Accepting God’s Will While Feeling Disappointed, by Jeannie Ewing

By Jeannie Ewing, Catholic Exchange, July 7, 2021

Jeannie Ewing is a Catholic spirituality writer who writes about the moving through grief, the value of redemptive suffering, and how to wait for God’s timing fruitfully. …

I will bless the LORD at all times;
his praise shall be always in my mouth.
My soul will glory in the LORD;
let the poor hear and be glad.
Magnify the LORD with me;
and let us exalt his name together.

I sought the LORD, and he answered me,
delivered me from all my fears.
Look to him and be radiant,
and your faces may not blush for shame.

This poor one cried out and the LORD heard,
and from all his distress he saved him.
The angel of the LORD encamps
around those who fear him, and he saves them.

Taste and see that the LORD is good;
blessed is the stalwart one who takes refuge in him.
Fear the LORD, you his holy ones;
nothing is lacking to those who fear him.

The rich grow poor and go hungry,
but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.

Psalms 34: 2-11

A Reflection on Psalm 34

In the spectrum of emotions, disappointment is listed under the umbrella of sadness, alongside sadness and shame. Prolonged disappointment can transition to feeling dismayed or displeased. These synonyms reveal much to the troubled heart. In religious circles where sunny spirituality is upheld on a golden pedestal, disappointment is hushed, invalidated, ignored. Yet nearly every Christian will experience disappointment to some degree in his or her lifetime.

Not long ago, my oldest daughter wanted to express her feelings of disappointment when a close relative decided against a much-anticipated visit that had been planned for months. She canceled it literally a week before her flight was to arrive in Indiana. To say Felicity was disappointed would undervalue her emotions; she was devastated, crushed. At her request, we worked on a way to share her feelings honestly and openly. …

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