GOOD: God Over Our Disappointments

I am really hard to buy for…Tom can attest to that. At Christmas or birthdays, I make sure I spell it out very clearly: what I want, what color, what size, what price range and where to find it. I’ve even gone and set the item aside at the store for him to buy; or worse yet, I buy it and bring it home and then he wraps it and puts it under the tree. Of course, I’m supposed to act “surprised” when I open it! If he gets the wrong thing, or heaven forbid, goes out and gets something that wasn’t on the list, I’ve been known to take it back and get something I like better! That way, I don’t ever have to be disappointed.

 

After years of doing this dance, Tom has all but given up surprising me. He is a “giver” and is extremely generous. The sad thing is, I have quenched that wonderful part of him because I am a terrible receiver!

How messed up is that??

One time when the kids were very young, he arranged a little “romantic getaway” for just the two of us. He got the sitter and surprised me one Friday afternoon, whisking me away to this beautiful resort hotel. To top things off, he bought me a 1 hour massage! Unfortunately, the whole thing was a disaster…the hotel was perfect, the dinner was amazing, and the massage was heavenly…or would have been to anybody else BUT me! I couldn’t enjoy it because I was so worried about how much it all cost. I guess deep down, I didn’t feel like I deserved it. We argued about money and he was crushed and devastated. He was trying to lavish me with a gift and I couldn’t receive it, much less enjoy it!

My need to control my gifts, to get only what I think I deserve, has no doubt sabotaged and cheated me out of some amazing gifts over the years. Sadder yet, and most importantly, I have been giving Tom the message: "I don’t trust you, or I know what I need better than you do.”  If you were to ask him, he would probably be honest and say he’s given up on trying to surprise me…it’s just easier to do it my way.

Don’t get me wrong…we have a wonderful marriage! We are best friends, have lots of fun together, and are more in love than ever! But this issue of giving and receiving has been a sore spot. He knows me very well…after almost 30 years of marriage, he has adjusted himself to doing it my way, and this way we both avoid disappointment.

The truth is, I’m really tired of doing it my way! Deep down, I really do want to be surprised and I want him to lavish me with wonderful gifts that I don’t deserve. It’s exhausting to control, manipulate and orchestrate every “gift”!  

What if…I had no expectations?  I allowed myself to be surprised?  I didn’t worry about the cost?  I fully trusted the giver?  I embraced each gift with thanksgiving, even if it wasn’t what I really wanted?  I didn’t always keep the receipt, “just in case”?  I trusted and empowered my husband to give what he feels like giving?

Don’t we do this with God too?

We have no problem being thankful when we get something that we want. But we have a really hard time embracing what we didn’t ask for or what we feel we don’t deserve. We make our requests known to the Giver, but if he chooses to give us something different, something that wasn’t on the list, we have a hard time trusting that he is still GOOD. We live in a constant state of disappointment.

As if I haven’t already confessed enough, just wait… there’s more!

On our 25^th wedding anniversary, I was really hoping for an anniversary band…you know, the white gold or platinum band with diamonds. I had hinted at it for a couple of years. When we would walk past a jewelry store, I would point out what I liked and what I didn’t like. Of course, I was always careful to point out the cheaper bands, the more modest ones…

Then came the big day…December 31, 2008! I had the day off, Tom took off at lunch and we were going to spend the rest of the day together. We went out to lunch, and after we had ordered our food, he pulled out a bag from JARED’S…my heart skipped a beat!  As I pulled the little box out of the bag, all those feelings reared their ugly head…”I hope he picked out something I like, I hope he’s been paying attention to my hints, this better not be too expensive.”  Even as I am opening it and he is sitting across from me with misty eyes, I am having this battle in my head!

Then I opened the box and my heart literally sank to the floor…it wasn’t the anniversary band I was expecting, it was a beautiful set of diamond earrings! I was so disappointed, but I had to fake it! “Oh, honey! They’re beautiful…I love them…thank you so much!” He was quick to tell me that he had been saving up some money on the side and wanted to surprise me. Then he said, “I picked these out because I really liked them and thought they would look so pretty on you.” In the next breath, because he knows me so well, he told me that he had the receipt and a certificate that would allow us to exchange or upgrade later on, if we wanted to.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he got it all wrong…the diamonds were beautiful, but they were just delivered in the wrong package…I wanted a ring, not earrings!

I wrestled and thought about asking him if we could just go to Jared’s and exchange it right then for an anniversary band, but I refrained…I knew how much love, thought, planning and effort had gone in to this and how much it would crush him.

Then I felt guilty…how could I be feeling this way? What’s wrong with me? I bet any other girl out there would be “dying” over this beautiful gift!

But that guilt did little to change how I felt about the earrings.  For the next 4 years, I would wear them only on special occasions…the company Christmas party, a wedding or an occasional dress up event. I didn’t wear them to work and they weren’t in my repertoire of every day earrings. They were tucked away safely in my dresser drawer. When I would look at them, all I could think of was, “If only this was an anniversary band, I would be wearing it all the time!” Sometimes I would fantasize and place the earring across my finger and see what it would look like as a ring. In my mind, I was just waiting for enough time to pass, so that I could suggest to Tom that it might be time for that “upgrade”, then we could go to Jared’s and exchange it for the anniversary band.

But God…because He is so GOOD, had a better plan.

I can’t remember exactly when it was, but sometime in the past 9-10 months, my heart started to change. One day, I looked at those earrings and the thought came to me, “Those really are beautiful...I should wear them every day, just like I would wear a ring!” (I don’t think that thought came from me, by the way.)

So, I obeyed…I put them on and I wore them to work that day. There I was, at the hospital, cleaning up poop and vomit, wearing my diamond earrings! I wore them in the shower, I wore them to bed, I wore them walking, biking, swimming, I started wearing them all the time. Since that day, I have not taken them off and I haven’t worn any other earrings!

I have grown to REALLY love them!  But why didn’t I feel that way at first?  Why did it take me 4 years to get past my disappointment and to embrace the gift?

I got so hung up on my disappointment that I couldn't get past my dashed expectations to simply enjoy the gift and trust the heart of the giver. You see, Tom wasn’t ignoring my hints and not giving me what I wanted on purpose; He saved up his money, went shopping and got me what HE loved and thought was beautiful!

What have you been given lately, that wasn't what you were expecting? What circumstance has you bound by disappointment? A diagnoses? Rebellious children? Job loss? Death of a loved one? Death of a dream?

The TRUTH is, the circumstance or the "package" is not the real gift. That’s where we get all messed up! We ask for one thing, but when we get something completely different than we asked for, we begin to question God’s goodness. We blame God for the circumstance. We stop at the disappointment, stuff it in a drawer, and feel like we’ve been cheated.

The circumstance is just the "bag" or the "box" that is carrying the real gift.

The real gift is the GRACE God gives us to embrace our disappointment. The real gift is what he does with us and through us IN THE MIDST OF our disappointments. He won’t necessarily change our circumstances, but he CAN and WILL change our hearts!  Even in the midst of intense heartache, pain, and disappointment over a circumstance, we can wear his gift of grace, and that changes everything. When we do this, He gets the glory…we display His goodness!

Jesus said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. “ (2 Cor. 12:9)

This is why we can embrace and delight in our weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties, and yes, even in our disappointments…Because when we are weak, then He is strong.  (2 Cor. 12:10)

As I look in the mirror every day and see my earrings, I am reminded of God’s amazing grace.  They help keep me focused on Him and what he can do with my disappointments. If He can so drastically change my heart over some silly earrings, how much more does he want to change my heart as I walk through other disappointments in life?

What disappointments have you stuffed down deep in a dark drawer? What needs to come out of the drawer and into the light, so that God can display his glory through you?

I smile when someone stops me and says, “I love your earrings…they are so beautiful!” I get to say with confidence and without any reservation, “Thank you…my sweet husband gave them to me, and I really love them too!”

God is so GOOD…He is God Over Our Disappointments!!