Hope Deferred

This has been a tough season for me.  I guess it all started when I realized that I'd experienced a whole host of disappointments.  Let downs at work, in my friendships, with my music, in romantic relationships and in my finances.  As a matter of fact, if I compared the disappointments to the things I'd wanted that I actually got, the former outweighed the latter.  That sucks!

So what did I do?  I turned to God, of course.  "Um, Sir, this doesn't feel good.  I thought that if I prayed and hoped, my odds would increase."  Then, I got sad...and frustrated...and confused.

Recently someone told me that when your soul (emotions, thoughts, etc.) is a mess sometimes that mess can spill over into your spirit and affect your relationship w/ God.  That's where things were headed w/ me.  I was sad and didn't understand why things weren't working out the way I prayed for and hoped they would.  But I knew that "hope deferred makes the heart sick" and my heart was definitely sick.  I cried a lot.  Tears were always just under the surface waiting to spill out.

What's the point of hope, I asked, if you have no control over the outcome anyway?

What does hope even mean?

I was tempted to swear to my own hurt that from now on I'd keep my expectations low so that when things didn't work out in the future, I wouldn't fall as far.

But what kind of life is that?  If hope has an impact on our soul (emotions, thoughts, attitudes, etc.), then it must be a good thing.  If there are scriptures that instruct us to put our hope in God, there must be a purpose for it.  Hope makes way for joy and a joyless life is not a life I want to live.

Now, I still don't have all of the answers.  But I've gotten to the point where I've accepted where I am and processed my feelings.  My constant prayer is that God infuses me with hope.  I can't conjure it up and I don't have the energy to fake it.  What I can do is speak life and positive things (instead of speaking low expectations) and I can try to find the joy in every situation.