This Morning's Epiphany

This morning I woke up with the thought (apropos of nothing):

PEOPLE WILL DISAPPOINT YOU.

I have no idea what I had been dreaming about or what my sub-conscious mind had been puzzling over, but it did not strike me as a negative, foreboding thought at all, like something in a fortune cookie -- just a realization of truth, a nugget of wisdom I had not articulated before.

People will disappoint me, often without meaning to. Sometimes, even despite good intentions, I will disappoint others.Worst of all, and most painfully, I will disappoint myself.

Even some of the closest, most nearly perfect people in our lives will sometimes fall short, often in small ways not even worth mentioning. It's called being human, and it's universal.

I have been a tough customer throughout my life, a person with very high expectations of myself and others. I have been perplexed by human weaknesses, including my own. My expectations will remain just as high - I do not regret those - but I hope to be able to remember this epiphany when I experience disappointments and want to shield myself from them. Disappointments caused by human shortcomings are a natural part of life.

The acknowledgement that people will disappoint me has had a strangely liberating effect already in the short space of seven hours:

• I am free to love everyone, despite hurts.
• I can also feel worthy of their love, even though I'm not perfect. 
• I can love myself despite having disappointed myself over and over again.

I reserve the right to protect myself from future hurt, but I know that a certain amount of hurt or difficulty is inevitable and necessary for our growth and understanding.  As the poet Kahlil Gibran said, "Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding."

I can forgive and love people anyway, and expect the same forgiveness and love in return. It is my right as a human being, and my obligation as a follower of Jesus Christ.

Our Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are the only ones who will never disappoint us -- that's why we can safely place our full faith and trust in them.

People will disappoint us, often again and again, but it is our task/duty/challenge/commandment to find a way to forgive them, to love them despite their faults, shortcomings, hurts and limitations. We can also hope that they will love us despite ours.

If we truly believe in repentance and the power of the Atonement, in which our sinless Savior paid the price for the sins of all mankind (not just for our own sins), we  forgive and love one another anyway.

In junior high art class, I made a poster with fluffy white clouds on a blue, blue sky (indicative of my idealism) that said:

LOVE IS THE ANSWER.

WHAT WAS THE QUESTION?

That's how we can resolve difficult interpersonal relationships in our lives. We can love, which is our most natural inclination as children of a loving Heavenly Father.

*****

One more quote and a poem:

It is to the credit of human nature that…it loves more than it hates. – Nathaniel Hawthorne

THIS I KNOW

by C. Margaret Clarkson 

I do not know what next may come
Across my pilgrim way;
I do not know tomorrow's road,
Nor see beyond today.
But this I know --my SAVIOR knows
The path I cannot see;
And I can trust His wounded hand
To guide and care for me.

I do not know what may befall,
Of sunshine or of rain;
I do not know what may be mine,
Of pleasure and of pain;
But this I know -- my SAVIOR knows
And whatsoe'er it be
Still I can trust his love to give
What will be best for me.

I do not know what may await,
Or what the morrow brings;
But with the glad salute of faith,
I hail its opening wings;
For this I know -- that my LORD
Shall all my needs be met;
And I can trust the heart of Him,
Who has not failed me yet.