Dealing with Disappointment

What is it about disappointment? Why does it sometimes roll off of you and other times blast a hole in your heart? And why is it that, even when we're intellectually determined to just let something go, the sting of disappointment still brings tears to your eyes?

Is it because you're being selfish? You can't have what you want and so your selfish heart rebels?

Or is it because you're being selfless? You place your trust and hope in another person, build them up, encourage them, and your heart just aches because you can't stand to see them hurting when all the preparations come to naught?

I don't know. I suppose there are, indeed, two sides to why disappointment can hurt so much.

How about when you've been repeatedly disappointed about the same thing for months on end, and each time you reply with a smile and reassure yourself that it'll be better next time? You keep your chin up time after time, and then one day, you just can't take it anymore. You can't pick yourself up again, and, try as you might, you can't fight the inner anguish that threatens to tear you apart.

What then? What was it that was the final straw? Why was it this time that the disappointment finally dragged you down?

I can't figure it out, honestly. Maybe I'm not supposed to.

But today I learned something about disappointment.

I was driving to work, after having been disappointed over a silly, trivial little thing. I was trying to fight the cold bitterness I was feeling and trying to hold back the tears that welled in my eyes. It was complete nonsense, of course, but it still hurt. A lot. It was almost ridiculous how much I was bothered by what had happened.

I was frustrated with myself for feeling this way; for being, despite my best efforts, a slave to the hormonal surges and emotions that were threatening to reduce me to an irrational, blubbering mess, smeared mascara and all.

And then, like a ray of sunshine, a thought came to me (Thanks be to God!) that almost instantly replaced my feelings of hurt and disappointment with those of proper guilt and penitence.

For you see, by grace alone, I began to think of my disappointment in a different way. Yes, I was hurting and hurt, but how much more acute is the disappointment that the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart feels on my behalf?

How many times have I entered the confessional, confessed my sins, promised to amend my life, promised to do better, not to sin again, to work harder at rooting out the tendencies that draw me away from Christ? And how many times have I come back the very next week, only to confess the same sins over again, having not really made a true effort at amending my life?

How pained is His Most Sacred Heart by this? More than words can describe, for our verbal description of His Passion and death upon the Cross is but a pale representation of how truly He suffered for and because of us. Every day His Sacrifice is renewed on the altar for me, for my salvation. And still, I go on disappointing Him.

But Our Lord doesn't give up on us. He keeps forgiving us; He continues to encourage us and gives us tools to aid us in our struggle to be more like Him.

My suffering is nothing compared to His, and instead of being disappointed, I should be focusing on not being disappointing. He has already suffered too much on my behalf.

This week was the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, and so I beg of Her to aid me, to bring me closer to Her Son, to help me to bear my minute sufferings, and to, in all things, seek and find Christ.