08/05/2025
❤️such wisdom, such grace
Some of us, when confronted with the invitation to name our disappointment with God, will balk—isn’t that inappropriate, irreverent, just *wrong*? If I’m disappointed, we reason, something went wrong with my expectations, not with who God is. Yes, perhaps, and... NOT naming the truth of our experience doesn’t do anyone any good. We stay in a place of unreality when we pretend to ourselves, others, and/or God that we’re not disappointed. That we aren’t asking the questions underneath it all: “God, where were you? If this happened, who even are you? Are you really good? Wise? You disappeared on me when I needed you—are you even there at all?” When we instead say aloud the platitudes we’ve been given about trust and obedience… We miss out on the reality of a Love big enough to hold it all. We protect ourselves (and often others! We don’t want *our* experience to shake anyone else’s faith!) from awareness of our deep disappointment. Sometimes for years we act like all is well, like our foundations haven’t gotten crumbly, like we’re not afraid God is far different from our imaginings.
But what if, instead, we took the experience of disappointment (with all its accompanying emotions, doubts, fears, etc.) and stayed with it? Named it with the One it all centers around? What if we let it open up a conversation, rather than telling ourselves a story that explains it away? What would you say to God about your own disappointment? Is there grief there, around the ways you thought the journey would go versus the ways it has? Is there frustration? Anxiety? Confusion? Name whatever is there. (Yes, God knows already. Yes, it’s important to name anyway.) Ask your real questions. Speak your fears and wonderings. You are not the first. The stories of saints through the ages speak of moments of disappointment and confusion and despair. Even in Scripture we see these very human experiences—of God seeming absent, uncaring, unlike we thought. Some places just tell the story; some (like Job or the Psalms) give language to our lostness in the face of so much disappointment.
So let yourself be honest about your disappointments. Don’t act like they don’t matter. God knows they do.
