Of Joy and Disappointment

Last weekend I have experienced the most intense emotions of disappointment and joy. I don’t know if my emotions were heightened because it was my last weekend here before the Holiday break, but it is exhausting jumping in between both extremes all weekend. I’ve actually felt disappointment throughout the last couple of weeks, and not just that weekend, but I found time to reflect and process my disappointment during the weekend. The main reflection I found was that living into my disappointment, owning up to my disappointment, is an act of self-love. Humans are going to feel disappointment throughout life; it is an only natural when our life is dictated by our emotional expectation on how things should be and how people should be. However, disappointment is more visible when people struggle with self-love. They are more prone to a mindset of creating expectations; therefor they are more prone to disappointment. There is no shame in having disappointment, it takes bravery and vulnerability to live into and accept that our expectations haven’t been met. I think the shame comes when we let our disappointment and our expectations get in the way of forming meaningful relationships with others. Unfortunately, life in not black and white and there is a lot of gray in deciphering the difference between the two. I even struggle with identifying the gray, but I believe the difference is when we are able to ask ourselves, “Do I still love others, and do I still love myself despite the disappointment I’m feeling?” The emotionally strong people would answer yes to that question, which is what it means to own up to our disappointment.

My disappointment was manifested in jealous, anger and extreme sadness. When I originally wrote about my disappointment it was a page long, thus I decided to cut it out for length purpose (as well as some other reasons.) My disappointment and my intense emotions were making it impossible to see the Joy. I couldn't find joy or meaning in what I was doing and it made me physically and emotionally tired. My disappointment was so intense and my life was so joyless that I even thought about quitting the program (I talked to others and that is a common thought YAVs have.) I want to lay these emotions on the table, not because I expect that to fix them, but because I believe there is emotional strength in owning our story. Being able to own our story is how we can connect to people and create space for joy and peace. I was able to experience joy at the Women’s Christmas Brunch and the Christmas Store Saturday.

During the brunch, I had the honor of listening to my friend Maddie as she gave her testimony. I will not write about the content of her testimony because as her friend I have to give her the space to own her story. If she wishes to tell her story that is her story to tell and not mine. I will write that her testimony focused around the imagery of a coat (a bright yellow coat in her case). Maddie said that she always imagined God like her yellow coat, bright, comfy, and offers her protection. However, there are times when we don’t always wear the coat correctly, we can button it incorrectly or wear the coat inside out. But the thing is, no matter how the coat is worn, the coat is always there. No matter what is going on in our life, God is always with us. Now a coat isn’t the first image that comes to mind when I think about God, but I still enjoyed listening to Maddie’s testimony. The part I enjoyed most about Maddie’s testimony is actually how she expressed herself and how she expressed God during her testimony.  I could see how God was working through Maddie in her life. You could see it in her soul that singed the emotions she was trying to convey Saturday. You could see it in her eyes that expressed a feeling that I have not felt in along time, Joy.

The most awe-inspiring thing about the brunch was that the Joy was not just coming from Maddie, it was coming from all participates at the brunch. Maddie was just the one to create space for Joy by laying her emotions on the table. I felt joy when I heard my friends sing. I felt love when I had brunch with Hannah, Kellyn, David, Brooke, Barnaby, Lindsey, and Will. I felt like they enjoyed my company and they felt a peace from advent that they wanted to share with not only me, but the other ladies as well. Oh and if you are wondering the guys were there because they helped serve brunch but David, Will, and Barnaby were temporally the R&B star Davida, Wilma and Barbie. During my friends’ singing I thought, “You know I was disappointed that our house was not able to go to The Grove to see the Christmas lights, but my Christmas experience for my YAV year is THIS. I might not have experiences similar to the other YAVs that I’m jealous of, but I am the only have who gets to experience THIS! By allowing myself to embrace the Joy, I was able to overcome my feelings of disappointment. The Joy I felt was much more meaningful than my disappointment of not having my expectation met.

That Joy only continued through the Christmas Store that afternoon. The Christmas Store is like a fundraiser; half of the proceeds go to DOOR. The whole idea is that instead of promoting toxic charity, we allow families in the neighborhood to come to the store and buy items at a discounted price. We (the church) will also provide transportation for families who do not have cars and do not like taking public transportation. I was stationed at gift-wrapping; I’d rather do that than add up gift prices. I’ve done a lot of gift-wrapping before, A LOT, from previous internships so wrapping gifts was nothing outside my comfort zone. However, I was terrified of my gift-wrapping speed, what if I was going too slowly and there was a line starting to form. Luckily not that many people opted to have their gifts wrapped so I was only overwhelmed by the amount of gifts that needed to be wrapped at the end of the day. Luckily, I also had help as well. Being placed at gift-wrapping was not only good because it was outside away from the chaos; it also gave me a chance to talk to the families (mainly kids) when people approached our station. I felt a sense of humility and joy in the work I was doing. I told my friend it was so ironic because three hours wrapping gifts was more joyful than three months of working at PATH.

While I may be disappointed in certain aspects of my YAV year, I am not going to silver line it with the amount of Joy I felt this weekend. At the same time, I am not going to belittle my Joy by romanticizing the disappointment I’ve been feeling. Instead, I am just going to accept my emotions for what they are and lay them on the table. By laying them on the table, I don't expect to have my emotions fixed, but I expect that God will say, “Ok, those are valid feelings.” I think God wants me to learn something from those emotions but the Lord knows I am not emotionally ready to listen. Yahweh created me, Adonai loves me, and God know me and knows that the best thing to say to me in this timing is “Ok, those are valid feelings.” Figuring out emotions such as Joy and disappointment can be sticky and messy, but God gives us the freedom to lay them down on the table without having to solve our emotions.