuckle when I got right over the bowl and closely examined the product of my little girl’s hopes for new life.

Moths.

Yet another thing in my day that wasn’t quite right.

Or was it?

When Brooke spotted the moths, she was beyond thrilled. Grabbing my hand, she led me outside, ripped off the plastic barrier, and watched the beauty of tiny wings beating … beating … beating … and finally fluttering into flight.

Hmmmm.

As I watched Brooke’s sheer delight, I realized she couldn’t have cared less if they were moths or butterflies. Creatures that once knew only the dirt of the earth had just been given the gift of flight. Reaching, soaring up, up, and away.

And with that realization, this simple creature pulled up the corners of her mouth into a smile.

Disappointment only stings as long as I let it.