Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall

Sometimes my life travels a smooth road, one good day following another; and sometimes it gets really bumpy! This is one of those bumpy stretches! I’m not whining, but I think I have had enough of criticism, disappointment, and unreasonable people for one week. In the middle of the messes, I try not to forget that one of the major responsibilities of being a leader of any kind, including pastoring a church, is solving problems! (Or at least managing them!) Yes, my phone will ring today and there will be another challenge. With God’s strength, I’ll step up wisely, patiently, and with love!

When, as a little boy, I would complain about something I found unpleasant my Grandma used to quote a snippet from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Funny, isn’t it, how thoughts stored away for decades float back to the surface? She used to say:
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

Disappointment ranges across a wide spectrum of emotions - the awful to the merely unpleasant. Finding out that you have cancer is a kind of disappointment that is entirely different than discovering that the dinner you just ordered was poorly prepared! Disappointment, of any kind, turns some into angry people, making them ugly and defensive. It turns others into cynics who never see a good thing in anyone or anything! There is a better way to deal with it. Want to know? Read on. So what to do with life's disappointments? 1. We can insulate ourselves. I think I first read the following line in Peanuts, the cartoon strip - "Blessed is the man who expects nothing for he will never be disappointed!" True, but he won’t do much with his life, either!

There is a kind of safety in the philosophy of disengagement that teaches you to withdraw from life, to never take a risk by loving anyone, to never pray a prayer asking for the 'impossible.' If you do these things, you will save yourself from some disappointment, but is that really how you want to live- safely insulated from both joy and sorrow hiding away from real life?

2. We must learn humility that allows us to forgive! Forgiveness, in one sense, is releasing others from our demand that they act in ways we approve or like. This is especially difficult when we know we have done our best, given our utmost - and get kicked in the process. The Devil sees to it that we see it as a personal offense, that we perceive the actions of another as directed at us. Demons sit on our shoulder reminding us how noble we have been and how little others care! Can you see where that leads? It ain’t pretty! Even when we are wronged, we need to cultivate humility and let it go with forgiveness. It IS NOT trying to force ourselves to think: "Ah, forget it. What you did or did not do doesn't matter." That's not true. When a person fails us, breaks our heart, rejects us, or harms us -- it does matter! Our disappointment is real. If we try to convince ourselves that our emotions are not important or that they are not real, only deepens our internal conflict and anger.

Forgiveness is a choice to turn to God's Spirit and seek His help in subduing Self. We make the choice to surrender our pain to God. We invite Him to enter into our lives with wisdom, peace. And, forgiveness is complete when we accept that ultimately - here or in eternity - God will act justly! When we release that person who has disappointed us to God's court, we find freedom from the anger, hatred, and bitterness that often accompanies disappointment. Jesus, when teaching his followers about prayer, reminded us to pray like this: "Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors....But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." Matthew 6:12, 15

3. We learn acceptance of circumstances beyond our control.
Reinhold Neibuhr penned the Serenity Prayer.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can; and
wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him forever in the next.
Amen.

Such serenity requires that we lives as Jesus taught becoming like a little child. A child takes each day as it comes with little or no thought of tomorrow. What peace we find IF we take each day from God, deeply trusting His purposes and plans. When disappointment comes, one of the first casualties is often faith. Don’t let that happen to you. Instead, choose to trust. The bitterness of missed expectations is sweetened when we set our ultimate hope in the Lord! Here’s a word from the Word for the disappointed. Isaiah 40:30-31 reminds us that:
"Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint."

In this broken world, full of disappointment, marked by uncertainty about tomorrow, yes, with rainy days that come to all of us - we are people of hope. Ours is not a naive and silly way of thinking that will not see life as it is. It is not escapist. Ours is a hope that connects to our eternal life in God and trusts in His promise to make all things right.
And so we pray, ever more earnestly,
"May your Kingdom come, and Your will be done - on earth, as it is in Heaven." Amen.