This week, I’d have to say, that I handled things a bit better than I did the last time I was in this situation. You see, I just came to realize that this was a part of my test (details later ). I received good and bad news all within a matter of a few days.
To my surprise, the good news was better than I thought it was going to be. Praise God, right?! In the midst of disappointment, I had the opportunity to do a self-reflection, if you will, and think about the last time I had something like this happen to me. I remember being down and upset for like 3 weeks.
My goodness, right?! But in those 3 weeks, I acted like a BRAT, I learned something, and that was I didn’t ever want to go through that again.
So fast forward to this week. I did have to go through it again, but this time was different. This time, I asked God to help me not act the same way when faced with disappointment. I told Him, straight up, that I don’t want to respond to it the same way I did last time, and really CHOSE not to.
Because we shared the news with our kids, we had to break the bad news to them too. Yay! Something I love doing, giving my kids bad news. I told my youngest daughter Eryn who’s 6, and middle daughter, Jada at the same time. Eryn was like well, I guess it’s time to move on. Jada, on the other hand, didn’t take it too well.
She cried…I mean hard, squeaky voice, why me, cry. That broke my heart. It made me want to curl up in a ball with her and cry too. But then I remembered, that my last response to this, was me doing just that. When I saw how my youngest daughter responded, I was like Wow!! Look at how she took that. It was like, she had no reason to be disappointed.
It was like she knew God has something else for us. I watched how long Jada was in the funk, and watching her made me realize I must have gotten on my husband’s nerves when I was acting like that. Here I am, acting like a 9-year-old little girl, mind you, that little girl is getting on my nerves acting the way she was. What a wake-up call!!
Then, I had to break the news to my oldest daughter. My mini-me. My 13-year-old, Kaylah. She immediately got angry and rushed out of the car. We didn’t talk about it until the next day when I was taking her to school. She told me she almost cried.
I told her so did I. Then I went on to explain to her that disappointments come, but that means that something better is coming along. God doesn’t remove something from our lives without replacing it with His best. What we think might be for us isn’t always God’s best. I told her we were settling for what we thought was for us.
When I compared what we were getting to something else I saw, I immediately told myself I like the other one more. I also told her to think about how nice what we wanted would have been. Then imagine, that if this is nice and what you would settle for, what do you think God has in store for us?!
Remember He can do exceedingly, abundantly, above all we can ask, think, or imagine. In my heart I knew I was settling because what we were trying to get, wasn’t our first choice. It was our second. But wanting something so bad you are willing to settle because of impatience, is not a good thing.
Crazy thing is, after I told her that, I felt like I just ministered to myself. Trying to make sure I was encouraging for my daughter caused me to be encouraging to me. Praise God for growth!! I saw the old D’ondra take a seat, while the more mature one came forward. What have you done to help cope with disappointments? Leave me a comment down below. I would love to connect with you!
