{"id":74,"date":"2012-05-17T01:17:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-17T01:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/?p=74"},"modified":"2015-03-25T15:12:40","modified_gmt":"2015-03-25T15:12:40","slug":"disappointment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/?p=74","title":{"rendered":"Disappointment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m seeing disappointment in a new way.&nbsp; Recently, a set of circumstances presented themselves.&nbsp; I knew in my heart that God was in the midst of the situation and that He was working.&nbsp; And&nbsp;I began to dream about the incredible things He was going to do.&nbsp; I dreamed about lives being changed and new life rising from dead bones.&nbsp; I was ready.&nbsp; But things have not gone as I had hoped.&nbsp; Instead, disappointment has come. And if I am honest, my disappointment is that God has not worked in the way I had hoped or thought He would.&nbsp; He has not followed my suggested plan of what could or should happen. (Oh, is my pride showing?)&nbsp; So I am disappointed.&nbsp; My disappointment&nbsp;led to a place of discouragement and questioning.&nbsp; Did I not hear Him correctly?&nbsp; Was I being self-centered?&nbsp; Was I not seeing things clearly?&nbsp; How could I have been so wrong?<\/p>\n<p>But then He reminded me of something I have learned about myself while watching movies&#8230;..&nbsp; My favorite are epic adventures.&nbsp; Those have a hero who is&nbsp;thrust into a great adventure to fight some form of evil.&nbsp; At every turn there seems to be&nbsp;another obstacle to overcome, yet the hero continues.&nbsp; She may experience disappointment, loss,&nbsp;discouragement and the like, but she continues because&nbsp;she believes in the desired outcome.&nbsp; She stays focused on the prize; the victory; the big picture.&nbsp; I so want to be that hero.&nbsp; I long to be brave and have great adventures that have a&nbsp;lasting impact on the world.<\/p>\n<p>So now instead of questions and discouragement, I&#8217;m&nbsp;using my disappointment as motivation. No, I have not seen the desired outcome in the circumstances.&nbsp; No, God did not work the way I wanted Him to.&nbsp; No, I don&#8217;t know why.&nbsp; (Maybe because He knows better than me and sees the entire picture!)&nbsp; Yes, I still believe God will work things out in His own time.&nbsp; The difference for me, is that I won&#8217;t let disappointment defeat me or stop me from pursuing my dream.&nbsp; God has helped me turn my disappointment into passion; a passion I know He will use.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m seeing disappointment in a new way.&nbsp; Recently, a set of circumstances presented themselves.&nbsp; I knew in my heart that God was in the midst of the situation and that He was working.&nbsp; And&nbsp;I began to dream about the incredible &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/?p=74\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}