How to Handle Life's Disappointments?

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
-Langston Hughes, Harlem.

Harold S. Kushner, in his fascinating book, "Overcoming Life's Disappointments" comments on the poem asking, "In these lines, the poet wonders what happens to dreams that do not come true. I wonder what happens to the dreamer. How do people cope with the realization that important dimensions of their lives will not turn out as they hoped they would ..." 
Heavy Stuff.
Especially if you are in touch with reality.



The first thing to grapple with is that you will be disappointed. For most of us, we have already experienced our share. But, there was a time, perhaps when young(er) and naive, you happened to dance around the painful events of life unscathed. Then, it got you. Setbacks, losses, unexpected events.
You were wounded on the inside. Never to be the same again. And NO, your life will not be as it once was. I am a victim of this mentality -waiting for things to return to "normal" - they do not. As a man of deep nostalgia, I stood at this doorstep for years, only to have that door unanswered. So I get it, trust me.

As time passed on, you learned that the question was not, "How do I go through life avoiding disappointment?" Rather, "How will I respond to those disappointments?" Today I was reading in the Psalms something that I know was a message for me:

"Light arises in the darkness for the upright" (112:4)

When your heart has broken and you feel lost a lot of the time you feel like you are groping for something. Whether it is the past, restoration or a specific answer, you grope. You yearn like a blind man for answers around you. In our Psalm, we read something that shifts our mind to a different perspective. "Light arises in the darkness!" Your answer will come. Your restoration is on its way. God is not done with you. Your journey, although confusing, painful and down right exhausting can produce something of value.