It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

by Lysa TerKeurst

Humans are very attached to outcomes. We say we trust God but behind the scenes we work our fingers to the bone and our emotions into a tangled fray trying to control our outcomes. We praise God when our normal looks like what we thought it would. We question God when it doesn’t. And walk away from Him when we have a sinking suspicion that God is the one who set fire to the hope that was holding us together.

I’ve never seen ashes able to control where the winds of change take them.

Though we can’t predict or control or demand the outcome of our circumstances, we can know with great certainty we will be okay. Better than okay. Better than normal. We will be victorious because Jesus is victorious (1 Corinthians 15:57). And victorious people were never meant to settle for normal.

But what if the victory is only in part how things turn out? What if a bigger part of being victorious is how well we live today? This hour. This minute.

Sometimes to get your life back, you have to face the death of what you thought your life would look like.

The disappointment that is exhausting and frustrating you? It holds the potential for so much good. But we’ll only see it as good if we trust the heart of the Giver.

But I also think there’s a dangerous aspect to staying quiet and pretending we don’t get exhausted by our disappointments. In the quiet, unexpressed, unwrestled-through disappointments, Satan is handcrafting his most damning weapons against us and those we love. It’s his subtle seduction to get us alone with our thoughts so he can slip in whispers that will develop our disappointments into destructive choices. If the enemy can isolate

If the enemy can isolate us, he can influence us.

But to strip out the cause of our disappointment would also rob us of the glorious hope of where we are headed.

Remember, this is a love story. And we will never appreciate or even desire the hope of our True Love if lesser loves don’t disappoint. The piercing angst of disappointment in everything on this side of eternity creates a discontent with this world and pushes us to long for God Himself—and for the place where we will finally walk in the garden with Him again. Where we will finally have peace and security and eyes that no longer leak tears . . . and hearts that are no longer broken.

My feelings see rotten situations as absolutely unnecessary hurt that stinks. My soul sees it as fertilizer for a better future. Both these perspectives are real. And they yank me in different directions with never-ending wrestling. To wrestle well means acknowledging my feelings but moving forward, letting my faith lead the way.

Our feelings and faith will nod in agreement. We will return to a purity of emotion where we can experience the best of our hearts working in tandem with the absolutes of truth. We won’t need to wrestle well between our feelings and our faith in the new Eden, because there will be no competing narrative about God’s nature. There will be no corruption of God’s nurture. There will be no contrary notions about why God allows things to happen. And there will be no gnawing fear that things might not turn out okay.

We won’t need to wrestle well, because we will be well. Whole. Complete. Assured. Secure. Certain. Victorious. And brought full circle in our understanding of truth.

If I want His promises, I have to trust His process.

What if disappointment is really the exact appointment your soul needs to radically encounter God?

Feeling the pain is the first step toward healing the pain. The longer we avoid the feeling, the more we delay our healing. We can numb it, ignore it, or pretend it doesn’t exist, but all those options lead to an eventual breakdown, not a breakthrough.

Few things affect me more than being disappointed by those people who love me. But being disappointed by the fact that God doesn’t seem to be showing up during times of my greatest need? That wrecks my soul. It’s not that I expect God to fix everything about my situation. But I do expect Him to do something.

God, this really doesn’t add up. How do I see all this senseless suffering and still sing about You being a good, good Father? It adds so much fuel to the fire of skeptics. And quite honestly makes me cry. I don’t want to question You. But it’s hard when I’m so utterly disappointed. It feels like You’re not showing up here.

I had wondered how God could let me be in so much pain. And I had cried, because I thought God somehow didn’t care about my pain. But in the end, it was the pain that God used to save my life.

“God longs to help me.”

To trust God is to trust His timing. To trust God is to trust His way. God loves me too much to answer my prayers at any other time than the right time and in any other way than the right way.

And maybe that’s why we don’t have all the answers about our situations. God isn’t trying to be distant or mysterious or hard to understand. He’s being merciful. We don’t have to know the plan to trust there is a plan. We don’t have to feel good to trust there is good coming. We don’t have to see evidence of changes to trust that it won’t always be this hard.

I turn from the tree of knowledge and fix my gaze on the tree of life. I let my soul be cradled by God’s divine assurance. His Son. Who completely understands. And who will walk me through every step of this if I keep my focus on Him.