Video Transcript: Pastoral Issues: Disappointment
In this particular lecture, what we're going to try to take a look at is disappointment for the senior citizen. And disappointment comes in many forms. And often, when we're looking from the outside as a senior minister, we don't really understand that this disappointment is, is there, it probably is down in the person's heart. And I'm not going to talk about it unless they have a very secure relationship with the person to whom they talk, because disappointment at times can be so difficult to try to express to try to understand how do we deal with it? And what is what does God really want of our lives, we're going to take a look at some of that in the next half an hour. So disappointment is defined as a feeling of dissatisfaction that results when your expectations are not realized. And I have come to realize that disappointment is a common feeling for seniors. Over the years as I have been a pastor, as I have interacted with so many people who are senior citizens. I realized that actually disappointment is quite common. For example, Dorothy, Dorothy was, was one of my parishioners, and you would say that, you know, she was one of the more jovial kind of people she was a wonderful woman to hang out with. And then, and then at one point, she told me about her son, her son that she had been praying for, for 25 years he had grown up, had done the, you know, hey, she and her husband had raised him well, he had done well in school, except when he got to be about 17, then he started being rebellious, and to, to reject everything that she and her husband stood for. And now it's 25 years later, and her son still was a person who, who made sure that she knew he didn't want anything to do with who or what she was. She prayed for him every day, for 25 years. And it still wasn't happening. He wasn't coming back, he wasn't turning around from his life of sin. To disappointed there's Raymond and his son and Raymond came to see me one time, his son had called him up was in in jail and in a city, some distance away is like 1500 2000 miles I mean it he hadn't spoken with his son two years and all sudden he gets this phone call. And his son is asking for money for bail. And before he would send it he he came to see me and he said, pastor, when do I give up? When do I give up? And the pain and the sorrow that was there. The disappointment was rather strong. It arises as disappointment arises in many ways. We'll be looking at a few of those ways during the course of this presentation so as the the illustration here as how do you feel about being Oh, well, yeah, how do I feel about being old? And many people when you're talking with them privately, when you find out what's going on inside, they would say I'm kind of disappointed. There was so much more that I was hoping to have from life but now I'm disappointed. And as they look at this illustration too they'd say, What in the world is that rainbow doing there? Because as one gets older, the disappointment looks far more like threatening rain clouds and depressing rain thunderstorm type of clouds, or a tornado like clouds. The rainbow No, that's not what Getting old is about and It's been said before, growing old is not for the faint of heart. Ministry to seniors involves being able to listen to some bitter
reflections on life. There's always going to be something that an individual looks back on. And says, Well, if only I had done this, if only I had chosen that, If only, if only if only or I could have, I could have I could have I would have if I had known, if I had known, I would have done this, if I had known I would do that if only if only if only. And that's where the source of bitterness arises. Now, granted, granted, not all of a person's conversation is going to be like that. But literally, no one goes through life without being disappointed and sometimes deeply disappointed at something that's what life is like in a broken world. We live in a broken world, there is no question about it. And when we live in a broken world, everything is not always sweet and happy and good. Sometimes it's deeply, deeply disappointing. And as one gets older, as one becomes a senior citizen as one realizes that the days of our lives are threescore years and 10. Like I'm just about 69, I'm just about touching that when one looks back, there's going to be some bitter reflections on life. And as a senior minister, we need to be able to listen to some of those reflections and help people to work through them. For example, as the illustration looks like it here's the big building with all of this, this skeletal structure that you can see. But what lies behind that, you know, it's a choose this as a way to illustrate that, that people can work on a skeleton plan but what actually becomes of it? What actually it can we live within the skeleton plan. Far too many of us have had a skeleton plan only to have it just end with the plan they're dashed hopes and dreams. But we had hoped for what we had planned for what we what we had dreamed about things being and those empty hopes those empty dreams end in the feeling we call disappointment. It wasn't what we wanted. That wasn't what we expected. You'll hear people describing how, as they were going through life, they wanted to have a child the child never came. And they're so disappointed. They'll describe that as they were going through life they wanted to have just a small business of their own. And it never happened it was disappointing so all these dashed hopes and dreams of what things could have been. And it's just not there. And disappointment is very real in the lives of these senior citizens. When we're young, we have this fire of youth and we're striving to to get on our lie on our way in life to make our plans to pursue our plan. We want to go and and for example, I know I know man who wanted to be in construction and it just wasn't working for him and finally when he was was at his lowest and as he was wondering what to do and he was so disappointed with how life had been treating him. He went to his brother who was also in construction who was doing rather well. And he said to his brother How about that, you you, if you buy me a truck, I'll make my living driving, driving this truck. And if you could help me in that way, and he had to humble himself a long ways to be able to say that to his brother, his brother was very happy to help him out that way. And it ended up over the next 15 years from the time when he was 50. till he's about 65, the brother drove truck, and actually he built a real trucking business around that
start that his brother had given him. But his his life was such that he had all of this disappointment about what, what could have been, why couldn't he have done this? himself? Keeps questioning? Where did I go wrong? When did I go wrong? And the dashed dreams seems like they're just broken, and our life is less because those dreams. Those dreams are just gone. Over the years, I've observed some examples. One of them. I knew there's this Facebook friend of mine, who had been married to a high school friend of mine for about 48 years. And as they arrived at retirement, she she looked at her husband and she said, you know, you were a wonderful teacher. You were a wonderful school administrator. And you were a great father and dad to our kids. But you know, as a husband, you just don't measure up, she divorced him after 48 years, coming into retirement, and suddenly he's left without a spouse, somebody he has shared his life with and suddenly she just gone and and what's more, she said, You're not the husband that I wanted. And what he observed is that she got married almost immediately. The ink was barely dry on the divorce decree and she was married again except this time to a guy with lots of money and now she wears this big rock on her finger and they're traveling to this this home that home the next home they have homes in like five different places. And now she's always talking about how life is so good. And one time they were visiting a an arboretum and at the arboretum there was this pond and in the pond there were there were several pairs of swans and and one pair that she took a picture of had their necks intertwined in the heart kind of thing they sometimes see with swans and she she posted that photo and said this is so inspiring to me. Swans mate for life. And she said when they when they're young they mate and they stay that way until they died and and that is just so inspirational. I was thinking oh my goodness Do you hear what you're saying? It was your your ex husband say that this was so inspirational his disappointment is so deep and it's because suddenly his life partner it told him you're not the guy I want to live the last few years of my life with bankruptcy also causing disappointment for seniors. I have a I know man whose whose life was focused around running a small implement business and then he had small farm equipment, not all the great big things. We see that and this was more for the the hobby farm and the truck farms that are in the area where he lived in and he had really built up built his business over the years and as he was coming toward being age about 60 or so looking forward to being able to stay home and take care of his wife because she had some very severe health problems and was bedridden. And he had been able to support her by, by doing his work and, and getting help to come in and so on. And he gets to about age 60. And he discovers one day when his bankers come to see him that he's bankrupt, because there's an employee that embezzled nearly $2 million from the business. And now it was bankrupt. So he went from having potential for a comfortable retirement to one not so much In fact, he had really nothing. Nothing with which to care for his wife, nothing, which was which to
retire on. Talk about disappointment. There's loneliness. I've heard, I've heard a woman who, whose husband died when when he was 70, they had been going to work until they were 70. And then they were going to retire. And they were going to do this. And they were going to do that. And so we were going to and then she listed off several things in retirement and now her disappointment is deep. There's a loss of a spouse, and that's so disappointing. Our friends sometimes don't don't have room for us in their lives anymore, we lose our mobility. And we have to use now a wheelchair, that we can't get around very well. We lose our sight. We lose our hearing, we lose our vigor. All of these are sources of loneliness, because we can't do the things that we used to do the things that we like to do. And there's great disappointment in that. And how many more things are there that one loses and then feels loneliness that arises because of that fact. As people age, they lose their friends in their place of worship, this one dies, that one moved to Florida another to Arizona, still another went to live with the kids in upstate New York. And so then the church simply is not the same anymore. seems to have lost something and, and as senior ministers one of the things we need to be aware of is that for many seniors, they have the feeling and it's probably just on their part, not so much on the young people's part and the young people seem so young, they say, and I have no way of getting to know them. And it's not so much the fault of either side. It's that nobody has helped to build that bridge. As senior ministers that's something that we can work on that something we can do. So that the church is the communion of all the saints that is not just the communion of this group, little group or that little group, but that all the saints find themselves together. That all the saints are the church though. The Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, that's that's what's so disappointing then to a senior. And they don't know. They don't know why. And they're disappointed. Perhaps the most difficult disappointment is the disappointment we experience with God. Philip Yancey wrote a very poignant book back 30 years ago called disappointment with God and it was subtitled three questions no one asks aloud. And it's a it's a meditation of sorts on this disappointment that we all have. And it's and this disappointment becomes especially poignant as we get older and as we as we find ourselves in the years of our our senior citizen status. And it's it's just not easy to deal with disappointment with God. So he asked these questions and God is so hungry for a relationship with us, why does he seem so distant? And the senior citizen realizes that sometimes so deeply. If God if God really wants to have a relationship with like I said, Why does it seem like he's not here? Why does it seem like he's forgotten? Why does it seem like we don't have the friendship of God anymore? And these questions, bear upon senior citizens they've got this disappointment already and now and now on top of it, there's a disappointment they have with who God is and what God is doing and and say if God cares for us, why do bad things happen? The grow older and one of their children
develops cancer and dies very young. If God cares for me, why did this happen? Why did this bad thing happen? One of the, one of the women in one of my churches develop cancer when her youngest was in about fifth grade, so about 10-11 years old. And she lived for about 9-10 months and then she died. And I, I looked at her her mother who buried her daughter and, and you could see written all over all over her face and over her mind in her soul was if God cares about why did why did this happen? And if God's promises are true, why they feel so far away from my personal experience? Why is it seem like it doesn't it doesn't seem like God is there for me. Philip Yancey deals with these and if you ever have a chance to pick up that book and read it, you'll you'll discover a wonderful, wonderful thing that he does is he he asks all these questions, and he helps us to discern how it is that this disappointment arises. And, and and he doesn't sugarcoat it. He doesn't say now you we really shouldn't be disappointed. No he says these are very, very real questions. We just don't dare to express them. Because what would people think if they heard us saying that? And so what he does then is he tries to not provide an answer, but instead to change our perspective. Because he talks about, he doesn't use this word, but it's the pathos of God. God joins us in our suffering and in our disappointment. And that's what we need to understand it isn't. God's against us. It's God with us. Emmanuel, God joins us in our suffering, God joins us in our disappointment, and he is there with us so that our disappointment with God means that we're experiencing we still experienced this disappointment, but we're now experiencing it with the companionship of Emmanuel. God with us, not against us, God with us. And that changes our perspective. We're still disappointed. We still have this awful feeling that things aren't right. Because they're not. Not in this broken world. Things aren't right. There's always going to be disappointment. But God comes into our broken world and He loves us so much that he becomes this human being just like us. And we can call Jesus Emmanuel, God with us and now we can know that in our suffering God is there with us there's a wonderful song that African American spiritual there is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole. There's a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul. Sometimes I feel discouraged and think my works in vain but then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again. There's a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole there's a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul. Do you ever feel discouraged? Your father is your friend. And if you lack for knowledge, he'll not refuse to lend. Yeah, there's a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole, there's a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul. There's so many hurts and disappointments for senior citizens. Our task as senior ministers is to bring that Balm of Gilead to give healing in their time deep need. May that be your calling and may that be your desire? May that be what you sense God leading you to do so that there is this balm of Gilead that will that will make a wounded whole.