REevaluate: Hope for the Disheartened
Have you ever been sure of something, and then waited – and waited – and then – nothing happened?
You know the feeling, don’t you? It’s painful when you want to see something happen. And worse when you know it is meant to happen. And it doesn’t. At least not yet.
What then? Our countenance gives us away. Our hope is waylaid.
We become DISheartened.
I promised this year we were going to ReOrder our lives together. I shared that our
company’s assignment
is not just to “REstore order” to DISorganization, we have a broader calling – we are here to fight all “DIS” with “RE.”
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“Dis” is a prefix. It means “apart, away, asunder, and utterly.” It means to separate.
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“Re” is also a prefix. It means “back or again.” It means to put back.
And certainly, DISheartened is one of the worst of the DISes because it actually makes us heartsick.
If you can relate to being disheartened, I want to help you put back your heart that has been separated from hope. I know what it feels like to be DISheartened a time or two in my life, and I want to share with you today some secrets to take back your life. It begins with REevaluating.
When you are disheartened, it’s time to RE-evaluate. It’s time to appraise the situation and take back control. It’s time to assess what you’re valuing.
If you think about it, when we are waiting for something to happen, we’re living for the future. We’re thinking that “things will be better when” or “when this happens, I/it will be ok.”
We may even find ourselves on a hamster wheel of hope, running ever faster, just trying to speed up the present to hasten our hope into fruition.
In our longing to see something materialize, we can over-value the future and under-value the present. When we are constantly leaning into what should or could – or even must – happen, we lose sight of the now. We forget to be thankful. We stop counting our blessings. We get irritated and short-tempered (even with ourselves) believing that circumstances are hindering our progress.
In our futuristic agony, we can forget that the now is actually preparing us for the future.
In fact, if we don’t get the now right, we may actually be postponing or misdirecting the future!
So, if you are DISheartened, the first step is to REject the desire to wallow in the wait.
REfuse to be separated from the glorious moment of now, because the now is actually a part of your destiny. (It’s not just the insufferable period of time before your real life begins.) Don’t allow yourself to truncate the lessons and seasons of today from tomorrow. By preferring tomorrow over today, we are only robbing ourselves of what was intended for this time.
If we allow ourselves to stay DISheartened (which tragically many people do for an entire lifetime), we are sending back the gift of the present to the Giver.
The second step is to Trade the DIS for RE. It’s time to stop. To end the fussing and resisting. It’s time to stir up the stagnant wistful waters. (Of course, a good yell or cry may also be in order. But once you’ve got it out, then just.let.it.go).
Let your experience of being disheartened go. Stop giving it airtime. Stop resuscitating how hard this is.Â
REleasing the DIS in your life will not only free your mind & soul, it will also free your body of toxic chemicals. Lose the DIS. Exchange DISheartened for heartened.
When you drop the DIS, you gain your supple, hopeful, creative, limited edition heart and soul back for productive use. (When it was imprisoned by DIS it was stuck and useless.)
- Forgive if you need to and you’ll get out of jail.
- Heal because you must if you want to show up whole in that future you’ve been longing for.
The
last step is to
REvalue this very time in your life. This lonely circumstance. This confusing season. This quiet blackout where nothing makes sense. This challenging, stretching, overwhelming, confounding, painful, grieving, or ______________________ (you fill in the blank) period. By re-evaluating what is actually going on, you will begin to see new lessons being learned, new disciplines being offered, new pathways being forged. As you look closer, you may even – to your surprise – find common threads beginning to weave their way through your life. These patterns begin to tell a story of what you’ve always done, what you’re being prepared for, and what you were born for.
If you’ll be patient and
look for clues and blessings with your healed heart, you just may begin to enjoy this sleuthing more than you thought. You may find that suddenly, you don’t want the now to end because you want to squeeze every last drop of value out of this moment. Because before you know it, you’ll be thrust into your future. And without the now, you wouldn’t be ready.
Thanks for journeying with me, both in the now and into the future.
Yours in friendship,
Vicki Norris
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