I've experienced a disappointment this week, but DINO — Discouragement Is Not an Option. Why should you and I have Dino-like joy in spite of disappointment?
Disappointments create endurance. Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. (James 1:2)
Disappointments create patience.being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, (Colossians 1:11)
Disappointments create understanding of the Scriptures. For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope. (Romans 15:4)
Disappointments create empathy. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. (2 Cor. 1:3-4)
Disappointments create faith.Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. (Romans 12:11-12)
Disappointments create hope.Then you will know that I am the LORD; those who hope in me will not be disappointed.” (Isaiah 49:23b)
Disappointments create kinship with Christ.For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. (2 Cor. 1:5)
Disappointments create greater glory. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. (1 Peter 1:6-7)
George Mueller is one of my faith heroes. I have read several books about him and by him and continue to be inspired.
He wrote a small pamphlet called “Five Reasons Why Prayer Must be Answered.” George is known for receiving consistent and dramatic answers to prayer and as a result is a highly credible author on the subject. We can be confident pray-ers like George:
1) If we pray according to the will of God, we can be confident of answered prayer. “14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.” (1 John 5:14)
2) If we ask in the name of Jesus and for His sake, we can be confident for what we ask. “14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” (John 14:14)
3) If we believe He is able and willing to answer us, we can be assured that our prayers will be heard. “24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” (Mark 11:24)
4) If we avoid willful sin, we can be certain that the Lord will listen to our appeals. “18 If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened;” (Psalm 66:18)
5) If we have a history of answered prayer, we can be sure that our God is the same God today. “7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?”
Lest you think that George was a man who believed that wealth, good health, and salvation for all were his for the asking, you should know that:
George gave up his earthly wealth to serve the Lord. The Lord provided for him in every way, but he had few earthly possessions.
George experienced chronic abdominal problems, though he lived a long life. George saw God using his periodic poor health for his good and the good of others.
George wrote that God “did not see fit” to confirm to George that his father was a believer before he died. Yet George continued to believe that God’s will was to bring many to faith through George’s work and testimony.
George was a sinner. Although George did not choose to call sin something else and did not knowingly and stubbornly engage in sin, he still led an imperfect, fleshly life. Even so, the Lord chose to bless him with an abundance of answered prayer. In other words, George’s standard for living is not too difficult for us.
George spent a great deal of time ascertaining the will of God. Before beginning a bold project and then asking the Lord for His blessing, he often spent months making sure he wasn’t pursuing something for his own purposes.
George often waited a long time before seeing the answers to his prayers and even experiencing significant trials as he did so.
Finally, if we want to pray like George, we ought to record our prayers. George was diligent to note the date he began praying and the date of the fulfillment of his request. Honestly, this is a practice I once had, but have let go. I hope you will join me this week in praying like George. If you haven’t read his biography or his book, The Life of Trust, I know you will be blessed to do so.
I was in my third month of expecting my fourth child when I had a very disturbing dream. I dreamt that I miscarried in very vivid detail. I remember looking in the mirror the morning after, feeling satisfied that all was well. I had seen my doctor several weeks before and he said I was fine.
A short time later, however, that dream came true. How good of God to prepare me for one of the toughest times of my life using a dream. The OB on call reassured me that bleeding could be perfectly normal, but in my heart of hearts, I knew it wasn’t. Not for me. At the hospital, the ultrasound technician confirmed that my baby had stopped growing four weeks previously. There was nothing to do but go home and wait for the loss to be complete. I didn’t feel comfortable doing anything surgically. I had driven myself to the hospital and my husband had met me after we got someone to watch the kids. I felt completely alone when I got behind the wheel and turned on the radio. The lyrics playing on my favorite Christian radio station were, “When you feel like you’ve lost it all, Jesus will still be there.”
I was comforted and really thought that knowing for sure I had lost a baby would be the worst of it. It wasn’t. The next several weeks brought excruciating pain as I miscarried at home alone, a hormonal roller coaster that made PMS seem refreshing, and painful questions about God, relationships, and the future. Even while in the middle of the valley, I knew that I was there for a reason. I called my editor and asked to write a pamphlet for Lutheran Hour Ministries called “Losing a Baby Without Losing Hope.” My experience and the process of writing opened my heart to so many women I knew who had miscarried. I even called a friend who lost a baby years before and apologized for not being as sensitive as I should have been.
One of the recommendations I made in the pamphlet was to find a way to memorialize the baby. I knew I wanted a Christmas ornament, but I hadn’t yet chosen one when I spoke at a church on the subject of grief and loss. (As an aside, that speech happened to be scheduled the day after 9/11.) I was given a gift as a presenter–an angel ornament. I am comforted looking at that ornament every year as I decorate the tree, but I really look forward to seeing my angel in heaven one day.
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. (2 Corinthians 1:3-5)
Me in early 1986 at my highest non-pregnant weight
I had tried just about everything to lose weight from the time my high school nurse expressed shock that I weighed 128 pounds as a freshman. I already got lots of exercise being on the track team, but I added more working out to my schedule. I also went on a very low calorie diet, eating dry toast and having lettuce with lemon juice dressing. I quickly lost 13 pounds; I regained it even faster.
Every year of high school I tried to lose the weight and ended up heavier than before. Then I went to college and entered a world where eating had no built-in controls. I gained the Freshman 15 in a matter of months. I know I don’t look particularly heavy in that photo, but my extra 30 pounds had become a very weighty issue in my life. I jumped at the chance to take a weight loss class in college. The instructor was really nice and the weekly weigh-ins motivated me. I became a walking caloric encyclopedia. At meals, my friends would ask me for the calorie counts of foods and I knew them. I lost the Freshman 15, but I was very despondent about something our instructor had said. She told the class that people like us would never be able to eat hamburgers, pizza, or ice cream.
The following year I read the books, Thin Within and Diets Don’t Work. I became convinced that dieting had resulted in my weight gain and that I could be at my ideal weight without counting calories or restricting certain foods. Within a very short period of time, eating anything I wanted according to hunger and fullness enabled me to lose another 13 pounds. I was ecstatic, but not for long.
Although I never again returned to my freshman weight high, I also was unable to maintain my ideal weight. I couldn’t understand it. I knew that if I ate according to hunger and fullness, I didn’t have a weight problem. I just couldn’t seem to restrict myself to eating when I was hungry and stopping myself when I was satisfied. This was particularly upsetting to me as a future psychologist. I wondered how I would be able to help others make behavior changes when I couldn’t make them myself.
In graduate school, I began lifting weights and briefly tried dieting with my friends again, but to no avail. When I met my future husband, I became more committed to exercise and when we got married I weighed what I wanted to. The problem was that maintaining it was a constant battle. My weight bounced up and down like crazy. The only thing crazier were the thoughts bouncing around my head. I would get up in the morning, weigh myself, and decide that I would be “good” all day. By mid-morning, I had already blown it, so I would commit to eating like a rabbit at lunch. When I blew that, I would promise to do well at dinner. When that didn’t work, I would spend the evening ruminating about my fat and my lack of self-control.
One day I saw the article title, “Can God Make You Thin?” on a Woman’s Day Magazine in the grocery store checkout. I had to know the answer to that, so I bought the magazine and read the article. I was so excited to read that men and women were combining the Thin Within hunger/fullness philosophy with a reliance on God and were losing weight for good. I ordered materials and offered a class at church. At first I quickly lost weight. Then as the months wore on, I had the same disappointing results. I would eat when I wasn’t hungry or until I was stuffed.
As the class facilitator, I was quite embarrassed that I couldn’t succeed. I would dedicate myself to eating extra slowly and reading my Bible before and after eating. But to no avail. The weight was not only not coming off, it was coming back on. After confessing my sin of gluttony and worshiping the idol of food countless times, and after praying about the problem over and over, I don’t know what finally led me to quit. But that’s what I did. I stood in my kitchen, looked up at God, and said, “I can’t do this! I quit! If you want me to lose weight, you’re going to have to do it, because I’m done.”
For the life of me, I cannot recall how I ate after that. But I do not remember always sitting down, eating slowly, eliminating distractions, only eating when hungry or until satisfied. I really meant that I was done. Three months later I finally weighed myself to discover that I was at my ideal weight. I had no idea how I arrived at that comfortable number. I do suspect, however, that God removed my weight problem without giving me a clue how it was done so that when people ask, “How do you stay so thin?” I couldn’t give them the Melanie Plan. God took away that weighty issue and I remained at my ideal weight for five years when I had another crisis that is a story for another time.
in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:6)
When I got married and finished my Ph.D. in psychology, I wanted to start a family. My plan was to work part-time. I really thought it was the perfect plan. At least until I had a baby.
I couldn't fathom turning my baby over to someone else. I cried when I was on maternity leave and told my husband, "He doesn't want me to go back to work." My husband was scared of me from the pregnancy/childbirth ordeal, so he just said, "OK." I felt sick when I left my 8-week-old baby with a woman I barely knew. Everyone told me I would get over it.
It was nice to get back to the job I enjoyed and to see my colleagues. But it wasn't long before my perfect plan didn't seem so perfect. On my work days, I had time to bathe and feed my baby after I picked him up, but then it was time for him to go to sleep. I felt like I didn't even get to see him. I loved my off-days with him, but as I saw him change in new and exciting ways on those days, I wondered what I was missing on the days I worked.
Things were okay until we were finally off the waiting list to get our son into a daycare within a nursing home. There were only three other babies and several toddlers in the daycare. I liked that it was small and that he would be around older people. I didn't have to wait long for him to get sick, however. The daycare called and said my baby had a fever and I would have to come get him. I had to cancel appointments, pick up my son, and take him to the doctor. My pediatrician examined him, said he had an ear infection, and pronounced, "It's because he's in daycare."
I don't remember what I thought when my pediatrician said that. I was a brand-new mom and a brand-new psychologist. I was making a lot of adjustments. I probably thought that this was just part of being a working mom that I would have to adjust to. My baby got better and I took him back to daycare. I got another phone call. He had a fever, so I cancelled my appointments and took him back to the doctor. The doctor diagnosed another ear infection and said, "It's because he's in daycare."
This became a script for my life and my poor baby's life that we replayed every week or two. During one doctor's visit, my pediatrician warned that if he got another ear infection, we would have to consider tubes. Once again, the doctor said, "It's because he's in daycare." I went home that day and sat at the kitchen table with my head in my hands and cried. I needed a new plan.
My husband and my boss agreed that I could cut back to working two evenings a week. When my husband was out of town those nights, his sister-in-law agreed to take care of the baby. From the day that I decided to stay home, my son never had another ear infection. I, however, continued to have some pain. I faced the disdain of people who thought I was wasting my education staying home and the pain of loneliness and a confused identity. I went through several months of depression. I eventually invited several mom acquaintances from church to join me for a Bible study. I made friends and peace with who I was. My baby and I were both feeling better.
Today I marvel that God used a pediatrician who wasn't politically correct to call me home. My first baby will be 15 on Monday.
4 Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. (Titus 2:4-5)
I’m a Christian psychologist turned homeschooling mother of six. My life can be a little crazy, so I look for sanity-saving ideas to use and share. I hope you’ll read my About page to learn more.
