Navigating the Valley of Disappointment

May 11, 2017

When I arrived on campus two days ago, the door to the faculty lounge was closed. On it a sign was posted, "Interview in progress. Do not disturb." 

A punch to the gut.

I retreated to my shared office and closed the door. Most days I am gregarious, eager to connect with colleagues. But not today. Not the day of closed doors. I had planned to join others for lunch, but instead I sit alone at my desk. I am not safe today. I cannot predict what I might say. I cannot produce a genuine smile. My love for these colleagues is no less than before. I am not angry. I am bereft.

I should be on the other side of that closed door being interviewed, but instead I am here, burying this dream in the valley of disappointment.

Sorrow is a strange companion.

Just last week, when I learned the news that silenced hope, a great heaviness fell over me that I could not shake for a whole day and then some.

But then, just as suddenly, the heaviness flew away and I was flooded with a joy I could not explain. I remembered then that sorrow and joy are not opposites. They walk hand in hand. Grief opens up the deepest parts of us, but the raw ache that takes our breath away also expands our capacity for joy.

Disappointment strips us, laying bare our vulnerable selves. As the chimera of what might have been fades, the solid reality of what is comes into view.

I am loved.

God is working out all things for good.

The door my Lord opens, no one can shut.

Jesus has good works planned for me to do.

I am called and equipped.

I am not alone.

Why do I tell you this? Why hang my innermost thoughts in plain view for all to see and read and know? Because you, too, have walked the valley of disappointment, and you will walk it again. This way we can walk it together.

Ruth Haley Barton says "what is most personal is, indeed, most universal" (Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, 223). The more honestly I share my own journey, the more we both stand to gain. 

I shared my disappointment with my students last week. They grieved with me. And one wrote me the next morning, thanking me for my words. He, too, is in the valley of disappointment, but my story gave him the strength to carry on.

We do not grieve as those who have no hope.

But we do grieve, friends.

We do grieve.

Just yesterday I read these words, penned by Paul Pastor, but spoken as God's word to every one of us: "Give me your heart today, and again tomorrow—your whole heart, beating and full" (The Listening Day, 10).

Whether my heart is aching with hurt or swelling with hope, I am invited—you are invited—to offer it up in prayer. And here I offer it to you, too.

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January 14, 2018: Today I discovered this unpublished draft in my blog archives. I wrote it 8 months ago, but apparently thought better of posting it right away (or was I going to take a picture first of the sign on the door?). It still brings tears to my eyes to re-live this major disappointment, but that sorrow lives alongside the deep joy I have found in the door that God opened for me just weeks after that disappointment. Our heavenly Father does not promise that all our dreams will come true, but he promises to be with us all the way. What more could we possibly need?