Dealing with Disappointment

A week after surgery I am feeling much better, though still a little sore.  Thanks for all the messages of support, encouragement and prayer.  It is so good to have had this done without all the problems of previous years rearing their ugly heads! A good friend came to visit me yesterday and brought with him a copy of my first book Braving the Storm.  I could see from his copy that he had several portions highlighted in yellow - I am not sure if that is a good sign or not! We chatted for a while and then he began to question me about some of the things I had written during the early years of my long battle with serious illness and chronic pain. I found it quite moving to see some of the things that I had written back then and to be reminded of them myself!

One of the aspects of the section called 'Things that Hinder' was about disappointment.  It is a subject that I have been thinking about again recently because I am preparing to speak at a seminar called 'Dealing with Disappointment' at Elim Bible Week in the UK in April. I have read the story of the death of the wife of Pastor Wes Richards from cancer in June 2002 at the age of 52 after being prayed for by her huge Charismatic/Pentecostal church during at least one 40 day period of prayer and fasting, and of course, by Wes and his 3 children. You can imagine the sorrow and disappointment that they all faced and yet his book Hope and a Future is full of reality, faith and hope - an unusual mix! I was chastened and humbled by reading it and noticing the absence of a deep debate on why his loss occurred.

I am grateful for my friend's visit and the reminder he brought me of my own need to embrace mystery and allow God to be God in my circumstances without Him having to explain himself and His ways to me! "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts". (Isaiah 55:8-9)