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Over the weekend, I participated in the District VI cross country meet in Forest Hills, where I had the chance to go to the state meet in Hershey, PA. My brothers came to watch me run for the first time all season, so I was super excited to have them there and have them support me, along with my awesome parents. I ran and ran my 3.1 mile race, and when I was done, I found out I had come up short. How short? 1 PERSON SHORT. I was ONE PERSON away from going to the state meet. If I would’ve busted my butt a little more and passed one more person, I could’ve had the opportunity to go to the state meet and compete. But you know what happened? I came up short.

All I really did was shed a few (okay, maybe more than a few) tears, pour some gatorade over my head, and move on. Of course there was disappointment, but in life, there’s going to be some serious disappointment, a lot more than missing the state meet by one person.

But the thing about disappointment is that it doesn’t last long if you don’t make it last long. If you constantly let it hang over your head like a black cloud, it’s going to be harder and harder to forget about it. However, if you allow yourself to let the rain fall for a while and then let the clouds part away like clouds do, the disappointment you are feeling will simply fade away. I could tell you it will be easy, but that would be a big fat lie. In fact, my cross country coach, Miss R, even told me that I’m going to let that one person keep running through my head all night. And, she was correct (but when is Miss R ever not correct, am I right?). On the other hand, I got over it, and I’m still standing.

I ended up coming home and looking at all my newspaper clippings that kept saying, “Jenna Bartlett won…” and “Bartlett wins again…”. I realized I had accomplished so much over the course of the season and being 8-0 was HUGE. Enough about me; what we need to understand is that sometimes, in life, there’s going to be mishaps. You will drop the glass plate on the floor and it will shatter. But hey, we’re human, and that’s life. Life beats you up; life tosses you around; life throws you in front of a vacuum cleaner and sucks the life right out of you sometimes. But guess what? It’s temporary. Life shoving you around is only a temporary experience, and soon, you will see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m not sure when or how, but that’s God’s problem to figure out. I can’t see the future, and neither can you. But God knows what’s up and he’s got you covered.

So, when something happens, and you feel disappointed over something you thought was going to happen and it didn’t, remember, be kind to yourself. Allow yourself to feel disappointed and sad for the time being. But, don’t let the cloud hang around too long and cause another thunderstorm. Let yourself be exposed to the sunshine above—because it never leaves the sky.

Isaiah 55:8-9 — “‘My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,’ says the Lord. ‘And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts are higher than you thoughts…’”