The Agony of Disappointment

There are two sides to disappointment.

Being disappointed by someone and being a disappointment to someone. They both can produce pain, agony or misery if you let them.

Being disappointed by someone

Who hasn’t had their expectations dashed? I would find it hard to believe any child growing up anywhere not having this happen at least once in their childhood by their parents. (Not necessarily that it was their parents fault but it appears to be their fault to the child at the time.) And it can happen by anyone at all, such as, church members, pastors, teachers, neighbors, friends, co-workers, spouse, children etc. (that is, these people can be perceived to have disappointed you or be perceived to have not met your expectations at any time).

So how do you get rid of the pain of being disappointed by someone?

The same way you get rid of any emotional pain—give it to God. Be very deliberate in prayer and give it to Him. Ask Him to heal your hurt and pain. Listen to what He says to you and in what He may tell you to do, such as forgiving the person involved for disappointing you.

There may be a place in you where God wants you to change your expectations toward the person involved. There is a chance that whatever you were expecting from them should have really come from God.

Being a disappointment to someone

Although you may not be as aware of this type of disappointment when it happens I can assure you that if you are a living breathing human being you have disappointed someone else at some time. Finding out that you have, if you care about that person at all, can be just as painful as being disappointed.

So how do you get rid of the pain of being a disappointment to someone?

The same way you get rid of the pain of being disappointed by someone else. You give it to God very deliberately. Ask God to heal the person involved and that they will be able to take their hurt to Him. Ask God to help that person change their expectations of you (if God says that is what is needed).

Ask God to heal your hurt and pain caused by the knowing that you disappointed someone you care about. God may have you apologize (even if you don’t think you did anything wrong and even if that’s true!). Listen to Him and pray what He says and do what He says.

The main thing is that you need to take these disappointments to God and be very deliberate and specific about them in prayer, not vague and general.

Has there been any time where you were disappointed and God helped you through it? Has there been any time where you found out you were a disappointment to someone else and God helped you through it? Please share in the comment section below!

Join the conversation. Share your ideas or questions in the comment form below.

Comments

The Agony of Disappointment — 3 Comments

Judy55 on August 20, 2014 at 1:38 pm said:

When I think of being disappointed, it is more along the lines of someone couldn’t make it to my social event or the last piece of dessert was taken before I got it. You need to be more clear in your terminology about what kind of disappointment you mean. I think the “agony of disappointment” you refer to is a deep wound (physical, emotional, financial, etc) The Bible would use the term “offense”. In Matthew chapter 18 if you are offended, you are supposed to confront the person that wronged you directly (taking more witnesses each time if they do not listen). If you did the offending, you should be asking the other party for forgiveness. The Bible doesn’t instruct us to piously say “I’ll pray for the other persons healing” or that we should be asking God to “change their expectations of you”. Taking personal responsibility for the hurts you cause others and forgiving those who hurt you is my takeaway and application of this passage. You did not use any scripture passages to back up your article of your opinions, while calling yourself a “Christian Women’s Life Coach helping women achieve closer intimacy with God”. I am disappointed with the obvious big picture points and scripture passages being omitted from your article. Perhaps you were focusing on something in your own life and not thinking about the broader application of your opinions. Maybe this would have been a better personal journal entry than a public blog post.

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- Cheryl Cope on August 20, 2014 at 3:42 pm said:
  
  I was referring to disappointment and not offense because we can be disappointed even deeply without offense being involved, but I can also see that they can be related and there may be some overlap there. I also understand that for offense there is a scriptural methodology we should use but my main point (since I was NOT referring to offense) was to be obedient to what the Holy Spirit, the author of the Bible, is telling you to do. He will not tell you to do something contrary to scripture so that is a test point of course. There isn’t much on the web that isn’t “public” so I’m not sure what you mean be by a personal journey entry and in fact I want my readers and potential clients to see that I am a real person with problems and faults just like every other human being. Thanks for commenting.
  
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三義 on June 3, 2015 at 2:25 am said:

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