Handling Disappointments

This morning Noah was hoping to be allowed onto our shed roof to retrieve one of our bunnies (long story), but when Josh gave Seth the opportunity instead, Noah didn't take it too well. Boy is that an understatement.  It took us probably a half hour of correctional efforts, talking with him, pointing out and expositing to him to 3 or 4 passages of Scripture, repeating the gospel to him, and praying with him before he was finally able to move on with the day without a scowl. To be honest, I'm still not entirely sure we were able to get his heart to agree with what I was telling him. That's between him and God at this point. I pray that it wasn't a waste.

At the time, I thought the whole thing was kind of silly and blown out of proportion.  Who cares about the shed roof thing? Why is that such a big deal? Get over it, right? But you know, it doesn't matter what the idol of the heart is; if you think that fill-in-the-blank is what it's going to take to make you happy, and that God doesn't matter, the mind can make a big deal out of anything. This afternoon, Josh and I were given the same test that Noah had faced this morning, only ours didn't include a bunny on the roof, but rather a date together without the kids.

We love dates. We look forward to our dates. They are an oasis in an otherwise long, hard, exhausting, sometimes ridiculous, desert of a week.  Ours was cancelled on us this afternoon when the babysitter texted to say that she had a headache and couldn't watch our kids.

Shed roof, date, same thing! I had to repeat to myself the same gospel that I had preached this morning to Noah. In my heart of hearts, I evidently believe the lie that I must have a date with my husband to be happy.  This is simply not true! God is the only source of true joy! Thankfully, God is so good and didn't let me go down that same dark road that Noah had traveled. I mercifully recognized the road sign before I turned.

So what will we do instead? Lord willing, we plan to take all the kids to the same restaurant we were planning to try tonight for the first time: Chuy's. We'll make it a family outing, and then we'll try out a new-to-us playground. Would we choose disappointments in life? No. Does God work through them anyway, making us more like Christ through them? Absolutely.


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