Sometimes, you may be hoping very much for something.
A job. A promotion. A scholarship. For the person you love to love you back. For your offer to be accepted for that house that has everything you’ve ever wanted. To get accepted to the college of your dreams.
Sometimes, it doesn’t work out.
The job goes to another candidate. The object of your affection tells you that it’s not you, it’s them, and of course they think you are great, but they only want to be friends. The sellers of the perfect house sell to someone else (maybe because the other buyer had more money. What kind of reason is that?). The college tells you that they had so many qualified candidates this year, and it was a painful process for them, but they regret to inform you that you will not be offered a spot there, though they wish you much success in your future endeavors.
Dashed dreams.
I’ve been thinking about this lately, how the “no’s” can be excruciating. How they crush us.
I’m wondering what it would be like to change the way I think about some of these “no’s.” I’m a person of faith (theoretically, anyway), someone who believes that all things work together for good, that there is a good plan and Planner, that all of us are held and loved and cherished, that all of our stories ultimately end up as they are supposed to, that grace and justice triumph in the end. What if I believed that every one of the “no’s” that broke my heart was really a divine gift? Because I am small and the world is big, and while I think I know what’s best for me and for most everyone else, too, I really very much do not. What if I could lean back into the river that is my life and embrace every “no” that comes my way as a sign post, a treasure, a gently closed door? What if I could say even start saying thank you for the “no’s”?
Because apparently this thing that I longed for, that I was so sure was right for me? Maybe I was wrong about that. (As I’ve said here before, I find out fairly regularly that I am wrong about things that I was completely confident about. Like the possibility of very many of our elected officials getting into office. You probably feel the same way, regardless of your political party preference.) What would it be like to make the closed doors, the “no’s” a cause for celebration? I could say to myself, “Well. That clearly wasn’t meant to be. So there must be something better out there. I wonder what it is?”
So the adventure continues (Isn’t that the beauty of it? No matter how devastating the “no’s” are, we got to wake up to another day today, and who knows what lies ahead? Who knows what new paths the “no’s” might have cleared for us?).
So many “no’s” along the way: “no’s” that hold me and envelop me (all of us) in a beautiful, painful grace.
