Dear Disappointment,

I’ve spent way too much time thinking about you.  But don’t flatter yourself.  We’re not becoming friends.  In fact, I’ve acknowledged you, unwelcomed, inside the kingdom walls of my heart.  I just needed a moment to reset, refocus, breathe. I guess I also needed to spend way too much time in the shower on a Wednesday morning.  Rest my thoughts.

Now I’m ready to take some action.

Here’s what I know about you:  You work from within to kick down little appointments.  You damper dares and infect healthy fear.  You friend frustration and fiend innocence about it all.  Your M.O—If you can frustrate small fulfillments of goals and longings, you can make room for your older, stronger relative—discouragement.  But discouragement is harder to go unnoticed, like you.

Your goal is to impede me from moving forward with mine.

You see, my 3 words for 2020 are…

small…

…..daring…

………… worthy.

It’s a tremendous trio.  It’s diamond strength I’m learning to weild.

Just in the first few weeks of 2020, I have seen what you do to daring. I’m on to you.  And small—that’s my word, and you can’t claim it.  Thanks to MLK Jr., I’m committed to figuring out how to do small in great ways.  Wouldn’t you just love to dis-appoint all that, in your small ways?

But then there’s worthy—I have intrinsic value and this is my heart space, not yours.  I have authority to appoint.  All you can do is kick down edifications and expectations that others have built up.  You exist to make us fret the small stuff; you are right there when the cold, full glass of milk spills, and you lie in wait to see what we’ll do about it.

Well, I’m here to dis-appoint you.  Because I can.

In the little kingdom of my heart, I appoint hope to reign, which means despair is not welcome in my kingdom.  I appoint encouragement as ministry of defense, and offense.  Discouragement will meet defeat… outside my kingdom walls.

Thanks to you, I’m taking back my appointment power.

Thanks to you, I’m reassessing what I long for, and what I hope is fulfilled in my schedule of daily life.

Thanks to you, I’m reminded that even the greatest of greats in history faced you.  But the ones I aspire to be like looked past their unfilled dreams to fulfill their greater destiny.

You and I are both small.  But I have the power to appoint, and you don’t.

You don’t belong here.  I can acknowledge when you show up, but I don’t have to let you stay.  I don’t have to let you decide who gets to make my heart home.

I don’t have to let your disses make me feel smaller or less worthy, or even less daring.  You may have damper power, but I have a fire that goes before me.